A Comparative Analysis of Voter Participation in the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America: Differences Between Two Western Election Cultures

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF VOTER PARTICIPATION IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TWO WESTERN ELECTION CULTURES

Harrison Teeter

A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Political Science, Concentration TransAtlantic Studies.

Chapel Hill 2019

Approved by:

Liesbet Hooghe

Reinhard Isensee

Rahsaan Maxwell

John Stephens

ABSTRACT

Harrison Teeter: A Comparative Analysis of Voter Participation in the Federal Republic of Germany and the United States of America: Differences in Two Western Election Cultures (Under the direction of Liesbet Hooghe)

German and American societies reveal distinct differences in how they approach the right to vote and how to empower their citizenry to participate in elections. From contrasting policies ranging from functionally different government structures, distinct methods of voter registration, alternate methods with which each country attempts to encourage enfranchisement, wide disparities in participation rates based on levels of affluence, and divergent understandings of the role of the state in public life as well as fostering political participation, the United States and

Germany reveal notable differences in how they administer elections. The disparity, however, reflects the level of engagement each respective citizenry has with their political institutions, which are closely reflected in each state’s level of voter turnout.

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To the many teachers, teachers’ aides, professors, and fellow students who have inspired me to pursue education, knowledge, and nurture my love of learning—look at what you’ve done to me.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the vital insight and guidance that Liesbet Hooghe and

Reinhard Isensee provided to me while researching for this thesis—and the indispensable love and care that my mother, father, and Tía Tina provided to me at all points leading up to and through it. And to my thesis-writing partner, Olivia Ding, who helped make the process not only bearable, but enjoyable.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures and Tables………………………………………………………………………..vii

List of Abbreviations………………………………….………………………………………...viii

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1

Defining and Identifying Voter Participation Rates……...……..………………………………….3

The Trends Throughout German History…...……………………………………………………..8

The Trends Throughout United States History…………………………………………………...12

How Voter Registration Works in Each Country…………………………………………………19

The North Dakota Connection……………………………………………………………………22

Fundamental Differences in Legislatures’ Structures………………………………………….…24

The Difference Between Having an Electoral College and Not Having One……………………..28

When Election Day Takes Place………………………………………………………………….30

Do Policies Simplifying the Registration Process Produce Greater Participation?...... 33

Voting by Mail in Germany vs. the United States………………………………………………...35

Differences in Voter Turnout by State in Each Republic…………………………………..……40

Conclusion…..…………………………………………………………………………..…….…44

References…………………………………………………………………………………..……47

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Table 1: Comparison of Voter Turnout Rates in OECD Member Countries………….……………4

Table 2: Charted Voter Turnout in German Reichstag/Bundestag Elections…………….………...9

Figure 1: Graphed Trends in US Presidential and Midterm Voter Turnout……………………….12

Table 3: Charted Voter Turnout in US Presidential and Midterm Elections…....…………….…13

Figure 2: Voter Turnout by Bundesland, 2017 Bundestag Election……………………………..41

Figure 3: Voter Turnout by State, 2016 General Election……………………………………….42

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AfD Alternative for Germany [English translation]

APO Extra-parliamentary Opposition [English translation]

BAMF Federal Office for Migration and Refugees [English Translation]

BRD Federal Republic of Germany [English translation]

CDU/CSU Christian Democratic Union of Germany/Christian Social Union in Bavaria [English translation]

CRF-USA Constitutional Rights Foundation, USA

DDR German Democratic Republic [English translation]

EAVS Election Administration and Voting Survey

FDP Free Democratic Party [English translation]

NCSL National Conference of State Legislatures

NSDAP National Socialist German Workers Party [English translation]

NVRA National Voter Registration Act

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

RAF Red Army Faction [English translation]

SPD Social Democratic Party of Germany

SZ Süddeutsche Zeitung

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INTRODUCTION

The essence of a representative, democratic state is that an enfranchised citizenry has the opportunity to elect fellow citizens to make decisions about how their political system, economic system, and their society—overall—should be organized. This means that if the citizenry of a democratic state did not exercise their right to vote, the system would collapse. Though defining what it means to build a democratic state is beyond the scope of this text, one can analyze the formation (and reformation in the case of Germany) of each state and the political cultures that defined their foundations and subsequent maturations as a means to identify at what length each system fosters democratic values among their respective citizenries. Though they are both representative democracies, the United States and Germany have developed two distinctly different systems of conducting elections, apportioning representation, and interacting with the enfranchised populace on engaging in the democratic process.

Furthermore, several factors combine to yield strikingly different levels of voter participation between elections to the U.S. House of Representatives and the German Bundestag, respectively.1 It is perhaps unexpected that although the United States is credited with being the world’s first modern democracy along with being a blueprint for many other democracies that followed after it—including Germany itself—it lags significantly behind Germany in the number of citizens who take part in the election process. This paper will lay out several explanations— ranging from alternative approaches to registration, differing structures of representation, and

1 For the sake of my analysis, only elections to the House in presidential election years—where turnout is higher— are taken into consideration as Germany holds elections for the Bundestag only every four years, following which, their counterpart head of government, the Chancellor, is subsequently chosen by the Bundestag.

1 divergent legislation regarding ballot access—in order to explain why such a significant gap in voter participation between the two countries exists.

The policies and legislation to be analyzed in this text include each country’s history of expanding voter enfranchisement (or restricting it), implementation of differing policies of voter registration, incongruent methods of electing the head of state, varying tactics for simplifying the registration/election process (or complicating it), contrasting observances of election day itself, and introducing the ability to vote by mail—thus revealing how these policies might have impacted the voter participation rate through time. The text will incorporate factors such as the affluence of particular voters as well as historical contexts in attempting to determine why the participation rates between these two countries maintain their distinct disparity.

When trying to determine on its face why voter turnout is almost consistently higher in

Germany than in the United States, especially in recent history, one can point to a number of factors that play into the discrepancy. Firstly, automatic voter registration in Germany versus self-initiated voter registration in the United States seems to play a key role, as once the registration threshold is crossed in the United States, turnout is even higher than in Germany.

However, such institutional factors as the differences in legislative representation and the utilization of an Electoral College in American presidential elections also play a significant role in swaying voter participation. Beyond those, more minor policies such as those trying to make voting more convenient (such as early voting and voting by mail) do not seem to have much impact.2 Relative level of affluence of any given voter and their corresponding level of engagement with the state appear to confirm whether one will be a consistent, dedicated voter; an infrequent one, or a citizen who chooses not to vote at all.

2 Save for same-day voter registration in many U.S. states, which correlates to generally higher turnout in those states that allow the practice.

In breaking down the reasons for the disparity in voter participation, the text will proceed to look at how participation can be defined as well as what requirements need to be meet to register to vote in each country. The text will then follow overall historical trends for clues as to why rates fluctuated. The focus will subsequently turn to analyzing the more institutional reasons for the incongruent voting rates such as the differences in selecting delegates to respective legislative chambers as well as the method with which the head of government is elected.

Following that, the text will switch focus to legislation governing voting and access to the ballot itself as well as methods taken in various jurisdictions to simplify that process. The text will then conclude how these factors may together account for the consistent gap in voter turnout between the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany persists.

Defining and Identifying Voter Participation Rates

How can one define a potential voter? In one way, voter participation can be defined as the overall number of people who voted, compared to the total number of those registered to vote

(i.e. turnout among registered voters). This is arguably the easiest way of measuring voter participation, though it does not capture the entire picture of voter participation in any given country. Because registering to vote in the United States must be carried out with individual initiative, knowledge of the process, and understanding of its value, a relatively high proportion of registered voters casting ballots may still indicate a relatively smaller proportion of those eligible to vote are actually participating in elections. Therefore, one can more accurately define voter participation as the number of people who voted in any given election compared to the number of people in the country who are eligible to vote at all, despite not currently being registered, which can then produce quite different numbers.

The intriguing aspect about this distinction is that if one looks at the United States’ recent voter participation numbers compared against those who are registered, the United States had in fact the highest rate of voter turnout of all 36 member countries of the Organization for

Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), apart from those that legally mandate compulsory voting. More specifically, of the OECD-country elections resulting in the selection of a head of state between 2013 and 2018, the United States’ 86.80% turnout rate among registered voters was bested only by Australia, Belgium, and Luxembourg (with 90.98%,

89.37%, and 91.15%, respectively), the voters of which, however, are all bound by the aforementioned compulsory-voting legislation. Because the Federal Republic of Germany also conducts elections without voter compulsion, drawing contrasts is much easier.

