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United States electoral system
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The American presidential elections function is dramatically different than previous years. According to PBS, only 58 percent of eligible voters came to vote in the 2016 election (Regan 2016). By examining the drop in voter polls, the cost of campaigning, and outdated American voting system, it is clear that the United States should have mandatory voting. Voter polls greatly affect the outcome of the election. Campaigning cost has become very excessive for the candidates running. Exceptional results have been demonstrated in countries that adopted mandatory voting. First, the idea of the drop in voter polls is going to be addressed. To begin, the United States have revealed that it needs mandatory voting because of a lack of voter turnout. …show more content…
In the 2016 election, one billion dollars were spent between all the presidential candidates (Levinthalemail, Beckelemail, & Levineemail 2016). Presidential runners spend extravagant amounts of money on trying to get people vote. Mandatory voting would allow the candidates to focus on their campaign, instead of people voting. Mandatory voting would allow the candidates to only campaign on what they are going to do for the United States, rather than trying to get people to come vote. Presidential elections are not taken seriously anymore. Candidates spend too much money trying to get people to vote for them, instead of persuading them with facts. In the United Kingdom, candidates can only spend up to 30 million dollars before the election. In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton spent 769 million dollars on the campaigning advertisements (Levinthalemail, Beckelemail, & Levineemail 2016), suggesting that the United States has been spending unnecessary amounts of money. Obviously, lowering the cost of campaigning can only be fixed by mandatory voting. Next, the idea of the outdated voting system will be …show more content…
A more modern voting system would allow the election to be more advanced and draw more voters to get involved like other countries. For instance, wealthier Americans tend to cast votes more than others. Presidential contenders do not often speak to the lower class, which shows that the voting system is not working for our country. Candidates create a “class bias” between first class people and the lower class. Candidates favor the people they know will vote for them, which makes the lower class not participate in the election. 28 other countries have mandatory voting in their government. For example, Australia is one country that adopted mandatory voting and the turnout raised to 91 percent, (Galston 2011). Indicating that mandatory voting in the United States would be the best option. Other democracies have seen low voter turnout before they took the switch to mandatory voting. Clearly, the American voting system is not working in the United
Recently, only 60% of registered voters have actually voted in presidential elections. This brings up the question: should Americans be required to vote? This question receives very mixed answers. Many Americans believe that they should have the choice and the freedom to vote or not; many Americans also believe that mandatory, or required, voting is simply a civic duty. Currently, American citizens are not required to vote. Citizens seem to like this system, but because voting is not mandatory, the amount of citizens that vote in elections is rather low. Americans should not be required to vote because it forces people to vote that are uninterested, makes citizens unhappy, and damages other people’s votes.
All in all, compulsory voting can seriously help out the United States of America. Although, forcing people to vote will make a lot more ignorant people vote for no reason, it will help get rid of those people by making them more intelligent in the world of politics, it will help rid fraudulent votes, and will help people realize that there are many more required things that are less important than voting. Compulsory voting will
Since the turn of the twenty first century, in Canada voter turnout has made a significant and consecutive decline. In the last five federal elections on average only sixty-one per cent of eligible voters voted. If each eligible citizen voted in an election the government would be on par with the primary interests of the people. The easiest way to achieve this objective is by implementing a compulsory voting system. Mandatory voting systems are appealing because all citizens are affected by decisions made by the government, so it makes sense to have all those affected apart of the election process. As a result, the voting results would be more representative of the country and that would lead to an increase of stability and legitimacy. It would also be beneficial to Canadians because would cause political parties to address and focus on the needs of every socio-economic level. However, one of biggest problems that accompanies mandatory voting laws is that the choice to exercise the right to vote is taken away. Another primary concern about compulsory voting is that a large number of uninterested and uninformed voters are brought to the polls. Conversely, uninformed voters will become familiar with and learn the polling procedures and electoral system over time and uninterested voters are not forced to mark a name on the ballot. Compulsory voting laws would only make registration and attendance at the polls mandatory, not voting itself. Therefore the freedom to exercise the right to vote or not is still intact. A greater emphasis on alternate voting practices may be established such as electronic or online voting. Positive changes would not only be evident in the policies of political parties but also in the voting procedure. Th...
The most critiqued argument is that mandating voting is just un-American. The con side argues that forcing people to vote violates our freedom of speech. But they don’t feel that the requirement to pay taxes and serve as a jure are unjust. This seems contradictory. The second argument is that requiring all citizens to vote would result in many uninformed and carelessly voters. They continue this argument by stating many people would cast “donkey votes” which are votes for a random candidate because they are required to vote by law. There are many arguments for and against compulsory voting but it comes down to what makes something
Without mandatory voting, some people chose not to vote because they do not care, or are uninformed. Forcing these people to vote could lead to random choices when voters do not take responsibility to study the candidate's position on specific topics. "It may increase the number of informal votes, ballot papers which are not marked according to the rules for voting," _ Matt Rosenberg_. Compulsory voting may lead many people to not truly vote, but to put their name on a ballot and turn it in. While this is possible, a greater number of potentially interested people would also vote. If people are required to vote, the country will obtain every eligible voters’ opinions. Some of the citizens may not care who is elected, but they still can have a say if they want to. Without mandatory voting, the people who do not want to vote, do not and went about with their life. "Because a majority of the voters are turning out to cast ballots, the formation of the government can be a more accurate reflection of what the population of any nation wants," _Asia-Pacific Economics_. In a government with two different parties, the majority of the citizens decide how they want the government to be formed till the next election.
