Geographic Voter Turnout Disparaties and Public Health
Abstract
A black teenager named Michael Brown is shot by a white police
officer in Ferguson, Missouri. The inferno of media surrounding
the city begins to explain the shooting. At first, they are concerned
with specifics of the case, but eventually a consensus is reached
that the shooting was a spark that set ablaze a tinderbox of longsimmering
racial tension fed by institutional discrimination.
One year prior, white Americans were three times more likely to
vote than people of color in the 2013 Ferguson municipal election
(Schaffner, Erve, & LaRaja, 2014). The result of this voting disparity
is that even though Ferguson is 67% black, the mayor and five
out of six city council members were white, creating significant
underrepresentation of disadvantaged groups (Schaffner, Erve,
& LaRaja, 2014). These officials were in charge of creating the
leadership of the police force and contributed to a culture that was
entirely divorced from their citizenry. The shooting ignited such a
controversy because it highlighted racial power inequalities. The
people in charge of local power structures did not represent the
broader population, an unfortunately normal occurrence.
Citation
Lucerna, Vol. 11, January 2017, p. 53-78
Rights
Open Access (fully available)
Copyright retained by author