Although Internet use has been widespread since the turn of the century, it was only in the 2008-2012 Barack Obama campaigns that digital capabilities began to truly realize themselves in politics (Turk 2017). Big data (Semiatin 2017) is used to microtarget messaging in traditional and new media, get-out-the-vote efforts, and fundraising campaigns (Davis 4/3, 4/5, 4/10). As citizens gain access to an ever-increasing quantity of information, prioritizing the quality of that data is becoming an incredibly important civic duty. The volume and tone of different cues provided to voters influence their attitudes and actions (Davis 1/30). Despite, and perhaps due to, this overwhelming informational access, voting rates are no higher than in other decades (Elections Project 2016). This paper will explore how digital technologies and the modern age affect voter turnout. 

 

Digital technology allows political entities to provide more information than through traditional methods like mail, radio, or TV (Turk 2017). Citizens can search a vast compilation for the specific information they are looking for and learn as little or as much as they like. Democracy requires the electorate understand issues, party platforms, and individual candidates’ positions so they are motivated to cast informed votes. Mobilization is important because it translates the will of the people into political action, but requires voters possess a strong enough sense of efficacy to participate. 

 

The transparent, hyper-documented nature of the digital world should also allow citizens to better hold elected officials accountable. Representative democracy only works when the electorate can access information about the actions of their representative and engage in retrospective voting (Davis 1/23). Organizations can encourage this kind of citizen participation by providing easy access to relevant information and publicizing these options to voters. 

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The Digital Age’s Potential to Turn Out for Democracy

Digital communication should increase democracy not only by increasing voter turnout, but also by modifying the behavior of those potential voters once at the polls. New media should provide them with more information and better encourage them to hold their representatives accountable. 

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Increase in Citizen Information and Engagement 

Internet usage has skyrocketed over time; from just 2000 to 2016, adult internet usage in the US increased from 52 to 88 percent (Pew 2017). Further, the internet is being used more often for news and informational sources (Pew 2016), meaning its role for political and campaign communications is essential. In addition to providing additional sources of information, online platforms allow ample opportunities for engagement. Online communities like message boards encourage dialogue and efforts toward community good (Meeks 1997) and live-streams or similar tools extend opportunities for remote participation. 

 

These data on increased internet access and informational usage, in theory, should produce more informed and engaged voters. However, one study conducted by Gibson and McAllister found that the internet actually widens an existing knowledge gap between the politically informed and the disinterested in Australia (2015). The existence of a gap even in a compulsory voting system like Australia suggests an even larger discrepancy among voluntary voting states, like the United States. Prior suggests this gap is the result of selective media exposure, wherein “chance exposures” to content with opposing viewpoints becomes more infrequent as specialized media use increases (2005). Similarly, scholars suggest online news echo chambers reinforce existing beliefs without exposing users to new information (Pew 2016) and that these polarizing effects often increase frustration (Davis 2/20), which decreases voter turnout. 

 

Citizens Can Better Hold Elected Officials Accountable 

Similar to the theoretical hypothesis that an increase of available political information via internet platforms should produce informed citizens, a reasonable assumption is that this digital information age encourages citizens to follow their representative’s actions more closely and vote accordingly. 

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Empirical evidence, yet again, contradicts these hypotheses that the information age positively affects democracy. Hellwig and Marinova’s recent study demonstrates that voters are misinformed about both short and long-term information about their representatives, despite having more informational access then ever before (2014). The authors’ findings further weaken the idea that retrospective voting is playing a critical democratic role today: voters do not even use their biased retrospective accounts to vote myopically, instead relying on selective media opinion (Hellwig and Marinova 2014). Healy and Malhotra, however, contradict and compound this finding by positing that voters do engage in retrospective voting due to an abundance of accessible short-term heuristics (2013). Their claim that voters find it difficult to assess long-term accountability absent sufficient cues (Healy and Malhotra 2013) is in conflict with Hellwig and Marinova’s assertion that today’s media provides ample resources about both short and long-term accountability (2014). 

