Lower Class Nonvoting and Elite Mobilization Behavior: An Examination of the Gore's 2000 Presidential Campaign

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2001
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Haverford College. Department of Political Science
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
Within the American political system, your vote is your voice. Everyday citizens have the right to assert their preferences about how the government should run, and how tax dollars should be spent, by casting their ballots. But not everyone chooses to utilize this right. In the United States, there is an undeniable class bias in voter turnout. Simply put, lower class individuals vote less than members of higher classes. In fact, they vote at substantially lower rates than the rest of the population, and this problem has become increasingly more severe in recent decades. This phenomenon is evident across voting statistics and is widely accepted by scholars. This chronic nonvoting amongst the lower class is problematic because it means that the poor are not being heard. By opting out of the electoral process, poor individuals are giving up their political voices. And if they are not letting their needs be known, then these needs will not be met. Instead, politicians will focus on addressing the concerns of those who do vote. The ability to vote, and effectively, the ability to vote a politician out of office, affords citizens a certain degree of power. Politicians are beholden to the voters that determine their victory or loss. Poor nonvoting removes this power from lower class individuals, and the poor as a constituency lose any control they might have over politicians and the policy agenda. This phenomenon of poor nonvoting has significant ramifications for our political system, and is worthy of scholarly consideration. Within this work, I will explore why lower class nonparticipation persists, in the hopes that a solution might be applied if the root of the problem can be identified. In my attempt to identify the root of this phenomenon, I will review the major theories that have been presented to explain lower class nonvoting. From these, I will select the theory that seems most convincing, and test its plausibility. I will conduct this test through the lens of a narrow case study--specifically, the election of 2000 and the Gore campaign. A more detailed map of what I plan to cover in my research will be presented after I proceed with a review of the existent theories that attempt to explain nonvoting amongst the lower class.
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