Why do some constitutional amendment elections tend to have a higher levels of turnout than others quizlet?

THE TEXAS CONSTITUTION

ARTICLE 17. MODE OF AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION OF THIS STATE

Sec. 1. PROPOSED AMENDMENTS; PUBLICATION; SUBMISSION TO VOTERS; ADOPTION. (a) The Legislature, at any regular session, or at any special session when the matter is included within the purposes for which the session is convened, may propose amendments revising the Constitution, to be voted upon by the qualified voters for statewide offices and propositions, as defined in the Constitution and statutes of this State. The date of the elections shall be specified by the Legislature. The proposal for submission must be approved by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each House, entered by yeas and nays on the journals.

(b) A brief explanatory statement of the nature of a proposed amendment, together with the date of the election and the wording of the proposition as it is to appear on the ballot, shall be published twice in each newspaper in the State which meets requirements set by the Legislature for the publication of official notices of officers† and departments of the state government. The explanatory statement shall be prepared by the Secretary of State and shall be approved by the Attorney General. The Secretary of State shall send a full and complete copy of the proposed amendment or amendments to each county clerk who shall post the same in a public place in the courthouse at least 30 days prior to the election on said amendment. The first notice shall be published not more than 60 days nor less than 50 days before the date of the election, and the second notice shall be published on the same day in the succeeding week. The Legislature shall fix the standards for the rate of charge for the publication, which may not be higher than the newspaper's published national rate for advertising per column inch.

(c) The election shall be held in accordance with procedures prescribed by the Legislature, and the returning officer in each county shall make returns to the Secretary of State of the number of legal votes cast at the election for and against each amendment. If it appears from the returns that a majority of the votes cast have been cast in favor of an amendment, it shall become a part of this Constitution, and proclamation thereof shall be made by the Governor.

(Feb. 15, 1876. Amended Nov. 7, 1972, and Nov. 2, 1999.) (TEMPORARY TRANSITION PROVISIONS for Sec. 1: See Appendix, Note 1.)

† The language of this provision is identical to the language of the official legislative measure that originally proposed the provision. A digital image of the original text of the official enrolled measure can be found here.

Sec. 2. (Repealed Nov. 2, 1999.)

(TEMPORARY TRANSITION PROVISIONS for Sec. 2: See Appendix, Note 1.)

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Texas is about to have one of its periodic and deeply disappointing tests of civic engagement — a November election built around constitutional amendments and not around warring political personalities.

Conflict and advertising and the tons of news coverage generated by candidates and campaigns drive turnout. It’s easy to chart: More Texans vote in presidential years than in gubernatorial years, partly because of the relative power of those offices but also because of the overwhelming focus on national campaigns. In last year’s presidential election, more than 8.9 million Texans voted. In the 2014 race for governor between Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis, 4.7 million voted.

In between those two elections, fewer than 1.6 million Texans turned out for a constitutional amendment election. That one actually had a couple of issues of interest to ordinary voters, including an attempt to lower property taxes for homeowners, a plan to increase state spending on highways and transportation by up to $5 billion and an end to the requirement that statewide elected officials live in the state capital. Each of the seven proposals on that ballot passed easily.

Most of the state's voters slept through it.

The 2013 election was a yawner, attracting only 1.1 million voters. Everything passed, including an amendment legalizing reverse mortgages in Texas.

2011? Only 690,052 Texans showed up — of the 12.8 million who were registered to vote at the time — to vote on 10 amendments. They voted three of them down, proving that the few who bothered weren’t there to simply smile and nod. Still, the relatively local and technical measures on that ballot failed to attract a crowd.

The pattern, though, is that constitutional amendment elections draw small crowds of mostly agreeable voters. In 2009, just over 1 million Texans approved 11 amendments. In 2007, about the same number of voters okayed each of the 16 amendments before them.

You see how this goes.

This year’s line-up is not exactly front-page news; most of the scant attention the election has attracted comes from a proposal to ease restrictions on borrowing against home equity.

Here’s a decidedly non-scientific way to test voters’ interest: Have you heard people talking about it? At this time a year ago, did you hear people talking about the presidential election?

Early voting begins Monday. Election Day is Nov. 7. There are seven proposed amendments to the Texas Constitution that would change state law for sports raffles, savings contests run by financial institutions, the tenure of state appointees who haven’t been replaced and so on. Here’s a list, along with an analysis or two done by the state.

It’s an election where each vote is fractionally more important than normal: With fewer voters showing up, each vote counts for more. And changes to the constitution are more permanent — most of the time — than the changes in officeholders that attract more voters to most other elections.

Texans, like voters in most places, have proved they’re more interested in deciding which people will govern than on the sometimes-narrow policies presented in these off-year elections.

You can’t blame the low turnouts for elections like this one on partisan redistricting, though ballot access laws that arguably make it more difficult to vote certainly don’t help.

You can blame the legislators who schedule these elections, often on dates when low turnout is all but assured — when contests that might get the kind of attention and debate that attracts widespread interest, and with it, citizens who want to register their views.

You can always blame voters, since turnout is a measure of how many people came to the polls to register their opinions. But they’re capable of getting interested. It’s been a long time now, but the Texas Lottery was approved in a constitutional amendment election that drew almost 2.1 million voters — at a time when there were only 7.8 million registered voters in the state. More recently, Texas voters approved a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in 2005 (a provision later voided by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling). The turnout for that 2005 vote topped 2.2 million.

Civic engagement is, after all, about engagement. Boring or narrow issues don’t attract voters. But if you interest them, they will come.

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