U.S. PARTIES ANDVOTERS ACROSS ERAS

Theda Skocpol

Lecture for USW 31

Monday, September 29, 2014

This Week: U.S. Electoral Democracy

• Today: U.S. voter rights, patterns of participation, and theories/findings about why people participate in politics – or don’t.

• Wednesday: recent partisan shifts; recent changes in modes of voter mobilization and fundraising, especially in the 2008, 2010, and 2012 elections.

Who has the right to vote?

Can legal rights to vote contract?

-- Felon disenfranchisement has grown in the United States since the mid-1970s – disproportionately removing poor and minority people, especially men, from the electorate. About half of those not allowed to vote have fully completed their prison and parole sentences. Their numbers accumulate over time.

-- Around 1% of voting-age population was disenfranchised in 1974; by 2010 it was more than 2.5%, one in forty adults.

-- One in 13 African Americans are disenfranchised. In Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, more than one in five blacks are disenfranchised.

-- Democratic Party candidates are disproportionately affected by such disenfranchisement, often enough to change the outcome.

-- Public opinion favors restoring rights to those who have completed sentences. But party politicians do not have the same interests as the general public.Sources: Uggen, Shannon, and Manza, “State-Level Estimates of Felon Disenfranchisement… 2010,” The Sentencing Project, 2012; and Uggen, “What Americans Believe About Voting Rights for Criminals,” Scholars Strategy Network brief, April 2012.

Felon Disenfranchisement

Voter ID Laws

• Less than one in every 15 million efforts to vote involve “in-person” voter fraud. (Fraud is more likely to involve absentee ballots and their handing.)

• After 2000 – and especially after 2008 and 2010 – almost all U.S. states considered and many passed bills to require voters to show picture IDs at the polls – often restricted to a few kinds of IDs issued by government – drivers’ licenses, passports, gun permits, military identifications, but usually not student IDs.

• Public opinion is becoming more skeptical, but many middle class people think IDs are no big deal.

• Millions of poor, black, Latino, very elderly, and young voters do

not have the requisite IDs. People may have to pay fees and go to offices in inconvenient locations with limited hours.

• Study in Indiana: 81% of whites had IDs, but only 55.2% of blacks.

Sources: Hunter, “How the New Voter ID Laws Impede Disadvantaged Citizens,” SSN brief, September 2012; and Weiser and Norden, Voting Law Changes in 2012, Brennan Center for Justice.

Limiting Days and Hours and Manipulating Locations for Voting

Republican officials or legislatures in key states like Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin have strategically eliminated voting days – such as Sundays before elections – when minority voters often go to the polls in groups.

Polling places can be strategically opened in some areas and closed in others such as urban poor neighborhoods or locations close to universities.

Many states situate polling places in churches, which researchers have found tends to boost conservative turnout.

Eliminating early or late hours on Election Day or for early voting makes it difficult for workers in low-wage jobs or parents of young children to get to the polls.

Rights to vote are not always exercised…

Richard Freeman, “What, Me Vote?”

Among counties worldwide that hold elections, the USA until recently ranked 137th out of 138 in turnout.

Democracies average 73% turnout, but the USA hovered around 50% in presidential contests after the 1960s, until turnout rose to c.60% in 2008 and 2012.

Turnout is always lower in “off year” U.S. Congressional elections – currently around 40%.

U.S. voter participation among citizens has become MORE UNEQUAL due to greater declines among groups with low incomes and less education.

REFORMS INTENDED TO BOOST TURNOUT

“Convenience voting” reforms make it easier for already-registered voters to cast ballots. They do not equalize participation overall, according to political scientist Elizabeth Rigby, because the already registered tend to be more privileged.

ELECTION DAY VOTER REGISTRATION does the most to enlarge and equalize voter participation.

Freeman points to Puerto Rico to suggest that ELECTION DAY HOLIDAYS (especially on Tuesday) boost and equalize turnout.

Forms of Political Participation by High and Low-income Americans

52%

4%

6%

25%

3%

13%

1%

29%

86%

17%

56%

50%

7%

38%

6%

73%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Voting

Campaign work

Campaign contributions

Contacting officials

Protest

Community activity

Involved with local board

Involved in political organization

Percent who reported type of participation

$75,000 and over

Under $15,000

Source: Verba et al. Civic Participation Study.

Income of Voters, Nonvoters, and Noncitizens in the United States

$0

$5,000

$10,000

$15,000

$20,000

$25,000

$30,000

$35,000

$40,000

$45,000

$50,000

All Americans Voters Nonvoters Noncitizens

Med

ian

inco

me

in 1

998

Source: Howard Rosenthal, "Politics, Public Policy, and Inequality," in Social Inequality , edited by Kathryn M. Neckerman, p. 880.

Why do people fail to participate, or participate politically at very unequal rates – including voting, the basic act of citizenship and arguably the simplest thing to do?

WHY PEOPLE MAY NOT PARTICIPATE

• CANNOT PARTICIPATE: – legal or de facto barriers; – lack resources of money, time, or skill

• DON’T WANT TO: not interested; believe they cannot make a

difference

• NOBODY ASKS: isolated from social networks of recruitment; leaders

are not contacting and mobilizing them

DIFFERENCES IN MOBILIZATION HELP EXPLAIN CONTRASTS OVER TIME AND ACROSS COUNTRIES

• 19th century U.S. parties were rooted in locally based networks with patronage-oriented elites who cooperated with unions, ethnic associations and fire companies to turn out voters.

