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From: berman@ihuxm.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Voting: Low Turnout
Message-ID: <896@ihuxm.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 26-Feb-84 07:23:08 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxm.896
Posted: Sun Feb 26 07:23:08 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 26-Feb-84 23:26:51 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 33

Michael Turner says:
>Give more voting power to those with more money?  Let's turn that one around:
>have a guaranteed national income, collectible only when one presents proof
>of having voted (or proof of inability to do so).  This would certainly bring
>voter participation up from its rather disgraceful level.
>

     Now why is the low voter turnout in the US so "disgraceful?"
     Grant you, Reagan was voted into office by something like 27%
     of the eligible voters, by why is that so disgraceful?  Why not
     take it for its face value?  The 45% of eligible voters who don't
     vote in Presidential elections and the massive number of others who
     don't register, simply don't see the importance of it in their
     own lives.  

     This, mind you, is in the face of a phenomenal media build
     up, the likes of which we are now getting for the 1984 election.
     When the American people are bombasted with TV hype for 6-8
     months, and then still fail to respond, the people are saying
     something significant.

     I suspect that an awful lot of folks have a gut
     level feeling that the options that are offered unto us,
     the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, generally don't
     differ very much.  The fault, perhaps, in not in the "apathy"
     of the American people, but in the failure of the political
     system to present alternatives that people feel are significant.
     The fact that third-party movements are so often still-born,
     may not reflect on their own lack of appeal so much as the
     legal and procedural blocks put in their way.  

     
                Andy Berman