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Can We Believe the Polls? Survey research is a flourishing political enterprise. The national news media—notably CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN television networks, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and Time and Newsweek magazines—regularly sponsor independent national surveys, especially during election campaigns. Major survey organizations—the American Institute of Public Opinion (Gallup), Louis Harris and Associates, National Opinion Research Center (NORC), the Roper Organization, National Election Studies (University of Michigan)—have been in business for a long time and have files of survey results going back many years. Political candidates also contract with private marketing and opinion research firms to conduct surveys in conjunction with their campaigns. Abortion: The 'Hot-Button' Issue Although public opinion may be weak or nonexistent on many policy questions, there are a few 'hot-button' issues in politics—issues on which virtually everyone has an opinion, and about which many people feel very intensely. Abortion is one such highly sensitive issue. Both pro-choice proponents of legalized abortion and pro-life opponents claim to have public opinion on their side. Interpretation of the poll results becomes a political activity itself. Opinion polls suggest that most Americans want to keep some abortions legal but they believe that government should place certain restrictions on the practice. National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League National Right to Life Committee How "Exceptional" is Opinion in America? Do Americans differ much from Europeans in their social and political values? The American political culture places great value on individual liberty, limited government intervention in people’s personal lives, equality of opportunity, and individual responsibility for one’s own fate in life (see Chapter 2). The strong American commitment to these values has been labeled American "exceptionalism," suggesting that people in other nations, including the Western European democracies, are not as strongly committed to these values as are people in the United States. Test Your Knowledge of Public Opinion Searching for the Gender Gap Men and women do not differ significantly on gender-related issues such as abortion, but they do tend to hold different opinions on other issues and in party affiliation, suggesting the influence of gender (or at least of gender socialization) on political opinion. Source: National opinion surveys, reported in Public Agenda Online, 1999. Should Government Leaders Pay More Attention to Public Opinion in Policy Making? Over 200 years ago, the British parliamentarian Edmund Burke told his constituents: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment, and he betrays you instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion." Since then "Burkian representation" has come to mean using one’s own judgment in governmental decision making and paying little or no attention to public opinion polls. Indeed, many politicians boast of their own courage and independence and their willingness to ignore opinion polls on major issues. Teledemocracy Action News + Network The "Butterfly" Ballot The controversial "butterfly" ballot in Florida’s Palm Beach County was devised by the county’s elected Supervisor of Elections, who wanted to get all presidential candidates on one page and in large enough print for elderly voters to see clearly. But the resulting double-page spread turned out to be confusing to many voters. Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan received more votes in Palm Beach than in any other of Florida’s 67 counties. Note that the Buchanan punch hole is second in order, between the punch holes for Bush and Gore. Butterfly Ballot Cost Gore the White House Voter Turnout in Western Democracies Other Western democracies regularly report higher voter turnout rates than the United States. Yet in an apparent paradox, Americans seem to be more supportive of their political institutions, less alienated from their political system, and even more patriotic than citizens of Western European nations. Why, then, are voter turnouts in the United States so much lower than in these other democracies? There are several answers. Some nations, such as Austria and Italy, make voting mandatory and attach penalties to non-voting. Western European states also have compulsory voter registration, which makes voting easier. Greater party competition of European multi-party systems may also account for greater voter interest and turnout, and cultural differences may exist as well. The fact remains, however, that non-voting is very high in the United States and may be increasing.
International IDEA Voter Turnout Website
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