As such, Germany’s rate of voter participation in terms of those who are registered is high, but lower than that of the United States, because only 76.15% of registered German voters cast a ballot in the 2017 Bundestag elections. The picture changes when one looks at participation in terms of the rate of eligible voter casting a ballot. With regard to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, by contrast, the statistic falls over thirty percent to a 55.70% turnout rate.

This is where Germany far outstrips the United States—with 69.11% of its voting age population having taken part in the electoral process this past cycle (DeSilver 2018). The question that now arises is: what causes this stark difference? One distinct factor is the difference in voter registration practices. However, there are additional structural factors that will also be analyzed in order to help determine the root causes of this discrepancy.

Table 1: Comparison of Voter Turnout Rates in OECD Member Countries Votes cast in most recent national election as a ...

Country % of voting-age population % of registered voters

Belgium (2014)* 87.21% 89.37%

Sweden (2014) 82.61% 85.81%

Denmark (2015) 80.34% 85.89%

Australia (2016)* 78.96% 90.98%

South Korea (2017) 77.92% 77.23%

Netherlands (2017) 77.31% 81.93%

Israel (2015) 76.10% 72.34%

New Zealand (2017) 75.65% 79.01%

Finland (2015) 73.14% 66.85%

Hungary (2018) 71.65% 69.68%

Norway (2017) 70.59% 78.22%

Germany (2017) 69.11% 76.15%

Austria (2017) 68.79% 80.00%

France (2017) 67.93% 74.56%

Mexico (2012)* 65.97% 63.08%

Italy (2018) 65.28% 73.05%

Czech Republic (2018) 63.44% 66.57%

U.K. (2017) 63.25% 69.31%

Greece (2015)* 62.14% 56.16%

Country % of voting-age population % of registered voters

Canada (2015) 62.12% 68.28%

Portugal (2015) 61.75% 55.84%

Spain (2016) 61.17% 66.48%

Slovakia (2016) 59.43% 59.82%

Ireland (2016) 58.04% 65.09%

Estonia (2015) 56.82% 64.23%

United States (2016) 55.70% 86.80%

Luxembourg (2013)* 55.12% 91.15%

Slovenia (2014) 54.09% 51.73%

Poland (2015) 53.83% 55.34%

Chile (2017) 52.20% 49.02%

Latvia (2014) 51.69% 58.80%

Switzerland (2015)* 38.63% 48.40%

Iceland (2017) NA 81.20%

Japan (2017) NA 53.65%

Turkey (2017)* NA 85.43% Note: Voting-age population (VAP) turnout is derived from estimates of each country's VAP by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Registered-voter (RV) turnout derived from each country's reported registration data. Because of methodology differences, in some countries estimated VAP is lower than reported RV. Current voting-age population estimates for Iceland, Japan and Turkey unavailable. *National law makes voting compulsory. In addition, one Swiss canton has compulsory voting. Source: Pew Research Center calculations based on data from International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, European Election Database, United States Election Project, Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and various national election authorities.

One crucial distinction to be made is that the Pew Research survey also makes reference to the voting-eligible population, but only in the case of the United States’ voter participation rates. They differentiate between the “voting-age population,” which is the difference between the eligible voting-age population (i.e. those with citizenship, non-felons) and the voting age population that is not eligible to vote due to felony convictions or lack of citizenship (DeSilver

2018). In the United States, therefore, the adjusted rate of voter participation among otherwise eligible voters was 59.3% for 2016, which shows a modest level of improvement, yet reveals that a vast majority of persons living in the country are indeed eligible to vote3. However, because

Germans are automatically registered to vote and do not lose their ability to vote after being sentenced to prison, the distinction need not be made in the German calculation4. This phenomenon already points to two distinct cultural differences concerning the importance of electoral participation, which will be addressed later in this text (Prantl 2012). For the sake of clarity, the voter participation rates used in the analysis of U.S. trends are those measured against the total voting-eligible population, whereas the rates used in the analysis of German trends are those according to the number of registered voters, as the data provides. Because the difference between the number of registered voters and the number of the voting-eligible population are miniscule, the difference is considered negligible. Therefore, for simplicity’s sake, the voter participation rates consistently referred to in this text may be understood as based on the voting- eligible population in each country, unless otherwise noted.

3 Pew references Michael McDonald of the United States Election Project for this particular presidential election year. His data calculates voter participation rates as voter-eligible participation (VEP) and is that which is used with regard to U.S. participation rates discussed in this article.

4 According to German law, a judge can strip a convicted person of their right to vote if they deem it a suitable part of the punishment, but there are only an average of “1.4 cases per year” where this happens (Prantl 2012).

The Trends Throughout German History

Since the founding of both national states, each country has gone through their own political strife and turmoil. Still, the United States has continued to operate under the same constitution and political order, albeit even with some major amendments and revisions.

Germany, on the other hand, has notably gone through periods of political instability resulting in revolution (such as the November Revolution of 1918-19 leading to the establishment of the

Weimar Republic), complete political collapse (such as Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933 and the resulting dissolution of parliament), or absolute rule by the National Socialist German Workers

Party (NSDAP). It was only in 1990 that Germany became reunified following the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic (DDR), upon which its constituent states joined the Federal

Republic of Germany (BRD).

Back in the 1860s and on the other side of the Atlantic, the United States saw the successive secession of eleven of its constituent states as they formed the Confederate States of

America. However, the United States of America itself has never ceased to exist as a state. In consideration of the devastating occurrences that followed the collapse of the Weimar Republic, those that established Germany’s current republic under the guidance of the occupying powers did so with the intention of preserving a consolidated, liberal democracy and a social market economy, thus making access to and investment in that democracy all the more crucial.

A key difference between Germany and the United States, therefore, is that there have been more opportunities for electoral reform in Germany than in the United States. In Germany, the opportunity to overhaul the electoral process has come about at opportune times when the entire state was being remade. Correspondingly, the German government can alter certain election laws without changing the Basic Law, yet they have only been operating off the

8 document since 1949, which means that—over the course of time—a more modern concept of civil rights that could influence the drafting of the charter had developed. In the United States, by contrast, in order to make any fundamental changes to the government’s structure, one must cross the exceptionally high threshold required to amend the Constitution. While this is not necessary for passing such legislation as the Voting Rights Act, it was necessary to allow for the direct election of senators “by the people” since 1913, for example (U.S. Const. Amend. 17).

With consideration of these contextual differences, one can begin to analyze the overall historical voting trends in each country. One of the first facts to acknowledge is that, since the founding of the Empire in 1871, Germany’s overall voter participation has never dropped below

51% turnout. Inspired by the determinations made by the National Assembly in St. Paul’s

Church in Frankfurt in 1849, election rights were regulated by the Electoral Act, which was passed on May 31st, 1869, and kept intact upon the establishment of the German Empire

(Deutscher Bundestag 2019). As in the United States, suffrage was initially granted exclusively to men, but only after having attained the age of 25 (Deutscher Bundestag 2005). The first election to the Reichstag saw the lowest turnout in the empire’s history at that 51%, but climbed all the way up to nearly 85% prior to the outbreak of World War I (Debus 2016).

Table 2: Charted Voter Turnout in German Reichstag/Bundestag Elections Year German Parliamentary Election Registered Voter Turnout Rate (in %) 1871 51.0 1874 61.2 1877 60.6 1878 63.4 1881 56.3 1884 60.6 1887 77.5 1890 71.6 1893 72.5 1898 68.1 1903 76.1

1907 84.7 1912 84.9 1919 83.0 1920 79.2 May, 1924 77.4 Dec, 1924 78.8 1928 75.6 1930 82.0 July, 1932 84.1 Nov, 1932 80.6 ***1933 88.8*** 1949 78.5 1953 86.0 1957 87.8 1961 87.7 1965 86.8 1969 86.7 1972 91.1 1976 90.7 1980 88.6 1983 89.1 1987 84.3 1990 77.8 1994 79.0 1998 82.2 2002 79.1 2005 77.7 2009 70.8 2013 71.5 2017 76.2 ***Election considered fraudulent, invalid Source: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung; Pew Research Center

Following the establishment of the Weimar Republic, and including the newly enfranchised female citizenry, the elections of 1919 yielded a participation rate of 83%. Voter participation remained largely stable in the Weimar Republic, despite the political circumstances becoming largely unstable. Participation was lowest for the May 4th, 1924 election following the

“dire economic situation” and corresponding hyperinflation of the German Mark. The highest recorded turnout in the Weimar Republic was in 1933 at 88.8%, though this election was marred

10 by “numerous irregularities and infringements of rights” as they were “subject to the National

Socialists’ policy of repression and intimidation” (Deutscher Bundestag 2006). This election indeed already took place after Hitler’s seizure of power on January 30th, 1933, and for these reasons has not been deemed free or fair, thus leaving the July 31st, 1932 election as that with the highest turnout at 84.1%. Turnout was overall higher in the latter, yet more tumultuous years of the Weimar Republic, which suggests that the greater urgency to bring about political stability might have compelled a greater interest in getting to the polls. Similarly, the last election prior to the outbreak of World War I saw the highest rate of voter participation in the German Empire at

84.9%, which solidified the Social Democrats (SPD) as the then-strongest party prior to the suspension of elections after commencement of the war (Deutscher Bundestag 2005).

