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Lack Of Voting In The United States

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In recent years, it has been made apparent that voting rights are not being exercised by many Americans. This holds true for local, state, all the way to the presidential primary elections. Voting is something Americans are taught is a fundamental right of being a US citizen and it should be exercised extensively as it is part of the foundation of democracy. Historically, African Americans and women did not have the right to vote in the United States but they were fought for because voting is such an essential right. Why is it that people are not exercising this right which is so important to the future of the United States? In this essay, local voter turnout in the US, Canada, and the UK will be described and explained and then compared in …show more content…
Overall the United states faces a lack of voters in comparison to the population, but the disparity is even larger in local elections. For example, in Los Angeles, during the 2013 primary elections 21% of people voted meaning 382,927 votes were cast in comparison to the total population of 3.8 million (Adams). Additionally, for the runoff elections 23.3 % of people voted and seeing as it was the runoff the hope would be that significantly more people would vote but it was just an increase of 2.3% of the population. Such a significant deficit of population vs. voters is very concerning. However, this is not only happening in the cities in California. In Seattle, Washington in the 2009 elections 39% of people voted and in the run offs 58% of the population voted (Adams). Although Seattle had a much higher voter turnout they also have a significantly smaller population at roughly 616,000. When comparing the number of voters from these two cities, in the primaries, Seattle had around 240,000 voters while Los Angeles had over 382,927 votes which still gives the lead to LA in total number of votes. Overall, it is apparent that there is a lack of voters in Los Angeles and in Seattle in the local elections because the US is suffering over all from lack of …show more content…
In Canadas local elections, on the ballot is generally the mayor, city council and school board with occasionally other positions being included. There has been an increase in the population partaking in local election in Canada can be due to several factors. The first increase can be attributed to access to online voting. According to VerifiedVoting.Org voting online is very appealing to the public and shows promise to help get an increase in voters. This is extremely important when comparing the US to Canada because only 4 out of the 50 states offer online voting according to varafiedvoting.org graph titled Internet voting 2006. This graph explains that 6 states accept ballot by fax, 20 accept email and fax and the remaining states 20 states do not accept anything internet based. Adding the ability to vote via the internet in a portal like the 4 states that currently have it would assist in getting voters more active in local elections because it would assist in solve the issues of the having to go to a specific polling place and be an option other than mailing the ballot by a deadline. The second reason why Canadians have seen an increase in local election participation would be attributed to enumeration. Canada created an enumeration program where decidedly able or not able to vote and if they were able to an enumerator would come to their home and let them

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