Essay About Low Voter Turnout And United States

Index/Social IssuesLow Voter Turnout in the United Statesjmelfi98Jennifer MelfiProfessor BhattaraiPLSC 110: American PoliticsMay 4, 2017Low Voter Turnout in the United States        Our democracy was founded on the basis of a government that was by the people, for the people. The only way to ensure that our government can stay true to its founding purpose is by facilitating elections that provide an outcome that is favored by the majority of the population (Tucker 2004). With the United States having an outright low turnout for elections, it raises the concern that our democracy is not an effective one; it is not one that represents the people.         Voter turnout can be calculated in a variety of ways. In the United States, political scientists use the percentage of eligible voters in order to determine how many people are coming out to the polls (DeSilver 2016). The United States uses age as the determinant of eligibility when calculating because there are a variety of factors that can affect a person’s status as a voter, like whether or not they are in prison.On average in the United States, only 48.3 percent of eligible voters have participated in all general elections held since 1945 (Koyzis 2000). This dismally low number for voter turnout ranks the U.S. at 139 out of 172 countries. The decision not to vote, however, is not always an irrational one. The “paradox of voting” suggests that  there are multiple factors that come into mind when deciding whether or not to vote (Lemieux 2013). According to a report generated from results of the 2013 census, 14 percent of the population that did not cast a ballot did so because they were ill or disabled, 8.6 percent were not in their town of voter registration at the time of the election,12.7 percent did not agree with the candidates, and close to 19 percent said that they were just too busy (File 2013).Compulsory voting is the process by which the government actively enforces voting by making it a law that all eligible voters participate in any given election. The most prominent and effective installment of compulsory voting exists in Australia. Since the law was added there in 1924, eligible voter turnout increased from 47 percent to 96 percent (Rosenberg 2017). This increase in voter turnout was not only influenced by the requirement to vote by law, but also by the fact that in order to make compulsory voting a practicality in Australia, the government had to make their electoral system more adaptable to the voter. The measures used to make compulsory voting laws possible included holding elections on Saturdays instead of working weekdays, and allowing out of town voters to participate in the election at any state polling place (Rosenberg 2017).

The pros associated with compulsory voting laws are the added flexibility for voters, the result of the election is one that represents the people, candidates can spend more time on issues instead of encouraging supporters to go out and vote, and the mandatory ballot is cast in secret so voters don’t actually have to vote if they don’t want to. Some of the cons include that many people think that mandating people to vote is undemocratic, as stated in the 2007 Harvard Law Review as follows:Many of our most closely cherished rights reflect a choice — to speak out, or not speak out; to worship, or not to worship; and so on. This gives rise to the notion that a right to do something inherently includes the right not to do that thing. It is the individual’s choice to exercise a right or not…(“The Case for Compulsory Voting in the United States” 2007)Additionally, the number of “donkey votes” — when a voter numbers the ballot paper from top to bottom without regard to the candidates and on the ballot (“Donkey Votes” 2004) — increases, and if an eligible voter fails to cast a ballot then it is up to the government to determine whether or not the non voter had a valid reason for missing the election (“Compulsory Voting” 2011).Additionally, voter turnout numbers are also heavily influenced by how competitive the election is that year. More competitive elections with more candidates or more popular candidates have brought an increased number of voters to the polls (Koyzis 2000). Although you cannot make every election a bloodbath, it may come to the point that we may have to break apart the Republican and Democratic parties. They will still exist, of course, but it would be more beneficial to decrease their hold on the government and allocate some of their funding into smaller parties. Smaller parties allow for more candidates to come to the surface and fight for a variety of issues that may be neglected by larger parties. With more candidates, eligible voters are more likely to find at least one candidate that they can agree with, making them likely to go out and vote for them on election day (Koyzis 2000). We must also take into consideration, however, that if the vote ever became truly divided between a number of candidates, it might be impossible for any one candidate to win the majority of the votes leaving us in shambles and in possible need for a re-election.

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