Critical thinking; is the policy for promoting turnout effective?

   On Thursday, July 7, 2016, the Washington Monthly published an article titled “What Works to Turn Out Voters?” In this article, the author, Anne Kim, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, describes what policies for promoting people to vote on elections are effective with the credible reports of GAO. According to her explanation, same-day voter registration and vote by mail are the most effective policies, and texting of voting center and extended voting hours have potential influence. On the other hand, “Early in-person voting, emails, mailings and robo-calls” showed disappointing results in studies that examined the effectiveness of the policies. However, she emphasizes that even the effective policies do not have significant impact on raising the rate of participation in vote.

     Her argument suggesting broader reforms for promoting turnout to states is agreeable to the low turnout problem of the United states. As what she refers, current policies are limited to one aspect of convenience of voting. Officers might thought that enhancing convenience of voting system seems good solution of this problem, as the convenience in economical scene promote frequency of use. For example, some products’ convenience in real life causes high sales. People even buy expensive but convenient products. Convenient store is also a good example of how convenience can affect significantly to the frequency of use; a number of customers are using convenient store because of its high convenience. Thus, convenience in economy has great impact on frequency of use because it is directly upon daily life. However, elections are not everyday events and in political area, so convenience cannot be a direct reason for voters to vote. In short, the convenience in economy gives the reason why people buy something, whereas the convenience in voting system does not give voters the strong reason why they should vote. 

    Besides, the interventions of states for making voting system more convenient for voters is similar to beg of voters to participate in elections, which can make voters more passive in political events. More serious problem is that the convenient voting system does not appeal to voters significantly. Therefore, the policies for promoting turnout must be what makes citizens participate in vote spontaneously.

     Also, citizen’s interest in politics is the most important factor that must be considered for developing the policies. No matter how easy to vote, voting is still bothersome for politically indifferent citizens. However, more voters will vote on elections if they have strong desire to vote. Think about the people who vote for celebrities. They endure the bothersome in voting joyfully with love for their favorite celebrities. On the other had, attachment to candidates is insufficient to promote people to vote. Thus, it is necessary to make people have their favorite candidates in order to promote them to vote without external push.