Impacts of Voter Turnout: Voting Restriction Laws, Voting Expansion Laws, and the Political Culture of States

Abstract

The 2016 presidential election was the first to be conducted in over 50 years without the full protection of the Voting Rights Act (VRA.) This allowed states to enact election laws that impacted electoral procedures, enacting either voting restriction laws or voting expansion laws. Most of the states that enacted voting restriction laws were southern states; and the states that enacted expansion laws were western states. According to the scholar Daniel Elazar, our country is divided into three different political cultures that identify the distinct characteristics of each state. It is imperative to study the impact on voter turnout these new laws, voter restrictions and expansions, had on the 2016 General Election and determine whether certain variables in the state can be predetermined based on the political culture of each state. It is evident that voter turnout has decreased in the states and the enactment of restrictive voting laws this past decade is aiding in the reduction of voter turnout. This study also demonstrates that the Political Culture of the state contributes to partisanship, ideology, and is a predictor of how the state may act in the future.