Did States Made it Harder for Americans to Vote in the 2016 Elections?

“All of this falls on top of the wave of restrictions that states passed in time for the 2012 election”

Democratic public attitudes and political participation

This short paragraph will explain certain facts that shape the American electoral system by providing data obtained using a combination of aggregate and comparative survey data.

According to Powell, despite the relatively favorable citizen attitudes, voter turnout in American national elections is far below the average of 80% of the eligible electorate that votes in other industrialized nations. Surprisingly another fact indicates that the United States overpasses any other democratic nation in political awareness within its citizens.

How is a nation who is politically aware not interested in voting? The institutional context by which individuals act such as legal rules, social and political structures and configuration of partisanship all shape and have a big effect on an individual’s choices, making it hard for an individual to change his/her beliefs.

The United states is advantaged about 5% by political attitudes, but disadvantaged 13% by the party system and institutional factors.l and up to 14% by the registration laws. 

Powell, G. American Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective. The American Political Science Review, 80(1), 17-43. doi:10.2307/1957082