One of the most influential powers of a citizen is exercising he or she’s right to vote. It is important for he or she to become an informed voter, because the countries next leader, who can make huge decisions, is in their hands. In order to become an informed voter, citizens should research the candidates, watch the debates, and keep an open mind. Researching the candidates play a huge role in becoming an informed voter. Voters are not expected to know tons of information about candidates without first researching and gaining knowledge about them. There are millions of sources online. Everything a candidate says is not always true; a source such as Fact Check is a good researching source to use. It provides articles that point out exaggerations
The debate over compulsory vs. non-compulsory voting is a complex subject matter to say the least, that has sparked much controversy in recent times with almost all strongly in favor of one side of the argument and or the other. This highly polarized debate has sparked in popularity in recent times because of a quote by former president Barak Obama in which he said that “It would be transformative if everybody voted”. It is believed that if everyone voted that could and was eligible then the domination of hard core partisans within the political system would be in part quelled as the candidates went where the votes are, which would be away from the extremes. Moreover some studies show that mandatory voting decreases the rates of uninformed voters within an area as voting becomes more of a civic duty than right. While the institution of compulsory voting would have a short term effect of increasing the rate of uninformed voters,
Texas Politics. The University of Texas at Austin, Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services, 2009. Retrieved from http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/6_printable.html
To every political system there are many positives and negatives and one critique of compulsory voting systems is that informal and uninterested voting is increased. It has been advocated that compulsory voting brings a large amount of “uninterested voters” to the polls and in turn cast votes that are clearly inconsistent with their own political values compared to those who are more informed and motivated voluntary voters (Selb and Latchat, 2009). In this case the primary concern is when people are forced to vote they will either pick a candidate at random or spoil their ballot which consequently, does not make the outcome of the election representative of the people’s interests. If certain individuals are not interested in politics they should not be forced to contribute in one of the most salient political statements practiced in Canada (Selb and Latchat, 2009). They have the right to choose their level of political participation.
In our system of government we are privileged with the option to take part in the political process that runs the country. It is our right to vote that lets the people influence change in policy and set the guidelines that politicians must follow to be elected representatives. This precious ability, which is most coveted in most non-democratic countries, is taken for granted in our own.
Industrial Countries all over the world have seen a steady decline in voter participation; Great Britain is a great example of this. The country has witness turnout in elections falling slowly as time pass. However, the election of 2001 dropped the country from their average of 76% voter turnout to just a 59.4% turnout. Comparatively, Australia, a former colony of Britain, has enjoyed high and steady voter participation since 1924 because of the implementation of compulsory voting. This system has proven to be not only effective in bring voters to the polls, but also effective in improving Australia’s democracy. By evaluating these two countries with similar political structure; one can see the difference in compulsory voting turnouts
One reason why Americans shouldn’t be required to vote is because voting without background information might lead to wrong decisions. Evidence supporting this reason is, in document G (New York Times) (Randy Cohen) states that people that are uninformed, will end up voting for something that doesn’t endorse their interests. This evidence helps explain
Political philosopher and social theorist Thomas Sowell has once said, “It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” It is inevitable to meet an ignorant person around each corner that one turns. It is up to the victim to either let the ignorant person corrupt him or to let the victim become smarter. One of America’s greatest activists, Martin Luther King, believed that “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” With this in mind, “The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all” (Kennedy).
Every person may not have the same level of these components, but it is present. Everyone will not know everything about the candidate they plan to vote for, they only know the high points of their campaign. According to the LA TIMES “It's a rare voter who carefully reads a candidate's position papers on every conceivable topic. Instead, we typically vote based on a candidate's stance on a subset of topics, assuming there will be a certain consistency on other topics…Another conscious component of political decision-making is voting for experience or competence, rather than a platform. This is so common that one study found that candidates judged to look more competent had won elections 68% of the time.” (Sapolsky) Especially, with how the media reports news about a particular candidate, they only report the parts of the campaign that the public would consider controversial. This bias also depends on the news station you are choosing to watch because the news reported is often swayed to reflect the views of a certain political party. For example, FOX NEWS is known for having republican views, MSNBC is known for having liberal views, and CNN is known for having democratic views. The question now becomes what is the threshold of irrationality, bias, ignorance or immoral belief that deems someone as a bad
A strong democratic government rest on citizens exercising their power of voting. Even though in many countries including United States, entitled voters don’t vote during Presidential Elections. This paper will explain that Federal Voting should be mandatory in United States. Many people in United States try their best to stay away from political affairs not realizing the importance politics. Voting is one of the most common ways to get involved in politics. Firstly this paper will state the main problems for the non-voters. Moving forward, why it is necessary and important to vote? And lastly the outcomes if people doesn’t voted. Votes determine who will be responsible in considering laws and their enforcement to all the Americans. By this
As politics and government becomes more complex and involved, more effort is required to keep up with and understand it. As a result, many Americans have lost touch with current events and happenings. Therefore, when election time rolls around, many people lack enough information to develop an educated opinion and support a candidate with their vote, so they just do not vote at all. This lack of information is also related to the belief that one vote will not matter. People believe that their vote will not count, and are therefore following the news less and becoming out of touch with public affairs and politics (Is the System Broken?”). This lack of information is also more strongly apparent among the younger voting population. When interviewed
In this essay, I would like to discuss the major obstacles to voting, recent changes to overcome voting barriers and the political influence of changed rules. Low turnout in the U.S. reflects that there are obstacles for people to voting and changes to overcome these obstacles may also bring new problems to different social groups. I will elaborate on these aspects in the following parts.
Voting is the foremost way to exhibit good citizenship and civil responsibility. People should get involved in elections and educated in all political measures. By this they become good and responsible participatory citizens. It should always be remembered that some people sacrifice their lives to preserve the freedom and voting opportunity as a sacred right. True democracy demands the involvement of the people otherwise in absence of that there is no democracy(Akande, 2011).
Selecting the right candidate is hard and need more people to participate and to achieve that all citizens need to voting and select the future leaders to benefit themselves and their country. By adding the voting as mandatory will ensure more responses and also keep the country on the right path. For example, In the United States, the recent studies conducted by various governments show that twenty percent only of the population gave their voting voice in the
Voting has not always been as easy as it is today. It is interesting to examine how far America has progressed in its process of allowing different types of people to be able to vote. Voting was once aimed at a particular group of people, which were white males that owned their own property. Today, most people over the age of eighteen can vote, except for the mentally incompetent or people who have been convicted of major felonies in some states. The decline of voter participation has always been a debate in the public arena. According to McDonald and Popkin, it is “the most important, most familiar, most analyzed, and most conjectured trend in recent American political history (2001, 963)” The question is, how important is voter
The election process in the United States is a valuable process to the election of the proper officials to satisfy the people. The people run the country which is why we live in freedom because we control what happens with major decisions by choosing whom we want to decide these decisions. The whole country goes to vote on a certain day and by the end of that day we will vote to select who will run the country, state, county, or city political positions. The most complex decision and one with the biggest impact are selecting who the President of the United States shall be. We examine what their views are and who would do a better job. Then vote in our respected states with a certain number of electoral votes