• European democracies have had strong labor parties or Catholic parties with community roots, much better than modern U.S. parties at contacting and turning out voters who are less-educated, lower-income, and less interested.

• Modern U.S. forms of participation and mobilization cater to rich and well-educated individuals who are already knowledgeable and interested.

• Bias reinforced by modern media – especially cable TV and the Internet.

An interesting exception:

Voting and political participation by the elderly in recent decades.

ELDERLY VOTING HAS INCREASED OVER TIME

Source: Andrea Louise Campbell, HOW POLICIES MAKE CITIZENS, p. 29.

Source: Andrea Louis Campbell, HOW POLICIES MAKE CITIZENS, p. 29.

LESS INEQUALITY IN TURNOUT AMONG ELDERLY

Source: Andrea Louise Campbell, HOW POLICIES MAKE CITIZENS, p. 46.

Why has U.S. elder participation increased and equalized?

According to Campbell, How Policies Make Citizens, after the mid-1960s, Social Security and Medicare benefits expanded and became more generous, with political effects:

Less privileged seniors gained time, health, resources.

Elderly became more interested in government actions.

Stakes rose for voting and contacting officials.

As elder participation increased, parties competed to attract their votes.

Apart from the elderly, until the early to mid 2000s, several forces combined to dampen participation, especially by the less privileged.

• From the 1970s, U.S. political parties shifted from direct voter mobilization toward raising funds to push impersonal messages.

• Candidates must individually develop organizations with pollsters, media consultants, and networks of fund-raisers.

• Early flows of money are critical, especially for presidential and Senate campaigns. Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court allows wealthy and corporations to give without limits in secret.

• Advocacy groups influence politics by raising money or arousing highly motivated activists. Both “political action committees” and issue-oriented interest groups have proliferated – leading the more privileged to be contacted constantly, while the less privilege go uncontacted.

CHANGES IN PARTIES AND ELITE STRATEGIES

DAMPENED POST 1970s PARTICIPATION BY NON-ELDERLY

A study by Alan Gerber and Donald Green (American Political Science Review, September 2000) explores HOW voters are mobilized:

• Recent national trend data suggest that parties and campaigns are contacting voters at about the same rates over time -- but impersonal contacts by mail or phone often displace personal, face-to-face contacts.

• In a “field experiment,” the researchers teamed up with the League of Women Voters in New Haven, to arrange experimentally controlled contacts with voters via three mailings, phone calls, and face-to-face canvassing.

• Key question: Which mode of contact would effectively boost voter turnout -- controlling for past voting, education, and other standard variables?

GERBER AND GREEN’S FINDINGS

• Telephone calls from professional canvassers have no effect on turnout. Three mailings in the two weeks before the election boost turnout about 2%. Face-to-face contact boosts turnout by about 10-13%.

• “This experiment provides important new clues in the ongoing mystery of why turnout has declined even as the average age and education of the population has risen. A certain segment of the electorate tends not to vote unless encouraged to do so through face-to-face contact. As voter mobilization grows more impersonal, fewer people receive this kind of encouragement…. The question is whether the long-term decay of civic and political organizations has reached a point that our society no longer has the infrastructure to conduct face-to-face canvassing on a large scale.”

SOME LARGE ASSOCIATIONS AND MOVEMENTS STILL MOBILIZE PEOPLE INTO POLITICS

• Christian right groups, based in evangelical church networks: Christian Coalition, National Right to Life Committee, and others

• Environmental movement: including groups like the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society with state or local chapters

• AARP, with over 35 million members who receive mailings, and often congregate in local settings and talk politics

• National Rifle Association: huge budget and network of clubs

• Teachers’ unions: teachers are everywhere!

• Labor unions (since the 1990s)

• Tea Party in 2010 and beyond

CHURCHES AND UNIONS ARE THE GROUPS MOST LIKELY

TO DRAW LESS PRIVILEGED AMERICANS INTO POLITICS

• Churches involve Americans relatively equally across class lines; and Americans are a church-going people. Evangelical Protestant churches are growing, and they actively connect people to conservative politics.

• Labor unions have a powerful effect on levels of voter turnout both cross-nationally and across the U.S. states. Unions directly mobilize workers. And they also affect the ideological messages of the parties in ways that cause left parties to appeal more directly to the concerns of lower and middle-class citizens.

(Source: Radcliff and Davis, Amer. J. of Political Science, January 2000)

• U.S. labor unions become much more politically active and effective in electoral mobilization in the mid-1990s

• But they continue to lose membership overall: long-term decline since they enrolled more than 30% of the labor force in the mid-1950s; fell to the low teens in recent years (and less than 6% of the private labor force).

• Unions have an even harder time organizing during economic downturns and Republican administrations.

Bureau of Labor Statistics

• To understand political participation, we need to understand differences in individual resources and motivations -- and also see which organizations and elites are committed to asking people to get involved.

• Political parties matter, but so do social movements and voluntary associations through which people can be directly or indirectly contacted or receive messages about politics.

• Government policies can stimulate participation – or discourage it.

IN SUM

IMPLICATIONS FOR ELECTION REFORMS

• Getting big money out of politics may not be enough (even if it is possible). The goal must be to get more people involved through social contacts and pressures.

• Removing institutional obstacles to individual participation is not enough -- but same-day registration reforms do encourage the less privileged to vote.

•Building inclusive interpersonal networks and locally rooted campaigns may draw in the less motivated.

•Next lecture: recent developments – innovations of the Obama campaign and the eruption of the Tea Party.