The Network Diffusion of Convincing Non-Voters To Vote.
https://www.postbulletin.com/news/politics/black-voters-propelled-blue-wave-study-finds/article_86af1d3b-8901-5ea4-acd6-632d0c546d50.html
In the 2018 mid-term elections it is apparent that there was a connection between democratic wins and the voting habits of the African American community. A study showed that 90% of black voters voted for democratic candidates. This is much higher than the 53% of all voters voting democratic. Black voters feel that the GOP doesn’t care about them and that Trump is trying to divide the nation with rhetoric. The support for the democratic party is the majority in the African American community. However, there had been a problem in the past with getting a large enough percent of the community to vote so that they are represented properly. There was an add campaign called Get-Out-The-Vote, that was part of the large movement by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to boost African American voting. After this campaign, the number of black voters double when compared to the 2014 mid-term elections. It is clear from the surveys listed in the article, that with the majority of black people view the GOP as against their demographic and in favor of the Democratic candidates, and that getting more African Americans to vote is critical to increasing the democratic party’s chances of winning elections in the current state of the political landscape. In fact, the vice president of the NAACP, Jamal Watkins, said that “Those numbers (referring to the high number of black voters) really prove one thing,” he said. “If we do the work of reaching infrequent voters, infrequent black voters and infrequent voters of color, then it allows for us to take back our power.” This shows a great increase in the importance of the African American vote.
In this case we see that in the African American community, the network diffusion that has happened in recent years with regards to voting is not so much which side to choose, but whether or not to vote. Out of this large network, most people were originally not voting, as they felt that their votes didn’t matter in the long run. So, the NAACP realized that they needed to push the right buttons to make change. So, with commercials and other efforts they were able to reach the right people by making them see the payoff voting could have for their community. While the adds obviously didn’t change everyone’s mind, they would inevitably change some people’s minds. Some of these people will be very influential in their personal networks. This means that their decision changing was enough to trigger a cascade, where a bunch of people see the payoff socially of voting which then changes more people’s minds until we reach another equilibrium state, and another cascade must be triggered to make more change in habits happen. So, it is clear that a network cascade happened which, in a few year, changed the African American vote from it’s original state to a voting force that can change the tide of an election. Hopefully, similar trends happen with more minority groups so we can continue to move closer to equal representation. This will force both major parties to really consider the needs of all demographics.