Suchergebnisse

The report of the Kennedy Commission on Registration and Voter Participation, the 1964 Current Population Survey of the Census Bureau, and other data indicate a number of facts about United States voter par ticipation. People tend to "overstate" their participation in elections. Men vote more than women, the middle-aged more than the young and the elderly, whites more than Negroes. The curve of voter turnout parallels those of education and income. Turnout is lower in the South than in other areas and also varies by urban, suburban, and rural areas. Turn out is generally greater in elections for higher government levels and greater in general than in primary elections. One group of nonvoters is deterred by such major legal-administra tive obstacles as citizenship, registration, and absentee voting requirements, racial and religious disabilities, and administra tive regulations for voting times and locations. A second group of nonvoters are those who meet legal-administrative requirements but exhibit "lack of involvement." Age, sex, and social-economic status affect lack of involvement. So do importance and closeness of elections and competitiveness of the political atmosphere. Total voter participation in elec tions is a dubious goal. Perhaps the goal should rather be to increase access to the polls by eliminating or altering legal and administrative barriers to voluntary voting.—Ed.

On March 9, 1964, the Hon. J. W. Pickersgill moved in the House of Commons the second reading of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Bill, a step of major constitutional importance which not only made provision for the first redistribution of Canadian federal constituencies since 1952, but provided that, for the first time, this task of redistribution would be taken out of the hands of parliamentary committees and entrusted to independent representation commissions. All this was long overdue and there was broad, if not unanimous, agreement that the creation of impartial representation commissions was a desirable reform. As Mr. Pickersgill said in the House next day:The first and by far the most important of these [principles] was that we should not follow the pattern that had been followed in the first ninety years since Confederation, of having the readjustment of representation in this place done in this place by its members directly, but that it should be done by some body which would be as impartial as we in our collective ingenuity could provide and who would be as competent as we could find means to provide through legislation and subsequent appointment.