buford wrote:So you think you should have compulsory voting?
No, I don't think that. But I do think voting should be easier to do. If all balloting were absentee as I discussed above, and votes were cast via touch-tone phone, I think participation would be much greater. Another possibility would be to move Election Day to a Monday (from the current Tuesday), make it a national holiday and have balloting start on the prior Saturday and last for three days. But I still think touch-tone voting would be a better way to go.
The holiday idea would increase participation only in the November elections, but telephone voting would apply to all voting and could increase participation across the board.
Also, was there ever a time in Presidential elections when the percentage was higher, and did that correspond to the pre mass media era?
I'm pretty sure that turnout was at or above 70% until the Vietnam War era. I think two things have suppressed it. One is the proliferation of entertainment alternatives ("distractions"), and the other is the politics of division that really got going as a consequence of the Vietnam War. Now I think we're in something of a downward spiral. There are probably other changes needed, but as long as the two parties find it in their interest to depress the other side's turnout rather than raise their own those changes won't happen.
In the U.S., political participation is become a hobby rather than a civic duty. The hobbyists are increasingly older and more affluent, and as a result you see public policies that shortchange the young and the poor. The young and working class have really low rates of participation, and guess who's fighting and dying in Iraq? In a certain sense, it's their own fault.
[i]To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man -- Thucydides[/i]
