{"id":1775,"date":"2016-11-14T09:27:46","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T14:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/?p=1775"},"modified":"2016-11-14T09:36:14","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T14:36:14","slug":"a-look-at-election-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/a-look-at-election-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look at Election 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the notable surprises of last week\u2019s Presidential Election is that it appears that Donald Trump has become President-elect while getting fewer votes than Mitt Romney received in his losing<\/em> Presidential bid in 2012.\u00a0 You heard that right, while there are still results being counted in Michigan, as of now Donald Trump received roughly 60.3 million votes, while Mitt Romney in 2012 received nearly 61 million votes.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton appears to have garnered nearly 61 million votes (more than Trump), but far less than Barack Obama\u2019s 66 million in 2012.<\/p>\n

What happened?\u00a0 We do know that the population of the nation grew during that time, as did the number of voters.\u00a0 In 2016, there are an estimated 323.4 million Americans with nearly 226 million eligible voters.\u00a0 In contrast, in 2012, there were 308.1 million Americans and 215 million eligible voters.<\/p>\n

Yet fewer people voted.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n

Part of it is the increasing difficulty in voting in America.\u00a0 As part of the ongoing \u2013 and false \u2013 campaign about so-called voter fraud, laws are now in place that makes it more difficult for eligible Americans to register and for voters to vote.<\/p>\n

In 2016 alone, at least 14 states installed restrictive voting laws around the country, including limitations on voter registration, photo ID mandates and narrower time periods for early voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s also part of an \u201cinstitutional voter suppression\u201d effort.\u00a0 By that I mean the way in which the elections are conducted.\u00a0 In New York State, for example, the longest lines to vote are usually in the City of New York.\u00a0 Voters who see long lines can be turned off and choose not to vote.\u00a0 Low turnout in New York City is a key reason why New York State is at the \u201cbottom of the nation\u2019s barrel\u201d in voter participation.<\/p>\n

Since New York State is a \u201cblue state\u201d why would it allow long lines in the Democratic Party-dominated City?\u00a0 Current elected officials win because the current crop of voters turns out.\u00a0 Bringing in new voters can put incumbents \u2013 of any party \u2013 at risk.\u00a0 There is less incentive to overhaul the system.<\/p>\n

Another factor is the toxicity of the election itself.\u00a0 The more ugly the election, the more likely voters will be turned off.\u00a0 That has to have been a factor in last week\u2019s election.\u00a0 Less-partisan voters are less likely go to the polls and that suppresses turnout.<\/p>\n

There is not much that can be done to reduce the toxic nature of American politics.\u00a0 But there are things that can be done to make voting easier.<\/p>\n

Americans have a constitutional right to vote.\u00a0 However for some, voting is seen as a privilege that citizens should strive to achieve.\u00a0 Thus, for those individuals, registration requirements are no big thing.<\/p>\n

Yet, in other democracies, voting is treated as a right.\u00a0 In most countries, the government takes the lead\u00a0in getting people\u2019s names\u00a0on the rolls \u2013 whether by registering them automatically once they become eligible\u00a0(as in, for example, Sweden or Germany) or by aggressively seeking out and registering eligible voters (as in the UK and Australia).<\/p>\n

In the U.S., by contrast, registration is mainly an individual responsibility. And\u00a0registered voters represent a much smaller share of potential voters in the U.S. than just about any other advanced democracy: Only about 65% of the U.S. voting-age population was\u00a0registered in 2012, compared with 91% in Canada and the UK, 96% in Sweden and nearly 99% in Japan.<\/p>\n

Democracy is a work in progress.\u00a0 But when it comes to voting, progress \u2013 not retrenchment \u2013 is needed.\u00a0 Hopefully, Governor Cuomo can figure out a way to move New York State from one of the worst states in the nation when it comes to voting, to an example of what should be done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the notable surprises of last week\u2019s Presidential Election is that it appears that Donald Trump has become President-elect while getting fewer votes than Mitt Romney received in his losing Presidential bid in 2012.\u00a0 You heard that right, while there are still results being counted in Michigan, as of now Donald Trump received roughly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1776,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1775\/revisions\/1776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}