The voting turn out

The voting turn out

The voting turn out has declined tremendously over recent years, although we call ourselves democratic. Although there is an increase in access points where the citizens can still influence the political outcome, the trend is disturbing. According to Russel J Dalton, there is a legislative gap in all the political actions. The social status of a person and the level of education people have are the strong predictors of participation in the voting process. The low turn in voting is there, but the states and neighborhoods where people are in the lower social status the turnout are the smallest (Dalton). While the better-off citizens continue to vote like before, this widening participation gap implies unequal representation; therefore, in such a government, democracy is questioning. In his presidential address, Arend Lijphart stated that Unequal participation signifies unequal influence, which a significant dilemma for representative democracy. A democratic country dictates that society benefits from the ultimate involvement of the citizens. The government would understand its complications if the citizens participated in various ways.

Approximately 6 out of 10 people voted in the 2016 elections. Some of these people are limited by the law while others can vote but choose not to (The Pew Charitable Trusts). Out of the 4/10, feel like the leaders are misusing their power instead of helping people. Others say that their votes do not matter and that the government is very corrupt. “The leaders in power don’t care about making a difference in people’s lives,” one of the non-voters said. The non-voters who most likely the poor and the minority who feel like the government has neglected them don’t see the need for voting. There is also another group of people who want to vote, but they couldn’t. This included people who had registration problems, and some had been removed from the voting rolls.