Following the collapse of National Socialism in Germany, the BRD was founded on May

23rd, 1949 with elections scheduled for the coming August. As with the founding of the German

Empire, the lowest rate of voter participation prior to the reunification of Germany occurred in the first election following the republic’s establishment, though at a rate of 78.5%. (Debus

2016). The highest rate came in 1972 when a full 91.1% of registered voters went to the polls amidst unrest from the student-run extra-parliamentary opposition (APO), several attacks by the

Red Army Faction (RAF) in May earlier that year, and Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik (Deutsche

Welle Staff 2007). The election was indeed called a year earlier than it should have been due to

Brandt’s invocation of the Basic Law’s Article 68, allowing the Chancellor to “call new elections within sixty days” (Laux 1973, 507). This also marked the first time in the history of the BRD that the Bundestag was dissolved and elections were called early. With so many critical issues at the fore, it’s hardly a wonder why turnout was so high—indeed, the highest rate the country has seen in its electoral history.

Following reunification, the highest turnout came in the 1998 election, which resulted in the SPD taking power in coalition with Alliance ‘90/The Greens under the first Schröder government.5 All things considered, voter turnout since reunification otherwise has hovered in the 70s, with the 76.15% turnout rate in 2017 being the highest since the 2005 election (Debus

2016). With the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s entry into parliament being the greatest concern to some voters (but triumph to others), it remains to be seen how this change in the parliament’s dynamic will impact future turnout since the AfD’s largest bulk of support came from people who either did not vote in the 2013 election, followed by those who already supported them in that year’s election (Tagesschau 2017).

The Trends Throughout United States History

Figure 1: Graphed Trends in US Presidential and Midterm Voter Turnout

Source: United States Elections Project (Participation measured as rates of all voting-eligible citizens)

5 That this was the only time that a new SPD government has been elected post-reunification plays anecdotally into the idea that higher turnout produces more left-leaning results, yet does not confirm such a pattern by itself.

The history of the United States is not as easy to break into periods as there were no such defining breaks in its history compared to Germany’s—save for perhaps the Civil War—yet the trends will still reveal fluctuations in voter participation based on internal and external political occurrences. In the early days of the republic, voter participation in presidential election years was abysmal. During the War of 1812, the participation rate in that election jumped to 40.4%, but otherwise averaged a meager 18.48% from the 1789 election though that of 1824 (McDonald

2018). However, by 1824, the so-called “Virginia dynasty” of presidential leadership, which included many of the founding fathers, was coming to its end (Mintz and McNeil 2018). Due to the “strong sectional character” of each of the two dominant political parties, there was no real competition between them, but rather regional rule—with the Federalists dominating New

England and the Democratic-Republicans more dominant in the periphery of the nascent United

States (Mintz and McNeil 2018). Once their direct locational influence began to fade, the parties filled the void in competition for one another’s would-be supporters, thus likely increasing voter interest in the political process.

Table 3: Charted Voter Turnout in US Presidential and Midterm Elections Year United States Presidential VEP Turnout Rate Year United States VEP Midterm Turnout Rate 1789 11.6 1790 21.6 1792 6.3 1794 25 1796 20.1 1798 36 1800 32.3 1802 42 1804 23.8 1806 45.8 1808 36.8 1810 49.8 1812 40.4 1814 52.8 1816 16.9 1818 41.1 1820 10.1 1822 44.7 1824 26.9 1826 50.1 1828 57.3 1830 55.7 1832 57 1834 63 1836 56.5 1838 70.8 1840 80.3 1842 61.8

1844 79.2 1846 60.3 1848 72.8 1850 60.5 1852 69.5 1854 66.1 1856 79.4 1858 69.1 1860 81.8 1862 65.1 1864 76.3 1866 71.4 1868 80.9 1870 67 1872 72.1 1874 65 1876 82.6 1878 65.2 1880 80.5 1882 65.7 1884 78.2 1886 63.9 1888 80.5 1890 64.6 1892 75.8 1894 67.4 1896 79.6 1898 60.1 1900 73.7 1902 55.6 1904 65.5 1906 51.3 1908 65.7 1910 52 1912 59 1914 50.4 1916 61.8 1918 39.9 1920 49.2 1922 35.7 1924 48.9 1926 32.9 1928 56.9 1930 36.7 1932 56.9 1934 44.5 1936 61 1938 46.6 1940 62.4 1942 33.9 1944 55.9 1946 38.8 1948 52.2 1950 43.6 1952 62.3 1954 43.5 1956 60.2 1958 45 1960 63.8 1962 47.7 1964 62.8 1966 48.7 1968 62.5 1970 47.3 1972 56.2 1974 39.1 1976 54.8 1978 39 1980 54.2 1982 42 1984 55.2 1986 38.1 1988 52.8 1990 38.4 1992 58.1 1994 41.1 1996 51.7 1998 38.1 2000 54.2 2002 39.5

2004 60.1 2006 40.4 2008 61.6 2010 41 2012 58.6 2014 36.7 2016 60.1 2018 50.3

Another trend that existed in the early days of the republic that no longer applies is that of distinctly higher voter turnout for midterm elections in comparison to those of each directly previous presidential election—with the exception of the 1830 midterm election, which saw turnout fall by about 1.5 points compared to the 1828 general election (McDonald 2018). While this phenomenon is perplexing from a modern perspective, the trend was borne out of the now antiquated policy of enfranchising only free, property-owning men. Because these property owners mostly concerned themselves with congressional affairs as the presidency was not as powerful earlier in its history, turnout to elect the president—even though they still coincided with congressional elections—did not seem to generate as much enthusiasm. Furthermore, after most states “repealed property qualifications in the 1820s,” midterm voting began to drop heavily in popularity as the parties shifted their focus to appealing to non-property owners in an effort to capture the presidency as more politically advantageous in a now country-wide, multi- party system (DeSilver 2014). The change occurred rapidly, and by 1840, only “Louisiana,

Rhode Island, and Virginia restricted…suffrage” to white, male property owners (Mintz and

McNeil 2018). In that year alone, turnout surged to a rate “60% higher” than the 1836 election.

Which meant participation “topped 80%” in the now more-widely enfranchised American electorate (DeSilver 2014).

All things considered, when looking at the trends in the data, there doesn’t appear to be a distinct change between antebellum participation rates, those during Reconstruction, and those of the so-called Gilded Age. Despite the relative consistency of high voter turnout patterns across

15 these three periods, participation does taper off slightly until the turn of the century, at which point there is a distinct, sustained decline in voter turnout that occurs until reaching a nadir in the mid-1920s, from which that decline has yet to recover itself—the 2018 midterms notwithstanding. Some of this drop may be partially attributed to the wider enfranchisement of the less affluent and less powerful members American populace that took place during this era.

For example, the United States experienced a watershed moment when it legally granted voting rights to all male citizens regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” under in the Constitution (Amendment 15, Sec. 1). This amendment came five years after the

13th amendment abolished slavery, which correspondingly rendered the Three-Fifths

Compromise obsolete. The amendment embedded the enfranchisement of millions of former, male slaves into the Constitution. However, the history surrounding black enfranchisement has obviously been fraught with voter suppression efforts, especially in the South. For example, although “67% of the black adult men [in Mississippi] were registered to vote in 1867, by 1892 only four percent were registered” (Constitutional Rights Foundation 2019). This plunge in the number of registered, black voters followed southern state governments’ attempts to suppress black enfranchisement through various acts of electoral attrition—such as imposing literacy tests or poll taxes (Constitutional Rights Foundation 2019).6 Indeed, in Mississippi (and the South as a whole) “[literacy tests] were used to prevent African Americans from registering to vote [at all]”

(Smithsonian Institution 2019). The fact that the registration rate among African Americans free- fell to four percent in just 25 years shows how effective a tactic the inherently biased and intentionally difficult tests were. Those enforcing them clearly managed to disenfranchise black

6 Such voter suppression measures also disillusioned some poor, white voters but unambiguously affected black voters disproportionately in states where they were implemented (Smithsonian Institution 2019).

16 voters in spite of the stipulations of the 15th Amendment. There is thus one explanation for the slight decline in turnout occurring during these years.

