background information
Compared to the 1940s, the voter turnout for the elections have dropped heavily, and have been decreasing for fifty years. However, compared to 2012, in this year’s election 1.4 million more Americans voted, but it still doesn’t outweigh how many voted back in 2008. In this year’s primary election, the voter turnout remained the same for states where majority voted for Trump, and these were very competitive states, while in states who voted for Clinton, the turnout dropped by 2.3%. Turnout seemed to be higher in places where the presidential candidates visited to advertise their campaign, and make efforts to get people out to vote. If a state has a many electoral votes, and there was a lot of competition between the two parties during the past elections, there’s a likely possibility for it to be a swing state. In the swing states, 63.5% of eligible voters casted their ballots, however, all of the other states, the turnout was 56.3%.
Candidates usually spend their money and time in these swing states, instead of the other states. There are many reasons why people do not go out to vote. In the United States Census report from 2013, it stated that 8.6% of people were out of town, 14% couldn’t vote because they had an illness/disability, 12.7% wasn’t in favor of either candidate or the campaigns, and 19% of people just had too busy of a schedule to go and vote. People have said that it is hard for them to get time off of work to go and vote on November 8th because it is on a Tuesday. Lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders, have been working to make changes to this system, and have called to make Election Day a federal holiday. Another issue is that many people do not feel qualified to vote as they don’t believe that they know or are engaged enough about politics. There are also 5.85 million citizens of the United States who are not allowed to vote because they hold a felony conviction.
Candidates usually spend their money and time in these swing states, instead of the other states. There are many reasons why people do not go out to vote. In the United States Census report from 2013, it stated that 8.6% of people were out of town, 14% couldn’t vote because they had an illness/disability, 12.7% wasn’t in favor of either candidate or the campaigns, and 19% of people just had too busy of a schedule to go and vote. People have said that it is hard for them to get time off of work to go and vote on November 8th because it is on a Tuesday. Lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders, have been working to make changes to this system, and have called to make Election Day a federal holiday. Another issue is that many people do not feel qualified to vote as they don’t believe that they know or are engaged enough about politics. There are also 5.85 million citizens of the United States who are not allowed to vote because they hold a felony conviction.