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Principle vs. Practice, Exploring the Discrepancy

As social media slowly became relevant, scholars were united in their hope that the communication-based platforms would reinvigorate civic participation (Theocharis and Lowe 2016). The Obama campaign was touted as an example of such mobilization success (Turk 2017). Academic literature seeking to empirically evaluate that claim was met with a myriad of contradictory results (Theocharis and Lowe 2016). Theocharis and Lowe took great care with their experimental design, randomly assigning the creation of Facebook accounts among their population and controlling for intensity of use, level of education, and exposure to civic content, among other variables (2016). They found that use of Facebook was negatively correlated with all forms of political participation, not just those that had a high cost or time barrier (Theocharis and Lowe 2016). Speculation attributes the inverse relationship of social media and political engagement to distracting voters from political questions or that the prominent presentation of polarizing opinions may further disillusion voters. 

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Get-Out-the-Vote Efforts Over Time

A Comparison 

Parties’ diminution in their transition from main voter mobilization vehicle to one of many voices in the mobilization effort is a fundamental component of how efforts to engage voters have changed over time (Semiatin 2017). When parties took the lead, candidates were compelled to stay much closer to the official party platform (Davis 2/20). This system primarily incentivized voters through what the parties themselves could deliver through their candidates. The advent of politics shown on television made candidates recognizable in their own right and gave them power to fundraise, fundamentally leading to the decline of parties as campaigns’ primary agents (Semiatin 2017). This shift in campaign structure has not fundamentally shifted voter incentive – voters still try to identify their closest ideological match (Renner 2017). In the new era of the individual, however, candidates run their own campaigns, which means GOTV efforts are fragmented and individualized (Davis 2/20). Though voters must now sift through those individual candidates and nuanced cues, parties still deliver a large number of voters through unified cues as well as organized, election-specific efforts (Semiatin 2017). 

 

Using Donald Trump as its example, one local newspaper argues that today’s technology allows candidates to engage in an unprecedented amount of intimate conversation with voters (Daily Banner 2016). This qualitative description might lead us to believe that these relationships and inside information might inspire more voters to turn out at the polls. However, this paper has discovered that intuition and existing perceptions often contradict empirical research. Soderland conducted a study of 36 different democracies over time, where a third of the data represents the United States, to explore the actual relationship between voter turnout and electoral system, controlling for variables including compulsory voting and presidential versus midterm election magnitude (2017). He found that in comparison to party-based systems, candidate-centered elections indeed depressed voter turnout (Soderland 2017). This relationship may be attributed to the increased cognitive burden on voters when candidates stray from a broad party cue or that individual candidates are not able to run campaigns as effectively as their large party counterparts. 

 

The introduction of new media and digital technology beyond television has further reenvisioned GOTV. The Obama campaigns’ GOTV efforts made use of big data and sophisticated algorithms to identify and mobilize sporadic voters (Semiatin 2017). The degree to which they personalized their messages and used the internet to produce additional volunteers and funds won them the election. Unfortuantely, 2012 voter turnout, 57.5 percent, was lower than both Obama’s previous election, 62.3 percent, and 2004, 60.4 percent (2012 Voter Turnout Report). Utilization of technology for electoral success does not necessarily correspond to improved voter turnout. Evidence of technological failure adversely affecting participation further supports the conclusion that high-tech GOTV efforts in fact have no real effect on voter turnout. Mitt Romney’s 2012 GOTV effort, ORCA, crashed on Election Day (Semiatin 2017). Many Republican voters that may have turned out should they have been provided with transportation, reminders, or other day-of assistance were not reached. 

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Do High-Tech Efforts Create More Democracy?

The empirical results discussed above and in the first section all support a conclusion that, in fact, technology has had little effect on voter turnout. The 19th century boasted the highest voter turnout of the nation, with its best years turning out over 85 percent of the eligible population (McDonald 2016). The absence of advanced digital technologies in such an era suggests that other factors are far more important when it comes to mobilizing voters. (It is important to note that in this era voting was restricted to a more homogenous population that was perhaps responsive to a simpler, more coherent mobilization technique.) Technological, modern tactics, research suggests, have increased information gaps and turned out a voting electorate very different from the portion of the who chooses not to vote. 

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Dassonneville and Hooghe echo Gibson and McAllister when they explain a contemporary, increasing educational gap among voters (2017). This study goes further – they link a decline in voter turnout to the widening of this gap (Dassonneville and Hooghe 2017). Education is a powerful predictor of voting in its own right (Davis 2/1), as voters perceive an increased sense of civic duty and are often exposed to more political content (Prior 2005). Given that these voters are already reasonably informed, the threat to democracy lay in the lack of or misinformation among less educated eligible voters. 

