Voters Suppression - Annotated Bibliography

Atiba, E. (2014). A Price Too High: Efficiencies, Voter Suppression, and the Redefining of Citizenship. Southwestern Law Review, 43(549).

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According to Atiba (2014), Voters suppression is a strategy used by politician and government to influence votes to third advantages. Even though voter suppression has often been associated with denying the voter the right to vote or using violence as a way of preventing voters, miscommunication and heightened regulations is the most effective strategy used by voter suppressors. For example, with the non-liberalized attitudes towards the civil rights of the African American, women and minority groups such as the gays and lianas, the voters are made to think that the candidates have them in mind and will support them only to realize that the candidate was planted to divide the votes of their preferred candidate.

Atiba (2014) reported that the changing attitudes are never meant to help the people but the political elite and political parties who have a major agenda than the LGBT rights. Votes suppression affects or helps in achieving political realignment change in voter attitude can affect election outcome positively or negatively because of the behavioral and organizational effect (Atiba, 2014). The outcomes of the presidential election in 1980 by the replicant and the Democratic presidential victories in the 1990s can be attributed to voter miseducation to suppress votes. Sometimes introducing inefficiencies in the voting process contributes to voter suppression. These inefficiencies include voter identifying laws, and in some cases, the limitation on early voting or limitation on gay, women and student voting. The heightened regulation can affect the voter turnout but there is a claim that the increased regulations are important in preserving the integrity of the elections but these are voter suppression strategies that target the minority groups.

Castaneda Dower, P., & Pfutze, T. (2015). Vote suppression and insecure property rights. Journal of Development Economics, 114, 1-19. doi: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2014.11.003

In this article, Castaneda Dower & Pfutze (2015) shows that voter suppression comes in many forms, the most commonly used is threats and miseducation to sway votes or prevent the voters from voting. In Mexico, voter's suppression was rampant as the political and political groups threatened the voters with expropriation of lands that the voters dwelled in to prevent the voters from voting for the opposition. Before the election, land titles, clashes, and threats were used to prevent the voters from voting to their preferred candidate because they were threatened with loss of land ownership.

Castaneda Dower & Pfutze (2015) also reported that the dominant political parties used legal procedures to intimidate the voters from voting for their preferred candidates such as hiding land certificates or creating complication and delays in then land certifications. This way, the voters would fear to vote for the opposition but the irony is that the all the complexities end as soon as the voting period ends. The study shows that voters suppression strategy usually involves the use of legal institutions by the political powers to influence votes and election outcomes.

Druckman, J., & Parkin, M. (2005). The Impact of Media Bias: How Editorial Slant Affects Voters. The Journal of Politics, 67(4), 1030-1049. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2508.2005. 00349.x

In this article, Druckman & Parkin (2005) argued that voter suppression may be subliminally hidden in newspapers, op-ed, and blogs. One of the most effective ways by which new papers perpetuate and perpetrate voter suppression is boing doing commentaries and pollical analysis in ways that slant the image or brand of the political groups or specific politicians. By attacking the person or the brand, voters are swayed from voting for their preferred condition considering the latest information about the candidate's character. The quantity and tone of the article adopted by the newspaper can negatively or positively affect voter turnout or voting decisions.

Newspapers and media houses are expected to be neutral in issues political but they sidestep the laws by posting subliminal messages that are not directly detected. Newspapers are public literature that is considered reliable such that when an editorial takes a position on a political group, organization or individual, the voters are influenced to either vote for or against the subject. Druckman & Parkin (2005) stated that an in-depth content analysis shows that in an election day exit poll, the slant of campaign coverages affected the voters because the voters believe that the newspapers much less the editorial are objective, reliable and balanced. The researcher argues that the media should play an important role in the democratic process but this is not the case in most elections where media houses are guns for hire.

References

Atiba, E. (2014). A Price Too High: Efficiencies, Voter Suppression, and the Redefining of Citizenship. Southwestern Law Review, 43(549).

Castaneda Dower, P., & Pfutze, T. (2015). Vote suppression and insecure propertyrights. Journal of Development Economics, 114, 1-19. doi: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2014.11.003

Druckman, J., & Parkin, M. (2005). The Impact of Media Bias: How Editorial Slant Affects Voters. The Journal of Politics, 67(4), 1030-1049. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2508.2005.00349.x