Another part of the decline can be contributed to the 1920 passage of the 19th

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibited the abridgement of a citizen’s right to vote “on account of sex,” thus enfranchising a full half of the American population. However, it was far from immediate that women started voting as often as men, and it is only “since the

1980s [that women began to at times] surpass” the voting rates of men. Initially, the lack of voter participation among older women had to be gradually “mitigated” by younger women who had to become “socialized” to “use their new [right]” (Franklin, et al. 2004, 124; Smith-Crocco, Barr-

Brooks, n.d.). Nowadays, the turnout rate for women is routinely “higher than” that of their male counterparts (Smith-Crocco and Barr-Brooks, n.d.). Therefore, the plunge and stead evening out of voter rates can partially be attributed to this phenomenon.

Accordingly, such a period of “socialization must normally transpire” before a newly enfranchised section of the electorate begins to participate in the system in the way that already accustomed groups so do.7 As such, the practical enfranchisement of black Americans was an apparently fraught process that still has not produced a rate of voter participation that is in line with the white electorate, but improvements have indeed been made. Black voters have begun achieving a certain level of “parity” with white voters, though they have tended to vote at a lower rate than white voters even in modern times. However, the exception to this trend came in the

2008 and 2012 elections, where Barack Obama was a presidential candidate, which led to a jump in black turnout well over that of white voters. However, black participation subsequently fell back down to below white voter turnout rates in the 2016 election (MIT Election Lab 2019). This

7 This adjustment period did not seem to occur in Germany following the commencement of women’s suffrage.

17 phenomenon demonstrates the way in which identity politics can help shape voter behavior, yet this circumstantial occurrence obviously does not offer a sustained level of engagement with political institutions as would theoretically be ideal.

Overall, the largest movements in voter trends appear to come at times of seismic shifting in each country’s political landscape, such as significant expansions in enfranchisement (with more pronounced shifts on the US side),8 or at times of political and social tensions in each country. Otherwise, the trends tend to remain pretty stable, with no large shifts from election to election outside of these exceptions. Indeed, one of the prime examples of heightened election participation at a time of political tension comes from the former DDR, when the first free elections to the regime’s Volkskammer were held on March 18th, 1990. An astonishing “93.4% of all eligible voters” took part in that election, though unfortunately the so-called new

Bundesländer that make up that former region now consistently lag behind the old ones in voter participation (Wissenschaftliche Dienste 2015, 5). All the same, a more acute analysis of the more minor variations in voter turnout would require much more detailed research.

However, while acknowledging that each presidential race is unique and that voter participation will hardly ever boil down to being responsive solely to disconcerting contemporary events, some fluctuation can of course be attributed to it. If one takes even the

2018 midterm congressional elections as an example—where 50.3% of eligible voters cast ballots,9 one can see that the cause for this was not a sudden mass movement toward creating greater ease of access to the ballot, but rather due to an eagerness within the electorate to respond to the Trump presidency—whether in stark opposition to him or in order to buffer his

8 Save for the passage of the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1971, which lowered the voting age to eighteen. It does not appear to have had any significant impact on the voter turnout rate in the United States.

9 The largest participation rate since the 1914 midterm elections, where 50.4% of eligible voters cast ballots.

18 administration against that opposition. Indeed, the 13.6-point increase in the 2018 congressional elections’ voter participation rate over the 36.7% that took part in the 2014 midterms makes that jump in voter participation from one midterm to the next the largest in the nation’s history. That surge thus signals how significant a factor the raw motivation to vote based on contemporary developments can be in determining turnout. That is, it is not merely a matter of civic duty.

How Voter Registration Works in Each Country

One of the major—even defining—differences in electoral policy between the United

States and Germany is that the United States does not, as a whole, conduct automatic voter registration, whereas Germany has a blanket policy of doing just that. In the United States, one must actively seek to register themselves at any number of government offices where this service is provided, “except [in] North Dakota,” where one is not required to register themselves to vote at all. Locations for registration include local elections offices, the Department of Motor

Vehicles (DMV), military recruitment centers, and social services offices. One can now also register to vote online, if one is an inhabitant of one of the “37 states [or] the District of

Columbia” where such registration is allowed (USAGov 2019).10

It is important to note that registration for elections in the United States did not begin at the outset of the republic. As with most election policies in the United States, individual registration was implemented on a state-by-state basis, with Massachusetts enacting “the first registration law in [the] country” in 1800 (Rothman 2016). This law required one to register with a local elections official in order to participate at the polls. Amid concern that the organizational

10 A U.S. citizen registers to vote with and within the respective state where they have residency, as state governments are the entities that ultimately certify elections—not the federal government—even for elections to the U.S. Congress.

19 policy would impend some voters’ access to the ballot, the law was challenged in court as an unconstitutional impediment to voting. However, the law was upheld in 1832 when the

Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that requiring voter registration was not a violation of the right to vote so long as a “voter [is] given the appropriate opportunity” to register oneself

(Rothman 2016).

It was not until after 1860 that the policy began to gain traction in most other states. As important as it may be to keep a roster of eligible voters, the system was often abused in two ways: initially, assessors proactively went through neighborhoods enrolling citizens, though they often happened to “miss poorer people.” In some places where one had to rely on their own initiative to register, registration was arbitrarily required only “in areas with large minority populations” (Rothman 2016). As such, what could be otherwise deemed a perfectly acceptable regulation had historically been exploited in order to attempt to hinder certain people from participating in the electoral process. Now, however, registration has largely been made readily available throughout the United States.

In a major Pushto expand registration, the ability to register outside of engagement with a local elections office was created by legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in 1993 known as the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). The law was passed largely on partisan lines by the Democratic-controlled Congress and signed into law by President Clinton on May 20th

(Crocker 2013, 1). Dubbed the “motor voter law”—it compelled a vast majority of states to allow citizens the ability to register themselves for elections at local motor vehicle agencies, by mail-in application, or while dealing with one of the aforementioned public agencies. Those states that did not have to comply were those that already allowed for same-day voter registration or “had no voter-registration requirements” at the time (Department of Justice 2017).

However, in an extremely recent development in the United States, certain states have passed legislation allowing for qualified citizens to be automatically registered to vote once they engage with a certain government entity—most notably the DMV. The National Conference of

State Legislatures (NCSL) has compiled a list of seventeen states and the District of Columbia that have reported to the conference that they each have, at present time, initiated some form of automatic voter registration, which exist at various stages of implementation. This list does not include North Dakota, as the state has reported that it requires no registration for voter eligibility—which will be analyzed further later in the text. According to NCSL, thirteen states have initiated or instituted automatic voter registration via legislative means (including three which even initiated the process as a result of approved ballot questions since 201611), whereas four others have simply initiated or implemented automatic voter registration at the direction of authorized state officials.

An important distinction must, however, here be made regarding as how the term

‘automatic voter registration’ can be defined, because the German system of automatic voter registration is even more automatic than the system various U.S. states have been introducing.

One can consider the German system more automatic because the register which contains all the names of those eligible to vote in any given jurisdiction is kept at the local citizens’ office, which is then routinely forwarded to the elections office for that jurisdiction prior to any given election

(Bundeswahlleiter 2019). In principle, and as required by law, a child must be registered by their parents or guardians within their municipality as per routine civil registration. Because the

11 Alaska approved Measure 1 in 2016, whereas Michigan and Nevada in 2018 approved Ballot Proposal 3 and Ballot Question Number 5, respectively.

21 citizens’ office will then already have record of their existence, the updated register of voters will include the child’s identity once they have reached their eighteenth year.12

The legal basis for the German policy dates back to 1956, when the option was introduced into the Bundesgesetzblatt (federal legal code). If one is for whatever reason not registered in the voter index, one is allowed to apply for voter certification as long as one can otherwise prove their eligibility to vote (Art. 4, Sec. 18). The proactive measure means that in order to be registered to vote, a German citizen need not even take the extra step of having to make contact with a government office. The task of registering to vote is effectively done for them as opposed to one having to take their own initiative to register. The only exceptions occur when one naturalizes themselves as a German citizen or is born abroad to at least one German parent (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge 2018). Such an approach can be contrasted with the policy in the United States, because one may not need to go to the DMV or any other government office authorized to register voters. It is, however, highly unlikely that one will not be registered into the civil registry upon their birth. Hence, the regulation effectively establishing one’s voter registration from birth could help explain why turnout is relatively higher in

Germany than in the United States.

The North Dakota Connection

North Dakota is unique among the fifty U.S. states and D.C. in that it is the only jurisdiction in the U.S. that does not require its voters to register in much the same way as

Germany does not require as much. This policy, however, has not translated into particularly

12 In Germany, one is required to notify the citizens’ office if one moves, so information would already be transferred over to the new jurisdiction on that account.

