On 11/4/06, ravi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
At around 4/11/06 6:40 pm, Michael Perelman wrote:
> It seems that whenever I see polls predicting a slight Democratic
> victory, it never happens. When was the last election surprise where
> the polls understated Democratic chances? Are people ashamed to tell
> polsters that they support the right?
>
Could it be true that democrat voter turnout is lower since they are
over-represented in the working class, who have a higher probability of
not being able to make it to the booth on election day due to any of a
bunch of reasons (child sick, work issues, car broke down, etc)?
Many governments make election days national holidays. The US
government doesn't. That alone automatically suppresses working-class
turnout, and so does the trouble of voter registration, which is left
to individuals rather than to governments in the USA.
Esther Cervantes and Amy Gluckman wrote: "the GSS [General Social
Survey] data suggest that there is typically a 25 to 30
percentage-point gap in participation between the lowest and highest
income quintiles" ("Who Votes, and How?" January/February 2004,
<http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2004/0104cervantes.html>).
It must be noted that the Democratic Party has not made efforts to
raise working-class participation significantly.
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