 

Interestingly enough, this observed phenomena through which voter turnout is increasingly stratified by education level (Dassonneville and Hooghe 2017), produces an academic argument in favor of increased accountability for elected officials. Rosema claims that more sophisticated voters presumably make better choices, and are therefore better exercising the accountability function of elections (2007). He maintains that low voter turnout does not pose a threat to democracy because stratified representation of groups at the polls is counterbalanced by the superior capabilities of those who do turn out (Rosema 2007).  Many other scholars do worry that this uneven representation erodes the basic tenets of democracy and creates resentment in the population. One such example is the rural, white population who was eventually mobilized to turn out for Donald Trump once frustration with their general representation reached a peak (Davis 2/13). 

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Reforms 

Compulsory Voting

One of the fundamental concerns raised by low voting rates is a subsequent inequality of representation in government. Voters are often very different than nonvoters, meaning the former population utilizes a powerful opportunity to shape public policy in their favor that the latter population does not (Dassonneville and Hooghe 2017). Compulsory voting is often suggested as a remedy – if the state mandates citizens to vote, turnout will soar to record levels and voters will no longer be stratified by factors like education or political interest. 

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While I concede the simple premise that the compulsory voting system would increase both voter turnout and equality, I tend to agree with scholars that the quality of the vote would decline. Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Miller summarize relevant theory and their own beliefs that the ideal voter in a democratic system uses sophisticated voting to make selections closest to their own political preferences and hold incumbents accountable (2017). While the authors expected to find sophisticated behavior decrease in a compulsory system, they found no evidence of such a decrease (Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Miller 2017). They theorize that the discrepancy between their hypothesis and findings may be attributable to individuals following politics more when the know they will be required to vote or perhaps that accountability voting is not as sophisticated a behavior as the academic community assumes (Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Miller 2017).  They did, however, observe that voters are more ideologically distant from parties in mandatory voting systems (Dassonneville, Hooghe, and Miller 2017). This suggests that votes are not necessarily representative of the people’s will nor preferences, but rather the closest alternative selected from a fixed pool. 

 

Despite its apparent neutral effect on sophisticated voting behavior, compulsory voting also contradicts democratic notions of freedom and choice. These ideals are especially internalized in American culture. The population would probably not receive such a mandate well, and the voting system switch may result in mass resistance to the law, the purposeful casting of uninformed or uninterested votes, or even satirical candidacies. It is on this basis that I would reject compulsory voting as a reform to low voter turnout in the United States. 

 

Further Sophisticated, Coordinated Tactics 

Further sophistication in GOTV and mobilization efforts, then, appears to be a more appropriate reform. Phone-based efforts have been complicated by the rise of mobile phones and a law that prevents robo-calls from dialing cell phones (Semiatin 2017). Efforts to mobilize these populations, especially younger and minority demographics, can still be made via phone with live volunteers as well as through web efforts (Semiatin 2017). Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman acknowledges all these new capacities, but sums up one attitude about voter turnout – scandals and stories sell voting to the electorate far more than accessibility or duty (Capitol Ideas 2014). While many scholars bemoan such portrayals of politics as pandering to a less informed electorate with short attention spans and scarce political interest (Rosema 2007), the content often does imbed political information those citizens would not ordinarily be interested in and may inspire them to seek more concrete information (Turk 2017). As campaigns and parties find ways to blend their desired messages and important political information with the dynamic content voters are accustomed to consuming, voter turnout should be expected to increase. 

 

Coordination across parties and institutions holds great potential to dramatically increase voter turnout by maximizing the efficiency of such GOTV efforts and communicating a united, versus contradictory, message. When polarization is omnipresent, an endeavor both parties could support would carry serious gravitas.  Semiatin acknowledges that elections have become more base-driven since the 2000s (2017), which corresponds to an increase in ideological polarization among parties in both the electorate and government (Davis 2/23). Thus a more realistic alternative to coordinated efforts is a party tactic that maintains this strong base support while engaging marginalized populations more fervently than before. While I strongly endorse cooperative efforts, increased sophistication of voter mobilization is far more likely due to the inherent competitive advantage it offers parties. 