22 high turnout among North Dakota voters.13 Despite North Dakota in 1951 becoming the only state where it is not required to register to vote, there are still hurdles to gaining access to the ballot. In 2013, the legislature passed its first voter ID law, which had the effect of making such ballot access disproportionately more difficult for the Native American population in the state. In

October, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a legal challenge to the law requiring voters to present an ID displaying a residential address. Native American voters in the state were especially disadvantaged as they normally rely on P.O. boxes for mail and that “most tribal IDs do not have residential addresses printed on them,” according to the plaintiffs in the case

(Weinberg 2018). The decision compelled tribe officials to scramble in order to issue new IDs to tribe members so that they may be able to vote in time.

However, the secretary of state’s office also allowed tribe members without a residential address to “call their county’s 911 coordinator, describe the location of their home, and…quickly be assigned an address,” which would then be listed in official documentation that would be mailed to them and be considered valid “alongside” an otherwise insufficient ID card (Astor

2018). Although state officials argued the measure “is needed to prevent voter fraud,” the introduction of the legislation only came in 2013 after Heidi Heitkamp was elected junior senator over 60 years after North Dakota abolished the requirement to register for elections (Astor 2018).

Therefore, while many in the Native American community were disadvantaged by this law, they manifested a surge in turnout—and even “more than doubled” the number of voters in the North

Dakota side of the Standing Rock Reservation” (Levine 2018). Such phenomena reveal that while it is intrinsically unjust to institute policy that is unequivocally meant to disillusion minority voters, the threat to their legal rights was enough to spur them to action, which is

13 North Dakota is considered solid red in the Electoral College, which plays a major role in inducing disparate turnout among U.S. states, which will be discussed later in the text.

23 ultimately, arguably a positive realization. It remains to be seen whether such political engagement will be maintained, though it is safe to conclude that high levels of discontent will yield greater levels of political participation in the communities where it is present.

Fundamental Differences in Legislatures’ Structures

Distinct variations in how representatives are elected in each system shape incentives to vote. One of the key differences between electing delegates to each state’s legislative body is that electing representatives to the House in the United States is carried out by direct election of candidates from the 435 House districts in U.S. territory that are represented by voting members.

This system means that whichever candidate gains a plurality of votes in any given district becomes the representative of that district alongside every other one to make up the full voting delegation to the House. In Germany, however, there is an additional component of proportional representation that balances out the potential incongruity between party preference and representation in any given legislative house that comes with a direct representation system. As such, though the Federal Republic of Germany is divided into 299 constituencies, there are in fact a base 598 seats in the Bundestag into which delegates are allocated. The first 299 seats are filled in the same way seats in the U.S. House are filled. The other 299 seats are then filled based on the party preference expressed by the voter with a second vote they are allotted on their ballot.

By using the Sainte-Laguë/Schepers method of calculation to distribute the seats proportionally according to the second vote tally, but without denying any directly-elected candidate the seat to which they are entitled based on the first vote, the Bundestag is assembled with usually more seats than 598 due to the need to add “balancing seats” to ensure both party proportionality and that directly-elected candidates are honored based on the votes cast (Deutscher Bundestag 2013).

This key difference in how the more directly representative legislative body in each state is compiled can be one factor in explaining why voter participation in Germany is routinely higher than in the United States. By sheer construction of the system, the ability to cast a vote for a party in Germany ensures that each individual vote contributes to an overall total for any party to get into parliament, should they at least acquire five percent of the national vote count or win direct mandates from at least three individual constituencies. This means that the proportional party preference of the entire electoral is more or less reflected in the Bundestag’s composition, whereas in the U.S. system, one party could theoretically win a bare majority (or plurality) in all legislative districts, but then subsequently capture every seat in the legislature—thus leaving the minority party completely shut out of representation.

Though such a phenomenon is unlikely to happen on the national level, the potential is there. Although this system leads to lopsided representation from individual U.S. states, where minority parties have extremely few seats relative to their overall vote share. Using California— the nation’s most populous state—as an example, the Democratic party won 65.74% of the popular vote for U.S. House delegates in the 2018 general election, but came away with 46 of

California’s 53 House seats, which makes up a whopping 86.79% of the delegation for that state.

This lopsidedness balances out other smaller states such as Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, etc. where there are only Republican at-large delegates representing these areas despite all the total votes cast for Democrats across the region. Indeed, the overall composition of the U.S. House roughly corresponded to the outcome of the national popular vote for the House, which amounted to roughly 52.5% for Democratic candidates and 45.8% for Republican candidates. In a truly proportional system, they would have attained between 228 and 229 seats in the House

25 instead of the 235 seats the party won in the election (New York Times 2019). However, this does not address the serious problem that gerrymandering presents in the U.S. electoral system.

The 2012 House election is one example of how gerrymandering not only shifts the delegation of representatives in one party’s favor, but can push that shift across the all-important

50-percent-plus-one majority a party needs to control any legislative body. In that election to the

U.S. House, the Democratic party received “1.1 million more votes” than their Republican counterparts, yet Republicans still came away with a 234-201 majority thanks to the much larger amount of control Republicans got over the redistricting process after their massive election gains in 2010 (Palmer and Cooper 2012). As such, it is one thing to get a few more or fewer seats than one is proportionally entitled to in an election, but it is entirely another once that imbalance pushes a party across an important threshold such as a majority or even a supermajority, which can have far-reaching legislative consequences. Though gerrymandering and districting as a component of elections impacting voter initiative to go to the polls will later be addressed at- depth in this text, the example needed to be made to mark a comparison with the German system.

In contrast to the America system, because of the proportional method with which seats are allocated in the Bundestag, gerrymandering is rendered effectively ineffective. For example, in the 2017 election to the Bundestag, the conservative CDU/CSU party (Christian Democratic

Union/Christian Social Union), won a plurality of seats at 246 of the 709 seats ultimately needed for the sake of creating balance in the election results—a full 111 more than the base number allotted! The 246 seats were awared based off a combination of the party’s 231 directly-elected candidates and the 32.9 percent of the nationwide secondary vote they received, which gave them a further fifteen seats after the results were proportioned. That allotment of 246 seats may not initially seem quite proportional as that percentage comes out to nearly 34.7% of available

26 seats, yet—with the German system—one must take into account that all the smaller parties that received votes—though did not meet the five-percent threshold to gain entry into the

Bundestag—were then taken out of the equation. Votes for such parties amounted to five of the overall votes cast in the election. Once one multiplies 34.7 by the remaining 0.95, one gets back to roughly 32.9—the percentage that Union indeed received from the secondary vote

(Bundeswahlleiter 2017). Such as system means that even if ruling parties attempted to gerrymander districts in their favor, the secondary vote would always balance out representation to the proportional party preference the German electorate expresses.

Looking at these differences from a broader perspective, one can see how proportional versus direction election systems measure up to one another in terms of overall democratic participation. When comparing systems of government in which representatives to their respective legislatures are elected solely on plurality-vote direct mandates, there is an overall lower level of participation in national elections than in states with proportional representation.

Proportional representation systems consistently average about two to three percent greater than those where competition ultimately occurs at the constituent-level, though still with national concerns in mind. In fact, the larger the margin of victory of one candidate over another in a plurality-based constituency, the larger the resulting drop in voter turnout for that constituency in a subsequent election, on average (Franklin, et al. 2004, 137). For example, if a candidate garners a margin of victory that is greater than ten percentage points in a direct election system, the following election will on average see a 5.7% drop in voter participation for that district, barring any unusual circumstances, of course. Quite simply, the more competitive a district or an election, the greater the turnout one can expect. Conversely, the less competitive a district is, the less likely any side of the competition is going to be invested in the race.

The Difference Between Having an Electoral College and Not Having One

Depending on to whom one speaks, the Electoral College is either the bane of the

American presidential election system or its saving grace. Regardless, the nature of the college’s presence in the American electoral system does have a calculable impact on encouraging greater voter turnout within certain states and on creating a lack of incentive to vote in others.

Considering the designation of certain states with a fairly, evenly split electorate as so-called swing states, these states tend to receive much greater attention from presidential hopefuls on the campaign trail with the goal of winning those states’ electoral college votes. These votes are not taken for granted in the way those votes from states that are considered square in the corner of one party’s candidate. Though the Electoral College only has authority over the selection of the president, its effect on turnout inevitably pushes up voter turnout for the various House elections

(MIT Election Lab 2019)14.

