Voting in America
There are many things that people in America can vote on. They range from taxes to presidents to laws. For the sake of simplicity, the following will be focusing on the voting of presidents since it is the most well-known and relevant at the time. Most if not all of the things noted in the voting of presidents can be transferred to the voting of anything else. However, in order to understand what is wrong with the voting of our president, it is essential that the process of how that is done is understood.
In order to be able to vote, one must be registered, a citizen, and 18 at the time of the election. Then the citizen votes for the candidate that they think is the best and hope that the Electoral College Electors do their job and cast their votes accordingly. In all but two states, Maine and Nebraska, the votes are winner-take-all, so as long as the candidate gets the majority vote, they get all the votes (Kevin). This sometimes results with presidents who do are elected with less than the majority vote such as George W. Bush who lost by 543,816 votes to Al Gore in the 2000 election (Martin).
One huge problem with the current voting system is voter turnout. In a study done by the US Census Bureau, in the November 2008 elections, only 63.6% of the 71.0% registered population voted (Table 02-1). That is 45.2% of the citizen population. It is impossible for a true democracy to be functioning if less than the majority of the people are making the decisions, and our leaders are chosen by the majority of the minority of the people.
In the same study done by the US Census Bureau, reasons that registered voters did not vote were taken. The main reasons given were that 17.5% said they were too busy, 14.9% out of illness or disability, 13.4% were not interested, and 12.9% did not like the candidates or issues.(Table 12) There are ways for those who are busy and are sick/disabled to vote without going to the polls such as absentee voting. Those...
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