Income and Voting Behavior

INCOME IS A consistent predictor of voter turnout and party identification, not only in the United States, but across most other countries of the world. Although some anomalies exist, such as the relatively high voter turnout of the poor in India, in most countries the poor are less likely to go to the polling place on Election Day than are those with higher incomes. They are also more likely than the upper and middle classes to vote for a liberal or socialist party.

There are many possible explanations for this phenomenon. First, voters with lower incomes may have more difficulty getting to their polling places because of work or transportation issues. This possibility has led some officials and analysts in the United States to call for a national holiday on Election Day. Some states have adopted this policy (or time off to vote, often with pay) so constituents will be able to vote. Oregon has adopted a mail-only balloting system to increase voter participation, which contributed to an 80 percent turnout rate in the 2000 presidential elections. Other countries, such as Australia, have compulsory voting laws, requiring voters to go to the polls to avoid paying a small fine. It should also be noted that this idea of increasing voter turnout does not always apply in some developing countries to the same extent as it might in developed countries. For instance, some newer democracies still have difficulty making voting accessible for their rural citizens. In some developing countries violence affects both an individual's abilities to make an income sufficient to feed their family, and their ability to participate in the political process.

Second, analysts also believe that the lower education level of most impoverished citizens leads to a lower voter turnout among the poor. Not only is this group generally uninformed about day-to-day politics (as are the majority of people around the globe) they also have less education about the workings of government and how policies might affect them than do better-educated members of society. In the developed world, this is in large part due to the specific civic education programs which students participate in from early elementary through secondary school. Additionally, in the United States, most liberal arts programs require some exposure to American government or other political science classes. The impoverished citizens of less developed countries might only receive electoral education through scarce third-party or nongovernmental organization intervention.

Third, lower education and low income in developed countries also mean reduced access to newspapers, television, the internet, and phones, some of the most important tools modern campaigns have for reaching potential voters. Furthermore, campaign workers going door-to-door are less likely to visit the most impoverished neighborhoods where many of the citizens live. These factors mean that fewer low-income citizens are informed about the elections, or what the candidates running in those elections stand for, decreasing the likelihood they will go to the polls and vote.

In addition to low voter turnout, lower incomes are generally indicative of different party preferences than are higher incomes. Low-income constituents tend to vote for parties that are more likely to adopt welfare or redistributive policies, such as liberal or socialist parties. The reasons for this divide are generally intuitive, as the poor are most likely to receive the monetary benefits from the redistributive policies, while the rich generally feel threatened by the higher tax rates involved with redistributive programs. In both developed and less developed countries, poorer citizens tend to vote for more radical parties and candidates. For example, for many years the poor citizens of Palestine were the main supporters of militant Hamas, while the middle class was more likely to vote for the Fatah Party.

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