Question

Discuss representation, participation, and voter turnout in local elections. What trends do you see, and what are their impacts? Your essay should be at least 500 words in length and include an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

Answer 1

Participation and representation have an effect on voter turnout in local elections. Local elections within the United States have a general low turnout/trend that seems to never change. We are in a country of a mostly younger population in which most of the older population are the ones that hold a higher voter turnout. This results in a low voter turnout with most of the reasons being pretty obvious with the increase in technology and voting becoming more and more stagnant when compared to the technology of today. When it comes to participation a few number of voters ever even involve themselves in it. This mostly has to do with the timing, they are normally held out of voting season and by that, I mean people are usually more involved in voting when there’s a bigger election going on and having small one happens kind of makes them not in a political type of mood thus making it out of voting season. Some voters just feel that there are much more important things to do like work and getting paid/family support. A general lack of participation exists for many reasons, but it is mostly because the smaller poles are just not advertised as big as a presidential vote and we are in a new generation that does not like to waste time in endless lines for what may seem like no good reason. When representation is brought into the mix, many people feel that certain candidates are not worth their time and they don’t want them to represent them. This causes a failure to vote and normally for local voting there aren’t many options to go with so if you don’t like the two candidates (if you’re lucky enough to have two) you just don’t vote at all. For the smaller populations there may only be one candidate to choose from and if you don’t like them you’re pretty much done at that point and maybe even the voters see it as a waste of time because there’s no point in voting if there’s only one candidate. Some feel that all local representatives are pretty much just puppets for the individuals appointed above them and lack the ability to truly effect change, so this causes another reason to not vote locally. The younger population typically does not vote as much as the older and the numbers become skewed because the population is mostly made up of the youth, so the percentage of the elderly is higher it doesn’t mean that more of them voted when compared to the younger generation, it just means that more of that specific group voted more.