...aspects of America, including the voting system; American citizens have always had the option of voting since its creation. But given that American citizens have the choice to vote, many opt not to, which results in low voter turn outs. In contrast, some countries have compulsory voting, a forced system of voting to improve low voter turn outs. While a good idea in theory, there is many flaws in the idea of compulsory voting. In order to enforce compulsory voting, national governments must have punishments for those who neglect voting, and this intrudes onto...
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...In 1965, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act which bans racial discrimination by federal workers. Before the Civil War, free blacks were not given the right to vote. Southern states were the main issue because they created a majority of the issues due to their stubborn belief that African Americans should not be given rights. In result, African Americans were denied the right to vote in most parts of the south. That is when the Voting Rights Act was enacted, and removed barriers to voting. This required change in locale’s electoral system. In order for this Act to be successful, it required change in voting procedures. There still lies a problem here, even though congress enacted this law, citizens in the South continued to give African...
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...politics and at a local and national level. Another reason why turnout may be low that of disengagement of younger voters and ethnic minorities, the decline of voter participation is highest for young voters also ethnic minorities may feel as if they are not being identified with from the leading UK political parties. The election campaign is a way of determining voting behaviour yes. With the election campaign it is easy to calculate statistics to find out voting behaviour, although you cannot determine why every person is or is not voting it gives us the closest figures we can get for voting behaviour i.e. seeing what figures are from which constituency’s, in the extract we see that in Liverpool Riverside there was a voter turnout of 41.4% and in West Tyrone there was a turnout of 80.2% proving to us that there is different voting behaviour in different regions of the country. This cannot show the feelings of why people may or may not vote though, some people may feel apathy, hapathy or just be completely unaware of politics all together, the election campaign however does show us the basic ideas of voting...
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...Britain is broadly described as a democracy. A nation where the people choose their leaders and hold them accountable for their policies and their conduct in office. The people decide who will represent them in parliament, and who will head the government at the national and local levels. They do so by choosing between competing parties in regular, free and fair elections. Some people say that participation is the key to democracy. If a certain group of society do not vote, or there is apathy in voting turnouts, then there isn’t a fair outcome. For example, 2003 saw Labour leader Tony Blair declare war in Iraq. Despite the media’s portrayal and lack of support for Blair on his decision, he was re-elected as priminister in the 2005 UK general elections. This made a lot of people upset and angry. However, the turnout for that election was low (61.4%) so it could be argued that because Britain is a democracy, the general public are the soul blame for the outcome of the election. On the other hand, people believe that Britain cannot be a democracy if public participation is so low. They believe that to be a real democracy, the whole population must get involved and have a say. So when only over half of those eligible to vote do, there are questions to be asked as to whether the UK could be defined as such. There has been an increase in pressure groups. They can use a variety of different methods to influence law. These groups most often seem more important than political parties...
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...xxxxxxxxxxx ID#: xxxxxxxx Professor: xxxxxxxxxx class study Date: 9-16-2013 Mandatory Assignment On September 10, 2013 New York City went to the polls to choose the Democratic and Republican nominees for mayor, comptroller and other local races. I am apart of local Union 3 and politics play a big role in our union’s future. A lot of people vote because it’s a trend, some vote because they were told to and others vote because they understand what’s at stake. For me, I decided that I have to vote because I know what’s at stake and to help my local union. Before I went to my Polling place I went straight to my computer to see who the nominees were and what their agenda are for the next four years. After I did that bit of research, I picked the candidates I was interested in and did a little background check on them. The elected position that I was most interested in was the cities comptroller. The Comptroller’s Labor Law 220 schedules is responsible for prevailing wage rates for construction, replacement, maintenance or repair work on New York City public works projects are contained in. The race for NYC Comptroller was between Elliot Spitzer and Scott Stringer. At first glance I was in favor of Mr. Spitzer, because I knew a little bit of his past, but after some research I choose Mr. Stringer. Mr. Stringer was and still supported by the unions throughout his campaign. He was also the Borough president of Manhattan. Choosing him was very easy because his prior...
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...The Evolution of Political Approaches “By 2012, it has become impossible to correctly interpret campaigns strategy without understanding revolution in tactics.” (12) Political strategy has been around since voting was established, and over the years the approaches have evolved to meet the political demand. These approaches have evolved from the traditional “wise man” approach to a social science- centric approach. The “wise man” approach was very critical in the start but soon began to fall behind the curve, and to meet this demeaned and changes of time a new approach needed to move in. the social science-centric approaches provide the basis for more successful campaigns, and many different elements to produce varying accurate data used in technology advanced political campaigns. The first approach called “Wise Men” established the bases for political strategy. “Wise men” were men who studied the area of political consultants as a result they were hired to help produce successful campaigns and voter turnout, which include many men like Dick Morris. “Wise men” used many different events of which included debates, party conventions, and television ads to win the voters choice. These big events gained popularity for the candidates which helped produce correct results for the “wise men”, but there still was no way in telling if the results were true or not or from which event caused the win in votes. “Wise man’s” data could not be decided if it was true or not because “there...
