Voting Project

Resources on selected websites and on the Lancer Library Homepage will help you with your voting project.

How to vote...
History of voting...
Voter participation...
Factors that motivate voting preferences...
Oregon Initiative Process
Youth and Voting
Local Ballot Measure 20-106

How to Vote

League of Women Voters: On Voting
http://www.smartvoter.org/voter/howto.html
A guide on how to vote that includes how to judge a candidate, how to pick a candidate, and how to watch a debate.

Factcheck.org: Annennberg Political Fact Check
http://www.factcheck.org/
“We are a nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.”

The Savvy Voter
http://www.pbs.org/elections/savvyvoter.html
Tips on how to dissect an ad, interpret a debate, analyze a poll, evaluate a platform, assess a Web site, and view news critically.

Project Vote-Smart
http://www.vote-smart.org/

Ben’s Guide to U.S. Government for Kids 9-12: Duties and Responsibilities of Citizens
http://bensguide.gpo.gov/9-12/citizenship/responsibilities.html
A guide to voting that includes a link to the Government Printing Office (GPO) Access page.

History of Voting

Books!
Helen has several from the library about the voting history of blacks and women.

Library of Congress: Who Can Vote
http://learning.loc.gov/learn/features/election/voters.html
An historical perspective of groups who struggled to get the right to vote. The site covers African Americans, Women, Native Americans, and Voters Today and includes links to primary sources.

One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawstime.html
A timeline from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection at the Library of Congress.

“Votes for Women” Suffrage pictures, 1850-1920
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfwhtml/vfwhome.html
From the Library of Congress American Memory collection. Features portraits, photos, and cartoons.

InfoTrac Student Resource Center Gold
Access from the Lancer Library Homepage at http://schools.4j.lane.edu/churchill/library/
For remote access, use the password that’s on the library bookmark.
A search on history of voting brings up lots of results.
The results begin with Reference documents. Click on the buttons for other types of documents, such as Magazines or Primary Documents.
Search for specific events: Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Voter Participation

Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2000
www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/p20-542.pdf
A Census Bureau report that examines voting and registration patterns in the
2000 Presidential election, the characteristics of people who voted or were registered,
and reasons why people did not vote.

Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2004
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/voting.html
Data tables from the U.S. Census Bureau. Click on the tables that you want for an Excel download.
Tables include Race, Hispanic Origin, Age, Sex, Educational Attainment, Employment Status, and more..

Who votes, who doesn’t, why, and what can be done?
A Report to the Federal Commission on Electoral Reform
http://www.american.edu/ia/cfer/0630test/stein.pdf
A 15-page document written by three professors on June 10, 2005.
(For the html file, do a Google search on the title of the report.)

League of Women Voters: Alienation not a Factor in Nonvoting

http://www.lwv.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Voter_Information2&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=2188
A study that links nonvoters with a lack of information based on a survey completed in March of 1996.


InfoTrac Student Resource Center Gold

Access from the Lancer Library Homepage at http://schools.4j.lane.edu/churchill/library/
For remote access, use the password that’s on the library bookmark.
A search on voter participation brings up lots of results.
The results begin with Magazine documents. Scroll down to these two articles
that analyze voter participation in the 2004 election:
Elections: turnout in the 2004 presidential election
Up, up and away! Voter participation in the 2004 presidential election

Factors that Motivate Voting (and political party) Preferences

The NES Guide to Public Opinion and Electoral Behavior
http://www.umich.edu/~nes/nesguide/nesguide.htm
“The Guide provides political observers..students,… and social scientists with immediate access to tables and graphs that display the ebb and flow of public opinion and electoral behavior and choice in American politics since 1948.” From the American National Election Studies (ANES) at the University of Michigan (http://www.umich.edu/~nes/index.htm)

Beyond Red vs. Blue
Republicans Divided About Role of Government - Democrats by Social and Personal Values

http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=242
A report from the Pew Research Center for the people and the Press, released May 10, 2005. Examines how values divide the nation, the characteristics of the political parties, and other major findings.

Thomas Frank - What's the Matter with Kansas?
http://www.tcfrank.com/
A recent book that analyzes the current political landscape in the United States, explaining that Republicans have portrayed themselves as the party for the salt-of-the-earth Americans and positioned Democrats as the party of the aristocratic elite. The CHS library does not have a copy but will be ordering one.
Scroll down for the link to excerpts and reviews or go to http://www.tcfrank.com/wmk.html

Oregon Initiative Process

Oregon's Initiative and Referendum Process
http://www.stateaction.org/issues/issue.cfm/issue/BallotInitiativeReform.xml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/initiative
http://hkupop.hku.hk/chinese/features/referendums/online4.html

Oregon's Initiative System: Current Issues
http://www.open.org/~lwvor/Initiative.htm
A presentation of the initiative process by the League of Women Voters that includes the steps for qualifying an intiative for the ballot as well as the effects of the initiative process.

Debating Initiatives: a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript; May 17, 2000
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/election/jan-june00/initiatives_5-17.html
“ The ballot measure story. Are initiatives the purest form of democracy, or is the process falling prey to moneyed special interests?”

Youth and Voting

Young Voters and the 2004 Election
http://www.vanishingvoter.org/Releases/Vanishing_Voter_Final_Report_2004_Election.pdf
“Presents research from the Vanishing Voter Project on youth participation rates for 2004, including voting, civic engagement, and partisan sentiment, as well as predictions for future youth behavior.”
Web link is at http://elections.ssrc.org/research/votingbehavior/

Young Voter Apathy
http://www.govspot.com/features/youngvoterapathy.htm
A brief article analyzing the low voter turnout among youth.

Rock the Vote
http://www.rockthevote.com/home.php

Follow the links across the top for topics "Why vote?," "Voter Info," and "Action."

Declare Yourself
http://www.declareyourself.com/press/pressroom.htm
The "Emerging Electorate" reports present survey results and analysis of youth trends.

Local Ballot Measure 20-106

League of Women Voter's Voter Guide to Ballot Measure 20-106
http://www.lwvlc.org/ballotmeas11.05.html

Presents background, fiscal impact, arguments in support and opposition, and the text of the measure.

Vote YES on Eugene Ballot Measure 20-106
http://www.yeson20-106.org/default.htm

Register-Guard Letter to the Editor in Opposition to Ballot Measure 20-106
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/10/15/ed.lettersmain.1015.p1.php?section=opinion

Oversight of police common elsewhere
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/10/19/a1.auditor.1019.p1.php?section=cityregion

Register-Guard article by Edward Russo from Oct. 19, 2005.


Contact Sam Arnold-Boyd
10/26/05