Institutional Model Of Voting Essay

With the economic model of voting, voters are more inclined and entitled to protect their benefits, such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, in the case of the elderly. This makes sense, since a lot of elderly voters receive benefits from the federal government such as those listed before. Therefore, the elderly are most likely to cast their ballots and also have the best voter turnout of any age group in the United States. Benefits such as Medicare and Social Security are granted based on age, which creates a separate group of citizens who are advocates for their own benefits through voting. In return, these older citizens would be more motivated to vote and thus, there would be more mobilization. If there were changes made that would …show more content…
Political context is focused more in the institutional model of voting. Voting in the model is shaped by factors such as the rules of the system, political party behavior, methods in which candidates run their campaigns, and by the election’s context. This means that the model’s goal is to point out that the political environment is a factor that shapes and influences voter participation. Elections that are close races tend stir up a lot of heated debate and controversy, which is something that people want to be a part of. Therefore, the elections draw people’s attention, especially if they think the voters could influence the outcome or even get them to win the election itself. When politics is not thrilling and action-packed like a movie, people are bored and uninterested. But motivating citizens to vote through exciting elections, elections can increase voter turnout rates as well. As also noted by Gateways to Democracy, “[But] elections are often not competitive, lessening the incentive citizens have for making the time to cast their ballots,”. Also, voting takes time and effort in order to bring people to the polls, but it can make a difference. For example, engaging in direct personal contact with citizens may increase their the rate of voting by 7-10 percentage points. Also, mobilizing citizens and getting them to participate would yield higher turnouts. Consequentially, these efforts to help people vote can shape the citizen’s decisions to vote, especially those