When deciding which states count as ‘swing,’ National Public Radio considered certain states as such for the 2016 election according to its own analysis. If even not completely in line with what one may otherwise consider contemporarily conventional, the trend they point out in the correlation between more competitive swing states and higher voter turnout holds true. For example, one might consider Utah to be solidly red in its leanings, yet they considered the state a battleground one, albeit one that is a complete outlier in their correlation at the second-lowest turnout rate. New Hampshire, on the other hand, which is generally accepted as a long- identifiable swing state, had the second-highest voter turnout of any state in the Union. However, the overall trend is still apparent with ten of the fifteen states with the highest rates of voter turnout belonging to the category of swing state. However, while one might dispute NPR’s

14 Their research suggests that 1-3% of voters elect a candidate for Congress, but do not choose a preference for president.

28 designation of Minnesota as a battleground state as it has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every presidential election since 1976, Clinton did win the state by only a 1.5% spread in 2016, which demonstrates how partisan, electoral designations such ‘solid, lean, and toss-up’ are hardly finite distinctions. All things considered, those battleground states for the

Electoral College votes also likely have highly competitive Senate and House races, which would further push participation up for the sake of determining which party might control either house of Congress.

In Germany, it is the members of the Bundestag who elect the Chancellor themselves.

Considering that the hybrid partially-direct, but ultimately proportional representation system allows each vote to matter as long as a party reaches the five-percent threshold15, there is scant potential for a voter to feel like their vote doesn’t matter or, conversely, matters more based on which Bundesland (German federal state or land) they inhabit. Although there are differences in participation rates among the Bundesländer, these differences can identify voters’ perceived relevance to the election process based more on affluence rather than relevance due to the political situation the Electoral College creates. Though a candidate for Chancellor might travel to specific locations to appeal to a certain class of voters, they ultimately must do this while keeping a large swath of the electorate in mind rather than zeroing on a limited number of voters in a limited number of states deemed more relevant by their ‘swing state’ status. Furthermore, the coalition-building process—while inherently not as stable as the U.S. system—allows the

Chancellor to be elected by a majority of the Bundestag, which is reflected by the votes of the

German citizenry.

15 This threshold did not exist in the Weimar Republic, yet this does not appear to have had an effect on turnout rates as the threshold is quite low, yet helps to prevent the Bundestag from becoming too fractious.

The Electoral College, on the other hand, was designed not with the sovereignty of the people in mind, but rather that of each state as a unit. Indeed, if the Electoral College does not produce an outright majority in favor of any presidential candidate, the election moves to the

House where “the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote” (US Const. art. II, sec. 1). This means that the delegates from each must agree to a candidate much in the same way that most states allocate their electoral votes in the first instance, anyway. On the presumption that states should be the ultimate administrators of their own elections, the Electoral College functions as it should. However, this had led to the overall will of the people as regards the popular vote not aligning with the outcome of the Electoral

College results a total of five times in U.S. history—twice in the past five presidential elections alone (Kentish 2012). This discrepancy can therefore raise doubts about the necessity of voting for one candidate in all other parts of the country when the results of the presidential election are practically determined by the voters in only a handful of districts in a handful of states. Though the 2016 election produced the largest popular vote-loss disparity for the Electoral College winner in U.S. history, the system is embedded in the Constitution. It is therefore unlikely that the forces who wish to alter the college with the goal of making presidential elections more democratic in the future will be successful any time soon.

When Election Day Takes Place

Another potential impediment to casting a ballot could be the mere inability to get to the polls on the designated election day. In the United States, federal statutory law mandates that elections to the U.S. House of Representatives (and eventually to the Senate, as would later be incorporated due to the 17th Amendment) take place “on the Tuesday next after the first Monday

30 in November, in every even-numbered year” (Cornell Law School, n.d.)16. Since the 1845 passage of the legislation designating Tuesday as election day, American society has shifted from the more agrarian society it once was to one that is more urbanized, where people now largely work on Tuesdays as part of a routine work week. Given this reality, one can argue that generally being expected to work on this day cuts down on the potential for greater voter turnout.

Because of this concern, the United States Census Bureau conducted a survey of “about

19 million registered voters” who, for one reason or another, did not participate in the 2016 general election (Fortin 2018). In the survey, roughly 2.7 million people cited an inability to get to the polls on election day as the reason they did not vote—something that is not difficult to fathom considering not only work obligations, but other life demands that fall on weekdays, as well. All things considered, Tuesday was ultimately selected for election day because Sunday was not entertained as feasible due to observance of the Sabbath. Having elections on Monday would not have given voters enough time to travel to one of the much fewer election locations available back then to cast one’s vote. Thus, Tuesday became the settled date as

“Wednesday…was often market day” for farmers. Nowadays, there are still “15 states” where one is obliged to vote in person at the polls on said Tuesday—and without the “opportunity to vote early, or by an absentee ballot, or by mail,” which means voting is categorically less convenient in these states as compared to others where any one or all of those options are made available (Simmons-Duffin 2012).

In order to accommodate the tight timeframe, some states allow people to take a limited number of paid hours off of work, if they cannot otherwise make time to vote that day. Other states may also allow limited time to be taken off of work, though without compensation for the

16 Voting for electors in the College is constitutionally-mandated to take place on “the same [day] throughout the United States (Art. 2, Sec. 1).

31 hours missed. Twenty states, however, do not have such a provision, which means one can theoretically “be fired” for not reporting to work and instead opting to vote. A potential solution to this time disparity among the states is to have election day legally declared a national holiday in which most people would then have the day free from work to vote at their leisure. However, such a proposal is yet to gain full congressional and presidential approval. A bill containing such a provision has been “introduced in the [House of the] new [116th] Congress,” though it appears it will not be brought to the floor of the Senate (Dastagir 2019). Though the move would put the

United States in a similar election circumstance as most other OECD countries, it is no guarantee that election turnout would increase. All the same, the Census Bureau survey findings do suggest at least a modest increase would result. One can make Holly Jackson’s argument that making election day a holiday and associating it with “festivities…[would encourage] the practice of civic participation” as was done in the high turnout decades of the 1840s – 1890s (Dastagir

2019). Ashley Spillane, former president of Rock the Vote, might agree with this assessment as she insists a “culture of participation” must be promoted in order to get citizens engaged (Fortin

2018).

In Germany, by contrast, election day has been either “a Sunday or public holiday” since it was written into Article 22 of the constitution of the Weimar Republic (Wissenschaftliche

Dienste 2014, 5). When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in 1949, the distinction remained law, though was not included in the Basic Law itself. However, later that same year, the Bundestag determined that “election day [shall be on] a Sunday,” and has remained so since

(Wissenschaftliche Dienste 2014, 6). Germany’s policy is shared by twenty other members of the

EU, with an additional five members holding their elections with either the single election day or one of two election days landing on a weekend day. Though each country has their own unique

32 relationship with elections, all but three EU member states have a higher turnout rate than the

United States when comparing the rates of voter turnout among the voting-age populations of each country. The EU members states that fall below the United States in participation rates (and do not mandate compulsory voting) are Slovenia, Poland, and Latvia (DeSilver 2018). Therefore, when one acknowledges the results of the Census Bureau’s survey alongside the decisions of most fellow democracies to hold their election day on a non-working day, an association can clearly be made between higher turnout and greater amount of free time to cast a ballot.

Do Policies Simplifying the Registration Process Produce Greater Participation?

With self-initiated registration proving to be the crucial threshold needed to be crossed in order to participate regularly in elections, many states in the U.S. have implemented or begun implementing ‘automatic voter registration’ of prospective voters since 2015. However, with a full 15 of the 17 jurisdictions in the United States where this policy has begun being implemented after the 2016 presidential election, a presidential election has under the new policy. At this time, it is therefore difficult to assess the impact of the new policies on voter participation in those states (USAGov 2019). However, one policy that gets close to automatic registration is that of same-day voter registration, which has been passed into law in seventeen states as well as the District of Columbia. Such legislation allows “any qualified resident…to

[both] register to vote and cast a ballot” on any day when voting takes place in that jurisdiction

(NCSL 2019).

When analyzing the data regarding voting rates by state, it is apparent that same-day voter registration corresponds to higher rates of voting. Indeed, “the six states with the highest turnout” have all implemented same-day registration (Kurtzleben 2016). As a matter of fact, all

33 states that allow same-day voter registration have turnout rates higher than the overall U.S. average, which sat at just below sixty percent in 2016. The only jurisdiction allowing same-day registration that performed at a below-average rate was the District of Columbia, whose special status as the capital may play a role in its lower turnout rate. As per the U.S. Constitution, the

District of Columbia has as of 1961 been entitled to elect “a [proportional] number of electors” in just the same way as any other state, yet can be entitled to “no…more than the least populous state,” which has historically meant choosing three electors for the Electoral College

(Amendment 23, Sec. 1). However, D.C. has no representation in the Senate nor any voting representation in the House. Given that D.C. leans overwhelmingly Democratic, lacks in federal representation in Congress, and exhibits an extremely predictable outcome in the selection of presidential electors, lower voter turnout among its electorate hardly comes as a surprise. In contrast to the patchwork of registration laws in the United States, one does not necessarily need to worry about whether they need to register themselves for an election in Germany—as potential voters are usually already accounted for in their local civil registries.

