Importance Of Vote

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The Importance of Voting in a Democratic Society

One of the myriad problems that America is facing today is their low voter turnout. In particular, voting is relevant in sustaining a country’s democracy. A lower voter turnout could mean that democracy is being threatened and that the essence of being a republican state is defeated. ArendLijphart raised an argument that the cure to his lower voter turnout is the compulsory voting. On the other hand, Austin Ranney defended that nonvoting is not a social disease for it can be considered as one’s freedom—the freedom not to vote. However, this paper argues that one should citizens should vote because voting is very essential in order to strengthen democracy. It is through voting that people are
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For the government to be truly accountable to its citizens, those citizens must vote; they must express approval for policies and policy makes they like, and disapproval for those they do not (Coleman Lijphart and Ranney have positioned their stand with regard to voting and nonvoting. For Lijpart, compulsory voting is a prerequisite in order to have a strong democracy while Ranney’s view of nonvoting is that it is not a social disease. Comparison with these ideas is vital because there’s a need to fully appreciate the relevance of voting in a democratic state. High voter turnout could mean that people are satisfied as to how the government provides for their needs and promotes their general welfare. On the other hand, low voter turnout could mean that there is something in the government that needs to be improved. Lipjphards antidote of having a strong democracy is to maximize turnout and it could only be done effectively through compulsory voting. In his literature, he mentions that low over turnout could be a serious problem for the following reasons: (1) democratic legitimacy is questioned and (2) low voter turnout could mean that certain groups vote in greater numbers than other groups. If legitimacy is lost, it could lead to chaotic conditions because when people start to doubt the government, uprising and rebellion could be the very results to this. If certain groups vote in greater numbers than other groups, there could be a gap as to the privileged-citizens and the unrepresented most especially in influencing law makers making governmental policies. He also mentions that the biggest advantage of compulsory voting is that if there’s an enhancement in the voter turnout, bias against the less-privileged citizens is removed and that participation is equalized. Much more, vote buying is alleviated if there’s compulsory voting because the electorates are left with no choice but to
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