The Impact of Public Policies on Voter Participation

The Impact of Public Policies on Voter Participation

The public policies are laws and regulations that are put in place in line with the constitution. The government affects all aspects of the lives of their people. Therefore, it is vital to put in place measures that are committed to enhancing public participation. The commitment of the state and civic education is essential. Civic education enables the citizens to know what they are required to do and how they should do it.  The commitment of the state ensures that nobody is above the law promotes order and gives all parties an equal room to participate. Supporting candidates and parties formed under political alliance give people room to influence public policy.  A favourable plan helps to increase voter participation while a negative one demotivates turnout of voters.

For democracy to be practised well, the government needs to provide a fair representation. This can be promoted by allowing all eligible citizens to vote. The electoral process should be free, fair and secure. Participation in a country’s election makes one a good citizen and gives them a feeling of belonging. A secure election can be achieved through streamlining the process, making it transparent and open. The government should provide enough resources in election periods and make sure that voting is accessible for all. This will increase the number of citizens willing to vote as it is transparent, accessible and honest.

A policy to ensure voter registration is streamlined promotes voter participation. This helps to make voter registration more convenient hence increasing the number of those who cast their votes in elections. Many people are barred from registration process due to lack of adequate information about the registration process. Its helps to curb language barriers, race and other factors that may limit an individual from getting registered. This helps to decrease gaps between the various demographic groups during voter participation.

It is essential to ensure the participation of eligible voters through Pro-voter policies and practices. This can be done by eliminating the existing barriers to registering to vote. The obstacles placed on citizens while registering to vote and also during the voting process should be eliminated. Good reforms should be drafted and implemented to allow eligible voters to cast their votes securely. In return, a mechanism should be adopted to ensure that all casted votes have been counted. This policy will help to increase voter participation.

Adoption of automatic voter registration policy has a lot of benefit into the electoral process. It can lead to a high number of registering voters in a short period. It helps to shift the burden of voter registration from the citizen to the state. With this policy, the process is automatically updated. The citizens have a right to accept or decline the automatic registration that is sent to them via mail. Elimination of the disenfranchisement laws on ex-offenders would also increase the number of voters. It is essential to design civic engagement tools in a manner that encourages the voting process. This helps to re-recruit those people that had been alienated from the process. It helps to restore their faith into voting as they can now cast their voice into a vote. This would encourage the restoration of people to trust in the electoral process as they feel represented in the government.

Pre-registration of youth can help improve voter participation. Once they have turned eighteen years, it is automatically activated. This helps to reduce the gap in participation between different demographic groups. A policy that allows online voter registration is a good one. It helps to reduce the hassle of finding a physical location to conduct the process. It is accommodative for eligible voters with inflexible working hours and those that are transient. Those who register online are likely to participate in elections.

On the other hand, voter registration that is not well-communicated decrease voter participation. Arbitrarily early registration decreases the number of voters registered. When people are not well informed about the whole process, they can easily get locked out from the process. The government needs to provide clear information to the people if they are registered or not. This gives people enough time to go and get themselves registered or correct any error that may have occurred. A policy should be put in place to identify new eligible voters and also improve the accuracy of the voting procedure. The government can also implement same-day voter registration. The registration is done the same day that voters are casting their respective votes. This helps to reduce confusion as the voters can cast their votes in any location that allow the voting process. This can also help those that move from one region to another due to work and family conditions. It helps to improve voter registration of all groups and even close gaps of participation.

Responsible leaders are elected when people exercise their powers as voters. The voters can choose the leaders based on who they are and how they will serve the community .in return the leaders have to serve well as they are held accountable by the people who put them into power.