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Election Day

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Submitted By t343
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It’s Election Day!
(Does Anyone Really Care?)

John F. Kennedy once said that “The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” When I ran across this quote I realized that today is Election Day in Massachusetts and many local voters were heading to the polls to select new leadership. Now it’s a known fact that local voter turnout is never very high. We see more middle-aged citizens and the elderly turning out for these elections which, based on the information presented in our discussion question, is about 20-30% of registered voters. But how does this tie-in to the quote. I am in agreement that a low voter turn-out is not necessarily a bad thing. These voters usually represent those voters who are knowledgeable about the issues at hand and want to see the best person for the job get elected. But does this continuous process yield a better outcome as a whole.
The populace needs to be educated about the issues and understand what they are voting for. If people tend to vote on blind faith or, worse, emotion, it is an ignorant and potentially costly move for us all. In order for communities as a whole to bind together and elect the right people for the job, they must take the time and energy to get involved and to become educated on the important issues that are affecting them and their families. The question was asked in our discussion as to what kind of a program we could devise to not only increase voter turn-out but to educate the common voter in such a way as to not make them feel like an idiot. This would be community participation at its best. Here is my idea.
First, it is important to educate the voters. A good way of doing this is placing candidate and initiative information in grocery bags at supermarkets. It would be non-partisan and the program would be run by a social change initiative conceived and run by

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