In consideration of the various factors that influence a person’s decision to go vote, it does not appear that the 1993 Voter Registration Act has compelled the increase in voter participation the law’s crafters had hoped for. Although more people have been registered under the act’s provisions, there has only been a very modest increase in voting, and even that has been subject to ebbs and flows. As such, it is “still not clear that the act has had significant impact” on increasing voter turnout on a more permanent basis (Crocker 2013, 6). Attempting to engage the

American populace in the democratic process and turn them out to vote appears to entail much more than simply making the voting process easier. As will be elaborated upon further, it appears that being given an impetus to vote—as opposed to just handed the ability to do so—is the prime

34 determiner of whether one will in fact do so. Indeed, self-initiated voter registration reflects that exact reality, given the United States’ superior turnout rates when comparing rates among registered voters as opposed to the entire voting-eligible population. This means, however, that a large swath of voters in the United States are in one way or another not given this impetus in the same way that voters in other developed democracies are.

Voting by Mail in Germany vs. the United States

Although voting by mail has been increasingly utilized for its efficiency, one may only potentially select it as an option after one has already been registered to vote. The process and its impact will therefore be analyzed and considered in that context. As with other election-related policies, voting by mail in Germany is uniform for the whole country, whereas a patchwork of laws regulating its application change from state to state within the United States. While the laws in each country allowing one to submit their ballot by mail have been implemented at different times, they both have produced increasingly greater use of the option among people who already routinely vote. However, the option has not translated into any notable nor consistent jump in the overall turnout rate for federal legislative elections.

Since 2008, Germany’s law allowing its citizens to submit their ballot via post has been more liberal than those in the United States. Federal legislation was put into effect on 21 March of that year that allows Germans to apply for mail-in ballost, regardless of which Bundesland they live in and without any justification other than being listed in the voter registry (Fehndrich and Cantow 2008). Prior to this legislation, voting by mail was actually quite restricted, with allowances only made for those who could not physically make it to a polling station due to a work-related or otherwise justified absence from their constituency; recent move from the

35 community, or difficulties in movement resulting from illness, injury, or old age. Since the abolition of such restrictions, voting by mail has increased in Germany largely due to its apparent convenience. Though the ability to vote by mail was first introduced in Germany in 1957, the number of voters submitting their ballot by mail had been steadily increasing long before the

2008 liberalization—with just a small decline in the 1980s. This trend suggests that despite the law supposedly preventing citizens from voting by mail except in exceptional circumstances, an overall increasing number of people were making claim to exceptional circumstances, which, one could argue, was the impetus for eventually getting rid of the conditional requirements to vote by mail in the first place.

Overall, the rate of Germans voting by mail increased to a record 28.6% in the 2017 federal election (Thiel 2018, 12). The state of Bavaria has recently maintained the highest rate of voter participation via post with 35.3% of voters submitting their ballots in this way in 2013, preceding a small increase to 37.3% in 2017 (Theil 2018, 13; Dorn 2019). With consideration of the fact that despite the already positive rate of increase in voting by mail since the 1990 election, the rate of increase in vote-by-mail participation has already doubled within the past three federal elections occurring since liberalization of the law took effect (Thiel 2018, 12).

Though the turnout rate has increased since 2008, the voter turnout rates for elections in the

1990s and early 2000s were all absolutely higher than those after 2008, ranging from roughly 78 to 82 percent (Debus 2016). One can therefore conclude that shedding the excess requirements to be met in order to obtain a mail-in ballot has led to an accelerating rate of voters taking advantage of the option, yet it has not led to an increase in the rate of voter participation itself.

While it is difficult to predict whether the German government will at some time implement a policy authorizing automatic dispersal of ballots via post, such a policy has already

36 been implemented in three U.S. states. However, as is the case in Germany, the overall rate of voter participation in federal elections in the United States has not experienced a substantial increase due to the greater availability of mail-in ballots.

Indeed, the rules regarding voting by mail in the United States are a much greater patchwork than in Germany due to the predominantly state-level regulation of elections in the

United States. However, though there has been a steady increase in voting absentee or by mail since “California became the first state” to freely allow the option starting in 1980, this liberalization of voting rights has not led to a distinct increase in voter turnout for federal elections—just merely made the process more convenient for those already intending to vote

(MIT Election Lab 2019). Correspondingly, the national rate of people voting absentee in 2004 was 12.1%, whereas that number jumped to 23.6% by 2016, according to findings in the Election

Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS). However, the overall national turnout for the general election in each year happened to be exactly the same at 60.1 percent. The EAVS also found that even in states where one can opt to automatically receive their ballot via post, the majority actually “return their ballot in person,” rather than mailing it directly back through the postal service (Election Assistance Commission 2017).

Though one might understand this practice as defeating the purpose of voting by mail, one now has the leisure of filling out their ballot at home, while still ensuring that their ballot is delivered directly to poll workers. Such assurance perhaps also gives one the feeling that they more actively participated in the election by going to the polls on election day. As such, there is then something to be said about the appeal of the more involved nature of going to the polls to vote, which may further explain why the United States voting rate is exceptionally high among those citizens who have made the prescient effort to already register themselves.

For the seven states and the District of Columbia that allow voters to receive vote-by- mail ballots without special justification, there appears to be no correlation between this advantage and a greater rate of participation in those jurisdictions. For example, Hawaii and Utah show the lowest and second-lowest rates of participation, whereas Minnesota exhibits the highest rate, despite the shared policy. Together, all the remaining states actually hover around the lower-than average mark (Kurtzleben 2016). However, when looking at the three states that conducted an all-mail election for federal offices during the 2016 presidential election, they were among the top 15 states for voter turnout.17 It is, however, difficult to even draw a correlation there as the gap among the states’ turnout is still relatively wide. Furthermore, Colorado’s implementation of its all-mail voting system came only in 2013, which meant the only presidential election where this policy was in effect was 2016 (NCSL 2018).18 However, the state did see a modest increase from 70.6% turnout in 2012 to 71.3% in 2016 (Eason 2016), though it is difficult to attribute this bump solely to this change in policy. Colorado is also generally considered a swing state, thus making it more susceptible to a higher rate of voter turnout in contested elections.

Aside from Colorado, Oregon and Washington are the other two states that automatically mail all registered voters their ballots. However, the voter turnout rates in Oregon and

Washington tell a different story than that of Colorado. In the two most recent presidential elections (2012 and 2016), voter turnout in Oregon was 64% and 68%, respectively. Thus, despite the overall modest increase from 58.6% to 60.1% in voter turnout from 2012 to 2016, the increase in Oregon turnout proves that at least a somewhat greater level of voting enthusiasm

17 An all-mail election refers to an election where each registered voter is automatically mailed a ballot, yet still has the ability to vote in person at a designated center or drop off their voted ballot at such (NCSL).

18 Oregon passed its respective law in 2000, giving it more opportunity to become routine.

38 occurred. This jump makes it stand out as a more remarkable example of increased voter turnout considering that it was not a competitive swing state in either the presidential or the Senate contest that year (McElwee, et al. 2017). The participation rate suggests that a motivation beyond the typical factors could have been at play, including the greater ease with which one could access their ballot.

In Washington state, all-mail elections have been in place since 2011, which means the policy was active for the 2012 and 2016 elections, as well. Following implementation, there was an “aggregate [increase in] participation by two to four percentage points” within the state, but predominantly only for local elections, according to a study published by Cambridge Core

(Gerber, et al. 2013). Curiously enough, while the Washington Secretary of State’s published statistics show an over two percent increase in the number of individuals registered to vote after all-mail elections were implemented, there emerged an over three-percent drop in turnout between 2012 and 2016, which very closely resembles the three-percent overall drop in national turnout that took place between those two elections (McDonald 2018). This may make it seem that all-mail elections have not encouraged more people to vote, because for offices on the federal level, it did not have such an effect. Back in Oregon, however, the real increase in turnout has been at lower-level elections, “such as local elections or primaries,” which are important, but not applicable to the analysis done here (Karp and Banducci 2000, 227).

However, Gerber, et al.’s study does not seem to prove the same result as it claims an overall increase of voter participation in the full range of elections has occurred despite the numbers for the Washington Secretary of State’s office showing a decrease in participation.

