Voting In America Essay

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merican voting turnouts are not the best when push comes to shove, especially when that shove comes from Europe. America averages around 51.71% from 2000 to 2012 (“Turnout of U.S. Voting Eligible Population, 1948-2012”, 2012) while the UK soars above with an average of 63% showing up to vote between 2001 to 2015 (“General election turnout 1945 – 2015”, 2015). There is a malignant ignorance growing among America's voters, whether it be from the narcotizing effect of the mass media, or the legislature behind the prerequisites of voting. Despite having a wide range of variables affecting turnout, a great portion of that can be shown to be voter qualifications, with the new Voter ID leading the charge as a new way to keep American politics free …show more content…
Amendment XXVI lowered the voting age minimum to 18 years of age (U.S. Const. amend. XXVI.), XV allowed all citizens (excluding females until 1919) of color to vote (U.S. Const. amend. XV.), and XIX enabled females to vote(U.S. Const. amend. XIX.). With each Federal amendment, the voter pool grew, enabling a balanced government that could understand all miniorities and majorities, the goal of democracy. However, the Voter ID law threatens this by further disabling illegal citizens from voting. “In 2009 the Department of Homeland Security estimated that there were 1.68 million undocumented immigrants living in Texas” (Salamon) and that's about the population size of San Antonio. Because of laws such as the Voter ID law and Voter Regristration requiring naturalization, those who live within the country do not have a chance to decide what happens in it, leading to a large population of people who cannot decide how the government is run. Thus, the cycle continues of people being unable to influence poltics, and politics ruining their chances at influencing politics, leaving this population out of the

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