I
have always viewed voting as a great privilege, it gives us a voice in how our
Country will be run. A great pride should be associated with
voting. Therefore I was shocked to learn that in the 2008 election only 58 percent of our population voted. What
about the other 42 percent? In a recent study the California Voter Foundation discovered that;
“28 percent of infrequent voters and 23 percent of
those unregistered said they do not vote or do not register to vote because
they are too busy”. Although these are relatively small numbers, it is
important to take into account that California has the largest population in
the US. These Americans are “too busy” to vote, therefore they are
prioritizing something else in their life above voting. Which means that their Country is not
coming first. Instead jobs,
family, friends or other obligations are being prioritized. I believe that this
evidence points to the fact that America is an individualist society.
America
has become an individualist society, and therefore we are busy improving our
selves, and fulfilling personal tasks.
Therefore do you believe that there are indeed more important
obligations people may have than voting for president? In what situations do you believe it is
right for Americans to put themselves before their Country?
One thing I hear people complain about is how darn long voting takes. In such a high-speed society as ours, that line about "too busy" is probably true much of the time.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if you read the posters outside the AS room, you'll notice that in 1876 there were a large number of issues that affected individual voters; Reconstruction was the biggest but not the only one. Other spikes in the number of voters correspond to years with big issues, such as the Depression. Perhaps voters these days feel distanced from the candidates' platforms.