Voting Vs. Non-Voting Behavior (2000 & 2008 US Elections)

There is a remarkable increase in the turnout during 2008 Obama-McCain U.S. presidential election compared to that of 2000 Al Gore-Bush.

This paper aims to root this increase exploiting the statistics extracted from official American websites and implement voting behavior theory for Obama’s election while employing non-voting behavior theory for 2000 Bush presidential election.

For the starters, it seems to be of use to remind Ferdinand Tunis’ famous theory about two different types of societies: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, which later will come to be used in non-voting behavior theory on Bush election. Tunis’ theory suggests a transition for individuals dwelling in a traditional society, where relationships are highly strong and people are integrated and sympathetic, to a more alienated, remote, individualistic, and modern one. Putnam puts it in a fragile way when he contends “turnout is down in almost all established democracies.” He, then, maintains “compared to parents’ generation, we are less likely to know our neighbors, to invite friends home, to go on picnics or hang out in bars, to belong to trade unions and professional associations or simply to spend time chatting with acquaintances.” (Cited in: McKay, Houghton & Wroe, 2002: 41)Bearing this issue in mind, the American society, especially after 1980’s which coincides with the generation of people after “New Deal”, when there used to be a special bond among individuals, has shifted into being a more disconnected, sophisticated and therefore been caught in “a corresponding increase in solitary individualism.” (McKay, Houghton & Wroe, 2002: 41). So, this trend protected itself, with all its ups and downs,, up to 2000, when G.W.Bush’s presidential campaign won, and even onward. Consequently, America observed a low turnout contributed by some 105 million voters (whereas this number topped over to 131 million votes during Obama’s election).

There is also a retrospective voting approach to the Bush low turnout, which is the “Project of New American Century” put forward in the late 1990’s on the threshold of the coming 21^st century. G,W,Bush, being a member of this project, gave an insight of his program which approved the idea of “Iron Fist”, and moreover it shed light on Bush’s way which was carrying solid war intensions. Americans, weighing this, must have disapproved being under his reign and thus the disagreement evolved in the low number of participation on the voters’ side in 2000 presidential election.

When it comes to 2008 American election, the logical move has to be to use a voting behavior theory, for it was the biggest Democratic victory in a quite long, in 20 years second to G.H.W. Bush, that Democrats won the popular vote for the House of Representatives by 53% over 43% and expanded their majority to 257 over 178.

The statistics claims that about 60% of eligible voters participated in this election. “The fact that Obama won in 2008 with nearly the same 7.7-percentage-point margin in that gave George H.W.Bush his victory in 1988 has been cited by some scholars as further evidence that Republican era has been superseded by a Democratic era.” ( Barone M., 2009: 4)

The real reason behind Obama’s victory was the Democratic Party itself when it genuinely introduces its candidates, Obama- an African American and Clinton- a woman both for the first time in American history. This innovation brought a massive change in the number of turnout because besides the existing affiliation among Democratic Party approvers, there came a new wave of women, minorities, and youth attracted to Democrats. “The Democratic Party was divided along demographic lines. Clinton consistently carried older voters, downscale voters, Latino voters, and older Jewish voters, plus the Appalachian territory stretching from western Pennsylvania southwest through the mountains and west to Arkansas and Oklahoma. Obama consistently won younger voters, upscale voters, and African-American voters. The result was an odd-looking political map, with Clinton carrying most of the northeast and southwest quadrants of the country and Obama winning most of the southeast and northwest quadrants.”

Finally, it has to be mentioned that although sociopolitical non-voting incentive were supposed to maintain through 2008 presidential elections, just like it did in 2000, Democratic Party’s smart gesture moving its most appropriate pawns forward overshadowed the existing inclination and brought about a new mobilization resulted in the almost 6 percent increase in turnout (26 million increase in eligible voters).

References:

1. McKay D., Houghton D. & Wroe A., (2002), Controversies in American Politics and Society, US: Blackwell Publishing.

2. Michael Barone, (2009), Obama's America, US: National Journal, Saturday, July 11.