A truly postethnic America would be one in which the ethno-racial component in identity would loom less large than it now does in politics.
—David A. Hollinger in Postethnic America (New York: Harper-Collins, 1995)
To be eligible to vote, a person must be a U.S. citizen and at least eighteen years of age. In a report to Congress, The Impact of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 on the Administration of Elections for Federal Office, 2003–2004 (June 30, 2005, http://www.eac.gov/docs/NVRA-2004-Survey.pdf), the Federal Election Commission states that in 2004 there were 221.3 million total citizen…
Registering to vote is one thing, but actually going out to the polls on election day is another, Often, people will register to vote but fail to exercise their right to vote when the time comes. While African-Americans are somewhat less likely to vote than whites, both groups are much more likely to vote than Hispanics and Asians and Pacific Islanders. In 2004, 65.8% of non-Hispanic whites voted,…
The number of African-Americans elected to public offices at all levels of U.S. government has increased significantly since the 1980s. The largest gain has been in city and county offices, which include county commissioners, city council members, mayors, vice mayors, and aldermen/alderwomen. Barack Obama became only the fifth African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate and only the third since t…
There was a tremendous increase in the Hispanic population in the United States during the late twentieth century, resulting in a population of 41.3 million Hispanic people in the United States in 2004. However, the Hispanic community has not attained political power equal to its proportion of the population. Two characteristics of Hispanic demography help to account for this. First, although the …
The design of electoral districts can have tremendous impact on the political power of minorities. Depending on how the lines are drawn, an electoral district might have a large concentration of minorities, enhancing their political power, or minority populations may be split up between many electoral districts, weakening their political influence. Designing electoral districts to favor one group …
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