Driver Lifestyles

Thoughts on the Vote

The ability to vote is one of the most cherished of our Constitutional Rights. It is the right to vote that people have fought for, marched for, and even died for, over the centuries.

Have you ever considered...

*by not voting you are abdicating your right to influence government and allowing the will of others, whose opinions may be contrary to your own, to prevail?

*by not voting you are allowing it to be no longer the will of the majority that governs this country, but rather, the will of the minority?

*it is the right to vote that allows you to determine, to a certain degree, your own future by electing officials who reflect your views and will speak for you in government?

*it is the right to vote that enables you to express your opinion as to the fitness of our elected leaders and their policies?

*it is the right to vote that permits you to hire or fire those who represent you in government?

Did you know that in the last two presidential elections just about 50% or less of eligible voters actually went to the polls?

Talking history
Since the declaration of a democracy in 1776, the U.S. government has continually eased some of the restrictions on voting rights enacted by the Constitution.

According to the United States National Archives and Records Administration, the right to vote in the first U.S. presidential election of 1789 was restricted to only 6% of the total U.S. population. The Constitution allocated the power to determine voting rights to the states. In general, the right to vote was restricted legally to those (males) who either owned property or paid taxes and privately to those of the Protestant faith.

While two hundred years later this may seem unjust, historians tell us the founders of our country wanted to ensure that elections would result in the selection of the most qualified candidate. The Protestant, white, property-owning males seemed most capable of making informed decisions. The founders simply did not trust the common man.

The Electoral College, for example, is a result of this distrust of the majority. The primary reason for the creation of the Electoral College was to prevent the people from electing an alluring yet tyrannical president.

In The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton describes the Electoral College as one of the "precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system" to allow "as little opportunity as possible [for] tumult and disorder."

Each extension of the right to vote accompanies an integration of a certain group into U.S. society. Landless men, African Americans (15th Amendment), women (20th Amendment), and finally young adults (22nd Amendment) gained the right to vote only after they demonstrated their importance to society. Universal suffrage is thus a privilege inherited by this generation that represents the dedication of people before us to the U.S.

The voice of the people
While there has always been a certain percentage of eligible voters who don't vote, or donít even register to vote, the trend over the years has been for less and less eligible voters to register and even less and less of them to vote.

In the 1800's it was not unusual for 70% to 80% of eligible voters to vote, but the last time even 60% of eligible voters cast their ballots was in 1968.

In the election of 2002 only 39.9 % of eligible voters actually voted, and considering the closeness of many of the elections, that meant that approximately 20% of eligible voters determined the course of the country.

Ironically, there has been a much higher turnout of eligible voters before mass communication even existed. With the proliferation of mass communication, both print and electronic, it could be presumed that voter participation would increase, but it has gotten smaller.

Is this due to the over abundance of information that today's voters receive?

Is it because of the many political pundits on radio, broadcast and cable TV stations as well as the Internet that are all vying for attention?

Is it the so-called 'attack ads' that have turned the potential voter away from the political process?

Or, has the influence of the special interest groups that pour enormous sums into the candidates' war chests resulted in the belief of the voting populace that the common citizen has no chance of being heard?

However, no matter how much money a campaign has, it still must win the election. When the ballots are cast on Election Day, the people have a greater influence on politics then all the campaign contributors combined.

On Election Day the people have the final say about how the government, both local and federal, is run and what policies it enacts. In the end it is the people who decide who holds office, not the corporations or the large campaign contributors, but this only happens if people, in large numbers, are willing to go to the polls and vote.

Only the people, with their votes, can make the difference.