Beacon of democracy
A new study by the Century Foundation has come up with a series of recommendations for increasing voter participation in the United States, which ranks 139th out of 172 countries surveyed - the lowest of any industrialized democracy. That's a colossal embarrassment for a nation that fights wars in the name of spreading democracy.
Voter turnouts in the United States typically are far lower than in such beacons of political freedom as Russia, Mongolia, Bulgaria, Iran and Kazakhstan.
Century Foundation's suggestions for improving voter turnout include several aimed at reducing the structural barriers that impede voting. The two most important recommendations, in my view, are taking partisan politics out of redistricting and having the political parties and candidates "do more to personally engage voters."
Unfortunately, the report does little to address the factors that have turned off so many voters in this country - the negative effects of money-driven, TV-oriented campaigns and the sense that there is no room in politics for the average citizen unwilling to sell his or her soul to campaign contributors.
Voter turnouts in the United States typically are far lower than in such beacons of political freedom as Russia, Mongolia, Bulgaria, Iran and Kazakhstan.
Century Foundation's suggestions for improving voter turnout include several aimed at reducing the structural barriers that impede voting. The two most important recommendations, in my view, are taking partisan politics out of redistricting and having the political parties and candidates "do more to personally engage voters."
Unfortunately, the report does little to address the factors that have turned off so many voters in this country - the negative effects of money-driven, TV-oriented campaigns and the sense that there is no room in politics for the average citizen unwilling to sell his or her soul to campaign contributors.
posted by Randy Bergmann at 11:29 AM
3 Comments:
Consider: 73 electors selected Thomas Jefferson for president; 32 million voted for Richard Nixon. Clearly, the number of voters is not at all correlated to the quality of the outcome.
Let's NOT encourage voting. Let the interested do the voting.
I must agree with you on that ! my daughter who voted in the last presidental election , she feels the process is a sham,I have tried to talk to her but to no avail.Now she has the freehold school vote to back her up.(she is only 24 ).she said politacians are crooks and only out for themselves she will be moving out of state soon and insists she will never vote ...a sad day has come upon upon us .this is what they want no voters so they can get elected by special intrest groups
To increase voting we should allow Republicans to include the dead and illegal aliens like the Democrat party.
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