Lesson 4, Chapter 5 Short Essay
Why is voter turnout more problematic in the United States than it is in other Western Democracies?
Many other Western style Democracies make voting in elections mandatory, notably Australia, Austria, Belgium, Greece and Italy. Registration laws in the US are more restrictive than in other countries. Western European countries incorporate voter registration into the citizenry registration and identification card issuance process, whereas in the US voter registration is a separate process, and voters must reregister if changing residences.
The party system in the US is also a factor in lower turnout. As the parties are less disciplined and organized in the US, they are less able to mobilize voters. Additionally, many elections in the US are not very competitive, and feature lop-sided opposition. The proportional representation allocation methods used in some other Democracies seem to draw more voters than the winner-takes-all approach that the US has instituted.
Finally, cultural differences may also contribute.
From the text [Politics in America, Fifth Edition, Texas Edition, by Thomas R. Dye]: a chart shows that we get outvoted (percentage-wise) by: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. (The only country we beat was Switzerland, who voted ~45% to our ~50%, according to the chart.) (My above answer to the essay question was paraphrased from the sidebar, "Voter Turnout in Western Democracies," on page 167 of the text.) (I thought some of the essay questions might be more interesting as articles than just the multiple choice questions...) (I like parentheses.)