Voting in the United

States
Peter DeBaugh
Record turnout in 2020 still
amounted to less than half
of the population who voted
How Voting Works

● Requirements to voting
○ 15th Amendment
○ 19th Amendment
○ 26th Amendment
● Felon voting?
○ Not in 11 states
○ Only in NC after sentence/probation is served
Original Voting Laws

What do you notice about the individuals in the picture?

Why would these people make the laws in the way that they did?
The Fifteenth Amendment

● “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.”
● Legal barriers to voting were not outlawed until 1965 and The Voting Rights
Act
The Australian Ballot

● Secret ballot!
● Has to be printed and distributed by the government
○ Before the Australian ballot, political parties could print their own ballots
● First adopted after Presidential election of 1884
The Nineteenth Amendment

● “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
The Twenty-Sixth Amendment

● “The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age
or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any State on account of age.”
● States can no longer control voting age
 ● Civic Duty?

Why Do People ●
●
Single Issue Voters
Positive feelings for your

Vote? side…or negative for the other

side
 Why Don’t
People Vote?
Peter DeBaugh

Lesson Script 1100 – October 12

Good morning, everyone

Introduce Myself

The 2020 Election was historic – more than 158 million

ballots were cast which is a record number. But that’s
still only about half of the American population!

I heard y’all had someone come and talk about registering

to vote on Monday – who has voted before?

Also… I’ll be honest; those people who register students

on campus are the reason I started wearing headphones as
a freshman.

Most people only participate in politics to vote. Being a

member of a political organization was second by half the
margin.

SHOULD everyone be allowed to vote? Are there people

that shouldn’t be allowed to vote?

What are some of the requirements to vote?

Citizenship; in NC felons cannot vote until their whole
sentence is served. Other states do not allow formerly
convicted felons to vote at all.

When the United States Constitution was ratified, only

white, male property owners could vote in elections.
That’s not very representative!!!

The 15th amendment in 1870 gave now freed slaves who

were men the right to vote in the letter of the law; the
spirit of the law was a different problem. For years, states
made voting extremely hard for freed slaves in the form
of literacy tests and other Jim Crow era discrimination
practices. The 1965 Voting Rights Act declared these
practices unlawful and legal barriers to voting in state and
local districts were outlawed. Portions of the Voting
Rights Act has since been overturned.

The 19th Amendment which was passed in Congress in

1919 then ratified in 1920 gave women the right to vote.
But long before that, Wyoming allowed women to vote –
going back to 1868. The 19th amendment gave women in
every state the right to vote, no matter what their state
rules were. Suffragists were hugely impactful in lobbying
to grant women the right to vote, women campaigned for
a long time and were spurred by how women worked in
men’s jobs during WWI and felt like because they could
work the jobs they should have the same rights.
The 26th Amendment gave people 18 and older the right
to vote. Before this amendment states varied in voting
ages. This amendment was ratified in 1971. If people can
fight in the military, they can vote.

Who cannot vote in the US? (non-citizens and felons (in

some states like NC))

The Australian Ballot

Protects voters because it ensures secrecy while casting a
vote
Before the Australian Ballot, party machines were in
charge of printing and distributing the ballots which led to
lots of strong-arming people to vote the way the party
bosses wanted them to vote.

What makes people vote?

Civic duty, partisanship….maybe even strong dislike for
other side

Men and women turn out at fairly similar rates, but

women consistently turning out more by about 9
percentage points.
Across all ages white people turn out more than other
races/ethnicities – what are some causes for this?
(representative candidates, time and money to spend on
politics)
People with a Bachelor’s degree turn out the most, again
because they probably have more time and energy to
spend thinking about politics.
Young people turn out at especially low rates. Young
people just starting college, or their career have less time
to spend thinking about politics and they care less.
Young people also feel less represented and a little more
dissatisfied with the government than older generations.
But I think the more important question is: What are some
reasons people don’t vote?
It is hard to pinpoint one or two sole reasons,
but people don’t vote because they are busy!
Work
Child-care
Don’t care about candidates
Doesn’t think the government actually works/they’re
vote doesn’t matter