Complimenting their findings, Franklin, et al.’s research on vote-by-mail trends across twenty- two countries shows that vote-by-mail elections do not “cause turnout to rise” in places where it

39 was introduced. In fact, as the Washington example shows, there appears to follow a decrease in turnout “quite contrary to expectations” (Franklin, et al. 2004, 136-137). However, too many factors—such as candidate appeal, state significance to the Electoral College, and registration requirements—can influence elections from year to year. All things considered, the states’ relative level of affluence—ranking number 13 among the 50—might in and of itself be a defining factor in voter turnout—one that is discussed in depth later in the text (McCann 2019).

Differences in Voter Turnout by State in Each Republic

In trying to answer the question of ‘impetus’ regarding that which routinely compels voters to show up for an election, one can analyze even more localized turnout rates for clues.

Upon closer inspection, it appears that the more affluent a state is19, the more likely its populace will exhibit a higher rate of voter turnout (MIT Election Lab 2019). While this phenomenon corresponds to conventional knowledge regarding voter behavior, it shows that even state policy simplifying the registration and voting process does not appear to have the positive, across-the- board impact one might hope for. For example, Germany is governed by an effectively uniform election policy—with but tiny variations between the Bundesländer. However, when one breaks down voter turnout by Bundesland, there is a notable, though not gargantuan range in the turnout rate among the various Bundesländer. The expected pattern holds—with the wealthier, more affluent states of Baden-Württemberg and Bayern having registered turnout at above 78% in the

2017 Bundestag election, while the poorer, former DDR state of Sachsen-Anhalt comes in at just above only 68% turnout in said election (Thiel 2018, 4).

19 Affluence here is measured by average income and level of education attained in each state.

Figure 2: Voter Turnout by Bundesland, 2017 Bundestag Election

Indeed, after the city-state of Hamburg, Baden-Württemberg is the wealthiest state in terms of median income in Germany. Contrastingly, Sachsen-Anhalt earns the fifth-lowest of the

41 sixteen states with fellow former DDR state, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, having the lowest average income (Möthe 2018). Overall, the founding states of the BRD have a higher average turnout rate than those states of the former DDR (Thiel 2018, 4). Though these results corroborate the affluence factor in voter turnout, remnants of disillusionment with the undemocratic regime in the DDR could arguably have mild influence on why the turnout rate in the east of the country is still depressed, despite local voters’ strong turnout in 1990.

Figure 3: Voter Turnout by State, 2016 General Election

Because the election system in the United States functions so differently, breaking down the results by the affluence of each state becomes problematic because of the wide discrepancies in election policy as well as the influence of factors such as the Electoral College and the ‘first- past-the-post’ system of electing legislators. In terms of affluence, however, Minnesota’s supremely high rate of turnout can be then attributed to its relatively homogenous, non-Hispanic

42 white demographic at 81% of the overall populace (as of 2015) as well as its high level of wealth as the state with the 12th-highest average income at $68,388 (Minnesota State Demographic

Center 2015; McCann 2019). It also boasts the 4th-lowest poverty rate at 9.5%20 and ranks as the

8th most-educated state in the Union based on the rate of diploma or upper-education degree attainment (Suneson 2018; McCann 2019). If one compounds these factors with the politically- competitive nature of the state along with its provision for same-day registration, one can see how these factors alone would yield the high turnout rate that Minnesota exhibits. In 2016, the gap in turnout among U.S. states ran the gamut from as low as 43% in Hawaii to 74.8% in

Minnesota. One can thus see that there is a much wider gap in participation among U.S. states as compared to the approximately ten percent spread that exists among the German Bundesländer.

This data suggests there could be a generally greater affluence gap between U.S. states as compared to the German Bundesländer.

However, if one delves further into the turnout rate and breaks it down by county, one gets a much more nuanced picture of how affluence influences the chance that one will vote. As the state with the fourth highest level of income inequality in the United States, California reveals a correspondingly massive voter participation gap when turnout rates are broken down by county.21 The breakdown of voter participation in California corroborates the fact that more educated and higher-earning individuals vote at a higher rate—regardless of whether they are in the United States or in Germany (MIT Election Lab 2019). On the scale of county-level turnout in California for the 2016 election, Imperial County—the poorest according to adjusted gross

20 The national average of people of white, non-Hispanic origin is 60.7% of the general population (U.S. Census Bureau 2017). In the same year, the national average poverty rate was 13.4%.

21 Because elections in the United States are governed by state policy, this is the best comparison that can be drawn to German policy for the sake of analyzing the influence of affluence on voting behavior.

43 income (AGI) for 2015—turned in the seventh lowest rate of turnout among 58 counties at

50.26% of eligible voters, whereas Marin County turned in the highest turnout rate of 78.91% as the county with the correspondingly highest AGI in the state (California Franchise Tax Board

2018; Padilla 2016). This disparity suggests that although the state is governed by the same rules when it comes to exercising one’s right to vote, there are still wide differences in turnout based on the relative level of affluence an eligible voter has attained in each society—and a thereby relative level of perceived agency within the political system.22

Conclusion

Though participation rates in federal elections have fluctuated over time, the greatest level of participation in Germany came between the founding of the BRD in 1949 and the joining of the former states of the DDR into the BRD in 1990. In the United States, the highest rate came after the steady enfranchisement of all free men through 1840, yet prior to the wider enfranchisement of black men and subsequently women. One could argue that each of these periods represented a point in which each society was most committed to their idea of government and the maintenance of prevailing power structures. In the case of Germany, the fear of democratic collapse and descent into the cataclysmic horror that was the Holocaust is certainly still reinforced in the minds of the German electorate. This terror arguably urges commitment to democratic participation and thus more vigorous measures to ensure high voter participation— whether through social induction, administrative policy, or political structure. Indeed, the threat of losing one’s individual rights should one not act is certainly itself a motivator as many Native

22 Such findings therefore beg the question of how much relative affluence one has to attain in any given welfare regime or in absolute terms before they are considered more or less a reliable voter. Additionally, the difference in gaps between voter turnout rates in each country could be indicative of relative differences in inequality. These, however, are questions for other/further theses.

Americans in North Dakota realized after the passage of that state’s voter ID law. However, this phenomenon does not seem to apply to the new Bundesländer that experienced dictatorship in the DDR, because their voter participation is overall slightly lower than the old Bundesländer, though the nature of the regimes were obviously different. In spite of these threats, one can then simply point to higher levels of affluence as grounds for greater voter participation rates.

All things considered, it appears that raw concern about preserving one’s own rights coupled with the perception of the agency one has to safeguard those rights through electoral participation is the greatest factor in predicting voter turnout. Indeed, the demographic data shows that those who have the most to gain in any given situation are most likely to vote.

However, those with the knowledge that either they have the most to lose by not voting or that by exercising their agency to cast a vote, one can indeed make an impact in their favor. This phenomenon explains why whiter, older, more affluent, and more educated Americans are most likely to turn up for an election (MIT Election Lab 2019). In Germany, the trends are similar, but the SPD’s early political power laid the framework for more socially-oriented political policy, which may have begun encouraging wider participation in politics. Across the Atlantic, the individualistic, initiative-oriented policies of the United States compel citizens to make a more active effort to engage themselves in the political sphere. Though the United States can ultimately take pride in the fact that, among registered voters, it has the highest non-compulsory turnout rate in the OECD, the initiative to register one’s self is the key threshold to be crossed.

Ultimately, it is the differences in government and electoral structures that play a large role in influencing voting behavior in both countries. The more democratic policies in the

Federal Republic of Germany provide greater incentive to participate in elections regardless of the constituency in which one finds themselves, whereas the United States does not align with its

45 fellow democracies in encouraging that initiative. Despite some U.S. states implementing measures to make registration or the act of voting itself easier, simplifying or automatizing registration by its own virtue is not enough to increase voter turnout. Rather, fostering an environment where the value of each vote is assured, the will to participate is nurtured, where citizens are educated about the significance of their vote, and where prospective and established voters are given a reason to participate in the political process all appears to be the key factors that bring about a correspondingly greater level of voter participation.

It remains to be seen whether budding initiatives in the United States will produce such a result in light of this reality, yet—excepting the 2017 Bundestag election—the German voter turnout rate has been on decline since 1998. This goes to show that not even German policies guarantee consistently exceptional turnout, for better or for worse. Though one can opine that some might be so content, they feel no bother to even vote, this does not mean any society should become complacent. All the same, the most critical end to maintain with regards to the electoral process and maintaining civic engagement is that even if faith in any given political party fades, a democratic society must work to ensure that faith in the electoral system itself remains.

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