DEMOCRACY 101: what should be done about all those non-voters?

We think that Ronald Reagan had a land slide in 84. In reality he only got about 26% of the total voting age vote. According to this site http://www.idea.int/vt/country_view.cfm only some 53.11% of the voting age population (VAP) voted in '84. Almost 47% of that COULD have voted sat it out.

In 2002 only 49.27% of the VAP voted. Since Bush got 47.87% of that vote.... he was installed with 23.58% of the VAP. Source http://fecweb1.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/elecpop.htm

Generally voter turnout in the US is abysmally low. We have not hit 60% VAP since 1968. Compare that to the Netherlands which since 1945 has never been below 70%... and is usually in the 80s.

At what point does the lack of voter participation call the legitimacy of an election into question?

What is different about the American political system that seems to inspire so much apathy?

At what point does it call into question the very nature of our government?

How can these citizens be energized?

Is the Democratic Party up to the task? Or have they given up?

is that it's an age thing.....*usually* people get more involved in politics as they get older. Most of the non-voters are generally young adults and the poor. Those last ones don't vote because to them, they think they have no power anyway and that voting only puts one crook after another in the white house,

I think it's a general apathy. Promises broken by many presidents tend to give such a feeling.

Maybe our problem is not a matter of demographics... but of our election system: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/why_are_voting_systems_important.htm

...ad nauseum? Then we can forward all of our wonderful work to the Kerry campaign as part of our advice on how to run his campaign.

Can't say that you didn't ask for it, can you?

There should be a campaign targeting non-voters to vote dem.

MLD is not trying to be helpful. He's just carrying over a dispute from another thread.



Edit to get name right. Another dope slap for ulTRAX!

I'd gladly post there. Now, are you here to discuss the topic of this thread? If not, please find another hydrant to piss on.... and have a nice day. Peace!

Edit to include original post:

Media_Lies_Daily (1000+ posts) Sun Mar-21-04 06:15 PM
Response to Original message
2. Why don't we form a separate forum and discuss it...
...ad nauseum? Then we can forward all of our wonderful work to the Kerry campaign as part of our advice on how to run his campaign.

Can't say that you didn't ask for it, can you?

How's that for a slogan?

But I have to wonder just who are those non-voters. Would most lean Left or Right?

... under Bush.

I wonder, was there a period of "voter apathy" between the Korean and Viet Nam wars -- does it really take the threat of being drafted and killed to motivate the large mass of young voters?

Anyone who has even taken a cursory look at the data knows that repubs tend to win when voter turnout is suppressed. That's why ex-felons and the young tend to largely be ignored by repub admins.

When Dems have serious get out the vote drives and laws that make it easier to register (Repubs fought the motor voter bill tooth and nail) they tend to win.

Young people are, a large proportion, divorced from voting
at a young age by the attitude of criminalziation in the drugs war.
It purports to make the government right in intrfering with lives
that teenagers themselves know are better sorted out at home.

There is this tendency, for government, starting with the
drugs war, to be wrong, very wrong, about its military involvements
and if they want another generation at the helm, then they'd better
convince all of us why we should keep up the lies, the theft and the
empire for corporate benefit.

It's just as easy to blame student governments in high school. They are typically run by students who know how to brown nose the school administration. My feeling is that students learn then that government is often as unresponsive as it is a sham. So what's the point. In later life they are up against our winner-take-all election system... which is some 2 centuries behind the times. If one wanted to design a political system with the intent of inspiring apathy... they could do no better job that what we have in the US.

Check out this link:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/why_are_voting_systems_important.htm

I said "well do me a favor and give me TWO votes. If you don't do it for yourself, do it for me".

They said they just might do that. But they don't want to get called up for jury duty if they register.

This is a big problem among the people I know. They don't want to do jury duty.

That's a popular notion... yet in my state the jury lists are not drawn from voting lists... but census lists. That job is still handled by the Register of Voters in each city or town.

after registering to vote.

I've gotten three of them now in the last coupla months. I guess I made it onto some list.

Whether it's true or not it's what people believe.

double tax for non-voters. they'll never know unless they get off their asses and join the process.

This is one of those underreported stories... nationwide some 3.9 MILLION felons have lost their right to vote.

Source:

http://www.aclu-wa.org/issues/criminal/FelonsbyState.html

The logic behind depriving anyone of the vote seems specious at best... racist at worst. It also distorts our already flawed electoral system.... to the disadvantage of Democrats. One study reports that "By removing those with Democratic preferences from the pool of eligible voters, felon disenfranchisement has provided a small but clear advantage to Republican candidates in every presidential and senatorial election from 1972 to 2000,” http://www.asanet.org/media/felons.html

It's an issue that deserves a second look.

Amendment XV
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

One might THINK that this would not apply to ex-cons... but it does NOT say so. Yet compare it to the phrasing used here:

Amendment XIII
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.


There was a chance to use the identical phasing of the 13 amendment but the authors of the 15th refused.

...is the necessary condition for democracy to succede. What we seem to see is the erosion of democracy by means of the erosion of the informed. Whenever a news agency is too lazy to cut through political propaganda, the public is ill-served, and democracy begins to founder. The declining voter base appears to be a direct consequence of just this sort of media neglect.

I think that voting, much like jury duty as mentioned above, is a civic duty, the shirking of which should not be abided any more than the avoidance of military service during a (declared) war. But how can this duty be enforced upon those who are so apathetic that they are unwilling to make the short trip to their polling station?

In my opinion, fines that are prohibitively expensive should be levied against anyone who fails to show up at the polls, say, $1000. Many of the working poor, most of whom do not vote, could simply not afford to neglect this civic duty, since most are living on the edge of homelessness anyway. Since this portion of our population constitutes a plurality of the total, they would quickly find that politicians were more responsive to their needs, and thus their situation could quickly be remedied. Meanwhile, those more wealthy members of society who wished to avoid jury duty (and many would exercise this option) could simply pay their fine once every two years, and the proceeds could go toward a fund to help publicly finance political campaigns.

So as not to sound to anti-democratic (small d), allow me to emphasize that whatever vote is cast by an individual under such a system would have to be entirely at that individual's discretion, and thus both a write-in line (so that one could vote for Mickey Mouse if he chose to do so) and a 'no preference' choice would have to be included on all ballots. Further, Election Day would become a national holiday, and all citizens would be entitled to free transportation to and from their local polling station so that no one could legitimately claim any excuse for failing to participate.

I think that would just about solve the problem. But a system that fairly administered is nothing but a pipe dream at this point in time, don't you think?