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...Political sponsoring of NGOs Does the end justify the means? Political parties sponsoring NGO’s, is it acceptable? Greenpeace and green political parties are united in their position against nuclear energy and their support for renewable energies. Christian charity organizations and conservative political parties both stand for traditional family values and against family planning. But does this mean they should work together? Often political parties sponsor NGOs, but is this sponsoring even acceptable? There are several arguments which we would like to consider. The credibility of NGOs as independent organizations and their ability to pursue their social interests are harmed by political sponsoring. The credibility of NGOs decreases, because more often than not, the interests of political parties are more important than the original agenda of the NGOs, due to (financial) sponsoring. The reason for political parties to engage with NGOs in the form of political sponsoring is to increase attention for the statements on the political agenda. NGOs often have more resources and are less restrained to all sorts of rules and laws to protest in rigorous actions. However, this money can only be invested when the NGO compromises its own agenda with the agenda of the political party, which means that they might have to compromise on their own values, missions and visions. Hence the question rises; how can an NGO be called non-governmental when there is a political influence? A...
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...he who did nothing because he could do only little” – Edmond Burke On 10th May 2008, the first phase of elections in the state of Karnataka will begin. Citizens ages 18 and older will have the opportunity to make a decision which may impact their own lives and the lives of generations to come. Equipped with the right to vote, they will determine who will lead the state of Karnataka. Unfortunately there are many reasons why citizens decide not to take part in this decision-making process. Such reasons range from discontent with the candidates and disillusionment with the system to simple apathy. Other challenges to higher participation stems from the painfully long electoral roll registration process and the inconvenience of voting itself. These issues often lead citizens to grow discouraged by the political process and to decide not to participate. Before becoming completely disillusioned by the political process, it is important to discern whether or not we are capitalizing on the information that is currently available to improve the system which governs our quality of life. The truth is that we already have at least some of the tools necessary to vote for change, it is just a matter of understanding and utilizing them. Let us take just two obstacles many citizens frequently complain about that can be addressed by an existing measure –discontent with candidate selection and impersonation of voters at the polling booth. According to Section 49-O of...
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...Analytic Essay The political documentaries, Street Fight and Last Man Standing, portrayed elections that in an overall situational view were very similar. Both elections had a younger challenger than the incumbent; they also had one member that was from the area and one who grew up elsewhere, and like most elections they both had a central theme. Ethics, though, was the determinative factor for both. Street Fight showed the 2002 Newark, New Jersey non-partisan mayoral election between the longtime Democrat incumbent Sharpe James and Cory Booker. The old joke “the only way an incumbent leaves office is death or conviction” held true for this election as Sharpe James blatantly abused the power of his office to disrupt Cory Booker’s campaign, having the housing authority prevent Booker from canvasing buildings, sending code enforcement to threaten or shut down businesses for supporting Booker and having the police department tear down campaign signs on the day of the election. (Curry, 2005) Last Man Standing on the other hand had been about a rural Texas state legislature election in 2002 between the Republican incumbent, Rick Green and a Democrat challenger, Patrick Rose. With the number of ethical conflicts that had arisen for Green he was forced to acknowledge Rose and challenge him to several debates, backlashing, giving Rose even more of an opportunity to strike against Green’s ethics while in office and have more media face time within the district. The only thing working...
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...an election, "voter turnout" would be 50%. 02: Using your own knowledge as well as the extract, consider why some commentators have spoken of a 'participation crisis' in recent years. Whilst voting numbers are severely decreasing, levels of non-electoral political participation are at an all-time high because people feel more engaged with politics that way. People believe they possess the skills to participate in politics and express interest in politics but less people can identify that with a certain political party. A lot of people struggle to see the difference between the two main parties running for election, so don’t understand the point of voting. Whilst a lot of decline in political interest from the public has started as late back as the 1990’s, it may be too late to reverse the decline due to young people’s attitudes towards politics. On the other hand, young people still have an idealist opinion of politics in most cases so their interest in politics could spike. Voting numbers and public protest would suggest people have more apathy to politics than an active interest. Although people are taking part in politics more it is still only a minority of the population taking part in things like protests. Whilst this would suggest people are protesting instead of voting, people that participate in these ways are actually more likely to vote than those who...