There is a way that is already put in use to increase voter turnout in Australia is to make voting mandatory. People in Australia are forced to vote or they will be fined, or even jailed if they do not vote repeatedly. It is very effective in term of improving voter turnout; however, there is still some argument against it. One of them being people would only vote because they have to, so they are ignorantly voting for the candidates just to be done with it. I completely agree with this idea. The voter turnout can be really high, but it would be meaningless if the people just vote to escape from the punishments. Yale Law School Professor Stephen Carter also suggested that, instead of punishing people do not vote, we should reward people who vote. It is the same with the mandatory voting. I think it will only be effective in increasing the voter turnout, but the results will not. People should vote voluntarily for the best and fair outcome. To have more people voting, I believe we should take a look at why people do not vote. We must assure people that if everybody thinks their vote does not count, then no one would vote. We should be able to change their attitude about their own votes. If people cannot vote because they are busy with work or schools, we should have a national day off on the election day. By doing so, much more people will be able to participate in voting. There should also be
Firstly, the idea of compulsory voting that involves every citizen having a civic duty, rather then a right to vote, which has been introduced in over 20 countries worldwide, a good example being Australia. In Australia, the system has been a success, producing an impressive turnout of 94% in the 2013 election, which therefore means that the Australian government will have a much higher level of legitimacy compared to the UK. However, critics of compulsory voting argue that such a system is undemocratic by itself as it does not provide a citizen with a choice on whether to vote or not, resulting in a serious debate around the issue. However, I must agree with the critics of the system, as the people voting because they have to, are likely to be less passionate and well informed about the person they have to
The United States national elections have been experiencing a steady decline of eligible voters showing up to vote. This steady decline has been ongoing since experiencing a significant increase in voter turnout from 1948 through 1960. Over the years there has been significant, meticulous research done to try to pinpoint the cause of the decline in voter turnout over years. All of this research has led to the production of an enormous number of literatures written on the perceived causes. The vast amount of literature produced has led to a number of competing explanations about this decline. The quest for the answer to the question of, why this decline in voter turnout, is very important for an overwhelming majority of Americans and our democratic system because the people/voters can only truly be represented by our government if all eligible voters go out and vote. For this paper I will examine four theories that attempt to explain the decline. The four theories that I will discuss are voting barriers, campaign contributions, negative campaign advertising, and finally the cultural explanation. However, through thorough exploration and critiques of the strengths and weaknesses of these four theories, we will find that the cultural explanation theory is currently the most persuasive theory in the group. Finally, I will also explore some reasons as to why citizens do vote as well.
As an American citizen do you think the government should enforce compulsory voting? A country usually needs three things to have a successful compulsory voting system, a national voter registration database, rewards to encourage voters, and punishing non-voters. Should americans be required to vote? There are three reasons why Americans should be required to vote, first, so citizens have interests and political knowledge, second, to increase amount of younger voters and finally, requiring people to vote is the least a citizen can do.
Among the many ways Americans can participate in politics, voting is considered one of the most common and important ways for Americans to get involved. The outcome of any election, especially at the national level, determines who will be making and enforcing the laws that all Americans must abide by. With this in mind one might assume that all Americans are active voters, but studies show the voter turnout is actually astonishingly low. With this unsettling trend it is important to know what statistics say about voter turnout as was as the four major factors that influence participation: Socioeconomic status, education, political environment, and state electoral laws, in order to help boost turnout in future elections.
To enforce voting to be mandatory , this will prompt more Americans to pay attention to the choices for their representatives. Mandating would stimulate the demand side, motivating voters to understand and acknowledge who they are voting for. Therefore , voting is to be a responsibility than a option.
They are more likely to research the issues and make an informed discussion. We should place focus on each person’s vote rather than each person’s vote being clump into their state’s vote. Why would someone take the time to vote when to them it does not matter? They see their vote going to a group of votes to decide the outcome of their state not the outcome of the whole race. If we could give the people the chance to see their vote as a discussion to the whole race I can see them taking the time to vote. There will be less of the attitude my vote doesn’t could why should I vote. This would be a way to get more people involved and to further advance the country. If we have people involved in electing the president then we have people that are involved in our country and would fight to keep it going. I feel that we should focus on getting more people involved in the country and one way to do that is to get rid of the Electoral College and continue with the popular vote.
The author argues that without the use of an Electoral College that every vote by an American citizen would still create a big outcome in the election for a candidate. Instead of telling electors who citizens wished to cast their vote for, citizens would be able to really vote for the candidate in which they feel will be most effective for the country. The author believes that the Electoral College has soiled our elections and that we should make a better way in which we can make the elections more efficient and equal for each and every citizen in
In America, political candidates go against one another in a process known as an election in which citizens vote for the next person who "best" fits the position. In addition, there are various amounts of debates on whether a citizen should be compelled to vote. Although some argue if citizens should be required by law to vote, there are exceeding an amount of disadvantages.
Voting is the easiest and simplest way of public participation, as well as making the voters feel like they are directly involved in the process. Certain aspects, such as the Electoral College, eliminate this feeling of involvement. The best way for elections to work would be a nationwide popular vote. This would bring a meaning to the term “true democracy” and will get the people, as a whole, the chance to participate in electing the highest officials.