voting
An election in Sweden for seats in the European Union Parliament might offer some insight to Americans about what happens when the power of the Internet gets married to voter apathy.
According to first-hand reports, balloting was running smoothly Tuesday in Williamsburg, Virginia, a town that has been going to the polls since about 1632.
Election officials carefully monitored the contests for president, senator, and representative to be sure there were no irregularities, and that all was fair and above board.
It wasn’t ever thus. During the past 370 years, voting has one or two times, perhaps, been, shall we say, below board.
I landed in the first batch of voters turned loose on the ballot box following the lowering of the voting age to 18.
Amendment 26, ratified in 1971, got me my first vote at age 20.
I recall spirited debates in high school classes in the 1970s about the proposed change from age 21 to 18. I recall a lot of classmates talking excitedly about getting the right to vote. They believed and I believed that a single vote could make a difference in a national election, even though mathematicians tell us otherwise.
“So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times…We may make these times better if we bestir ourselves.”—Benjamin Franklin
“Revolutionize through the ballot-box, and restore the government once more to the affection and hearts of men, by making it express, as it was intended to do, the highest spirit of justice and liberty.”—Abraham Lincoln
Excerpted from DemocracyConservator.org .
In the 1780s, Alexander Tyler, a University of Edinburgh professor, stated that democracy was a transitory form of government - “[[Democracy]] can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.” (bold and italics added)
In this episode of the iCitizenForum Vblog, we interview Rock the Votes’ Heather Smith about voter turnout, hot issues for young voters, and how Rock the Vote is helping the democratic process.
In our first episode of the iCitizen vblog we interview Peter Levine, director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement and author of "The Future of Democracy, Developing the Next Generation of American Citizens." Peter offers his thoughts on how the Internet will change civic participation and why citizenship should be taught in school.