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...A bar graph is useful for comparing facts. The bars provide a visual display for comparing quantities in different categories. Bar graphs help us to see relationships quickly. Another name for a bar graph is a bar chart. Each part of a bar graph has a purpose. | title | The title tells us what the graph is about. | labels | The labels tell us what kinds of facts are listed. | bars | The bars show the facts. | grid lines | Grid lines are used to create the scale. | categories | Each bar shows a quantity for a particular category. | Now that we have identified the parts of a bar graph, we can answer some questions about the graph in Example 1. QUESTION | | ANSWER | 1. | What is the title of this bar graph? | | Students' Favorite After-School Activities | 2. | What is the range of values on the (horizontal) scale? | | 0 to 100 | 3. | How many categories are in the graph? | | 7 | 4. | Which after-school activity do students like most? | | Visit With Friends | 5. | Which after-school activity do students like least? | | School Clubs | 6. | How many students like to talk on the phone? | | 53 | 7. | How many students like to earn money? | | 44 | 8. | Which two activities are liked almost equally? | | Play Sports and Earn Money | 9. | List the categories in the graph from greatest to least. | | Visit With Friends, Online, Talk on Phone, Play Sports, Earn Money, Watch TV, School Clubs. | Example 2: | Students in a class voted on...
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...Voters in the United States don’t seem to do such a great job of showing up to vote, which is especially true when it’s time for the presidential election. Hard to believe that only a little bit more than half of eligible voters in this country actually participate in voting in the presidential elections. This seems preposterous, especially when you consider that voting plays a major part in our government. I mean, what’s a democracy without the right to vote? But sadly, a plethora of Americans don’t take advantage of that right. In my opinion, at least two causes contribute to this dilemma: people feeling disconnected from a government that seems too impersonal to them, and/or people getting tired of the mudslinging in politics. As government has grown in size and complexity, many people see less need for their participation. “Why should I vote if I can’t affect the political process?” seems to be the view taken by many people who do not vote. They have heard again and again that every vote counts, that their vote counts, but they just don’t believe it. Human beings also have the capability of being just plain lazy. To those who use this as an excuse, it’s too much trouble to register to vote and then actually go to the polls on election day. The second cause of voter apathy in my opinion, is all the mudslinging present in politics today. When one candidate says something about their opponent’s personal life, it makes people wonder what kind of person would make such an...
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...China From the Inside This is a documentary film that narrates the real life of people from some parts of China and some important issues within the country. In the film, I had learned about at least ten issues in China, including the economy, the diversity of population, election, line between security and controlling, corruption, the media, freedom and rights, religion, and AIDS. I will be discussing the elections in China and Tibet problem since they both are very controversial issues. The introduction of the democratic election among citizens in the basic level of the country had excited the Chinese people. In the beginning, many believed that the election is an indication of walking toward democracy. However, does it really carry the country toward true democracy? Many people now consider it as a guise to deceive Chinese people into believing that the government is working toward democracy. In a real democratic election, people have the chances to gather all the impartial information needed to decide which candidate best suits the position. After everyone casts his or her vote, whoever gets the most votes is elected. The whole process should be transparent that all the candidates and voters can have easy access of what is going on. In China, however, people do not have means to gather all the impartial information needed about the candidates. Media is controlled by the government that favors certain candidates. Some wealthy candidates bribe voters and win the...
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...he idea of a socialistic pattern of society has remained a dream only. Real democracy will come into being only when the masses are awakened and take part in the economic and political life of the country. India today is a rich man's democracy. Our democracy is a democracy of the rich, for the rich and by the rich. Election today are a farce. Our national leaders introduced adult franchise with one stroke of pen when 85% of our people were illiterate. It was a fool proof experiment to start with. Universal education should precede adult franchise. Election is always a costly affair and the lure of money works wonders specially among illiterate ones. The absence of an organized opposition the party in power resorts to dishonest means. No single party in India can claim to be really democratic. Violence has taken a serious turn in our country. Bunds, gheraos, strikes, misuse of parliamentary privileges do not augur well for democracy. Defection from one party to the other on selfish and flimsy grounds has added to the instability of the government in our country. It is bad on both moral and political ground. There is no sphere of national life which can be described to be free from corruption. At the political level everyone—ministers, legislators, party officials suffer from it. Our democracy has miserably failed on different front—food, home, foreign etc. The result is that it is dubbed as monocracy or democracy. The masses are illiterate. They abuse their votes. They...
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...Charity Davis Women, Voting, Election, and Candidates The ratification of the nineteenth admendment and the passage of the voting rights act of 1965 gave women the right to vote but because the lack of education many blacks that lived on the plantation were told whom to vote for. For example African Americans were granted the right to vote. Even though this right was granted African Americans didn’t see the effect on the amendment unit. Once they moved up north they began to get involved in political and participate in primarily as voting or the formalized that resulted in formation of institution. In the voter turnout among men and women in the 1950s and 70s indicated that women were les likely to be politically active because of the way in which they had been raised as children. For example, if a father is the soul provider and the mother stay at home the girl may have the impression that is all she is suppose to do. This could have an impact on her participation in politics and the lack of ambition. According to Aristotle women have no place in politics; their life should be spent raising children, cooking, and cleaning and have no time for political affairs. People with a higher education are most likely to vote than those of no education or a lower level of education. According to Virginia Sapiro noted that women had a high level of education and who were mothers were more likely to participate in politics than other women (Harrison, pg 124). Example Hilary Clinton...
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