AP Government and Politics Chapter 13 Mastery of Elections. This is a presentation to help explain the impacts of certain factors that affect voter turnout. It was done as a project for an AP Government and Politics class, taught at Muskego High School.

There are many factors that can affect voter turnout. Of each of these factors also may affect the way that one will vote or how each candidate will advertise and target certain groups.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/08/18131900-a-census-first-black-vo...

2012 was the first year where the percentage of African Americans that voted surpassed that of the caucasian majority. This change can also be seen in the number of votes coming from each race, where the African and Latino vote rose about 1.5 million each from the previous election while the White vote dropped by almost 2 million. The first time the White vote has dropped since 1996.

About 41 percent of voters age 18-24 cast ballots in November, a drop of 7 percent from 2008. The drop was greatest among whites, whose turnout fell from 49 percent to 42 percent. Young black voters also saw big declines, from 55 percent in 2008 to 49 percent. That's compared with a decline among young Hispanics from 39 percent to 34 percent.

Religion, while in modern times doesn't necessarily have a major direct impact on voter turnout, definitely may influence voters to vote one way over another. Throughout American history religious centers used to be hubs for transferring information from the government to the people. For example, the Churches in the South during the Reconstruction Period provided the information the African Americans needed to cast their votes. When the Literacy tests and Poll taxes were added it was the Churches that helped teach the voters to pass the tests and help the gain the funds to pay the poll tax.

While I apologize about the formatting of the photo. You can still see the obvious relation between the education one receives and the likely hood that they will vote. It's a well known stereotype that the better educated are more likely to vote and this graph proves it. The exact relation between the lines on this graph is staggering. The different degrees of education appear to yield the relative same percentage per year compared to the other degrees.

Yet again, when looking at income, the stereo types are correct. The higher the income the more likely one is to vote. Once more this is how the system is set up. Much like the system of the Electoral College, and how the concept of a popular democracy is skewed by the theory of representation, the system is set up so the well educated male's vote will matter. Over time the tug of war has gone both ways from the Poll Taxes and Literacy tests in the South to the push for Women's rights that soon followed in 1920 with the passage of the 19th amendment.

Studies have shown the impact that non-profit organizations have on voter turnout. Non-profit organizations help out by using many methods to both help those with low incomes vote, as well as getting the word out there that there is a vote going on. They do this using tools such as the Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) initiative and by reminding citizens via door-to-door reminders or by phone call.

http://nvs.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/09/13/0899764012459909.abstract