 

At heart of matter, increasing voter turnout in an effective, ethical, and sustainable manner requires impassioning the people. A majority of the United States population does indeed vote now, because the efforts of political groups and parties both instill a sense of efficacy and provide adequate policy positions to represent those voters. Our political structure incentivizes politicians to find unrepresented sectors of the population. As those voices become increasingly coveted, political organizations will need to continue adapting and specializing their efforts to appeal to these eligible voters and offer them desirable representation. 

 

The Future of Voter Turnout in a New Age

Voter turnout, through this paper, has been realized as a relatively stagnant variable since the 1900s despite radical modernization of GOTV and mobilization techniques. An increasing education gap produced in part by online information structure and access stratifies voters and poses significant concerns about equal representation. Voter behavior is still somewhat of a mystery, however, which means those in politics must constantly adapt to new methods to attempt to improve their own party’s performance as well as the overall health of the democratic system. Where compulsory voting does not offer the United States an appropriate answer to this systemic issue, a nobler goal of restoring faith among citizens in the principles of our nation is at stake. 

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References

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2014. “Straight Talk: What can states do to increase voter turnout?” Capitol Ideas, September/October 2014, 44-45. 

2016. “Candidates talk about themselves, it’s natural.” The Cleveland Daily Banner, August 11, 2016. 

2017. “Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet.” http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/#data (April 12, 2017). 

Dassonneville, Ruth and Marc Hooghe. 2017. “Voter turnout decline and stratification: Quasi-experimental and comparative evidence of a growing educational gap.” Politics 37 (2): 184-200. 

Dassonneville, Ruth, Marc Hooghe, and Peter Miller. 2017. “The impact of compulsory voting on inequality and the quality of the vote.” West European Politics 40 (3): 503-515. 

Davis, Sandra. January 23, 2017. “Parties.” Lecture. Colorado State University.

--- January 30, 2017. “Party in the Electorate: Party ID.” Lecture. Colorado State University. 

--- February 1, 2017. “Party in the Electorate: Social Identity and Party Coalitions.” Lecture. Colorado State University. 

--- February 23, 2017. “Polarization.” Lecture. Colorado State University. 

--- February 20, 2017. “Party Organization.” Lecture. Colorado State University. 

--- April 3, 2017. “Consultants, Opposition Research, and Mobilization.” Lecture. Colorado State University. 

--- April 5, 2017. “Public Opinion and Targeting.” Lecture. Colorado State University. 

--- April 10, 2017. “Media Communication.” Lecture. Colorado State University. 

Gibson, Rachel K. and Ian McAllister. 2015. “New media, elections, and the political knowledge gap in Australia.” Journal of Sociology 51 (2): 337-353. 

Hellwig, Timothy and Dani M. Marinova. 2014. “More Misinformed than Myopic: Economic Retrospections and the Voter’s Time Horizon.” Political Behavior 37 (4): 865-887. 

Matsa, Katerina Eva and Kristine Lu. September 14, 2016. “10 facts about the changing digital news landscape.” http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/14/facts-about-the-changing-digital-news-landscape/ (April 14, 2017). 

McDonald, Michael P. 2016. “National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present.” http://www.electproject.org/national-1789-present (April 11, 2017). 

Meeks, Brock N. 1997. “Better democracy through technology.” Communications of the ACM 40 (February): 75-78. 

Prior, Markus. 2005. “News vs Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (3): 577-592. 

Renner, Tari. 2017. “Political Parties – Reinvigorated.” In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, ed. Richard J. Semiatin. California: CQ Press.

Rosema, Martin. 2007. “Low turnout: Threat to democracy or blessing in disguise? Consequences of citizens’ varying tendancies to vote.” Electoral Studies 26 (3): 612-623. 

Semiatin, Richard. 2017. “Voter Mobilization – The Future is Now.” In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, ed. Richard J. Semiatin. California: CQ Press. 

Soderlund, Peter. 2017. “Candidate-centered elections and voter turnout.” West European Politics 40 (3): 516-533. 

Theocharis, Yannis and Will Lowe. 2016. “Does Facebook use increase political participation? Evidence from a field experiment.” Information, Communication, and Society 19 (10): 1465-1486. 

Turk, Michael. 2017. “Social and New Media – The Digital Present and Future.” In Campaigns on the Cutting Edge, ed. Richard J. Semiatin. California: CQ Press. 

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