Question

Voting and Elections- lists several factors that decrease voter turnout. In your essay answer, identify/explain at least four (4) of those factors that you think are most impactful and then choose one (1) that, in your opinion, could be easiest to change in order to increase voter turnout in future elections and explain how/why.

Answer 1

Voter turnout is the number of eligible people who come out to cast their votes on any particular election day. It is generally seen that not all the people who are eligible to cast vote, come and practice their right, in most of the elections only around 60-80% of voters cast their votes and in some cases the percentage is around 50%. There may be many causes why peile do not turnout to vote, some of which may be -

• Lack of awareness among people about the importance of voting.
• Demographic condition of the place, or difficulty faced by the voters due to timing and weather etc.
• When candidates contesting in the elections are not of the choice of voters.
• Electoral competitiveness also effect voter turnout.

Out of the given factors which leads to decrease voters turnout, the one which are easiest to change are the difficulties faced by voters to go for voting and the awareness among the voters. In order to increase voter turnout the election commission with the help of the administration must ensure to reduce the difficulty faced by the voters to cast their votes and also to increase awareness among them through different programmes, than only we can ensure a higher voter turnout in the next elections.