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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 ©2019 Harrison Teeter ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii 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. iii 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. iv 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. v 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 vi 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 vii 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 viii 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. 2 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

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