...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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...Voting was crucial in developing a national identity in the United States between 1800 and 1855. During this period, significant changes took place in how elections were conducted and who was eligible to vote. These changes helped connect Americans to a shared identity and common purpose. One way in which voting helped develop a national identity was through the expansion of suffrage. In the early 19th century, many states began to eliminate property ownership requirements for voting, allowing more white males to participate in elections. This increase in the number of voters helped to create a sense of unity among citizens, as more people became invested in the political process. Additionally, the rise of political parties during this time...
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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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... Informative Speech Outline Topic: The importance of voting Type of Speech: issue Strategy for Presenting Content: Explanation General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: To inform my audience the importance of voting. Thesis Statement: Voting is essential and should be exercised by everyone because one vote can make a difference. Introduction: How many people are registered to vote? How many people are registered to vote and have voted? This is the dilemma the United States is facing today. Many people are registered to vote, but choose not to vote. It is important to exercise your voting rights because the decision our government officials make can have a huge impact on our lives. Voting in any type of election, from local races to Presidential primaries, provides an important way to voice your opinions regarding elected leaders and overall policies. In addition, voting decides our future by electing officials who reflect your own views. Therefore, voting is essential and should be exercised by everyone because one vote can make a difference. The ability to vote is one of the most cherished Constitutional Rights that many have fought, marched, and died for over the centuries. 1. Many people do not realize that voting is so vital that it can even have an impact on your daily life. Voting is the best way to express your opinion silently and privately...
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...Political advertising – a brief survey The empirical political advertising literature is limited. Most authors refer to Rothschild’s seminal (1978) article, which is both a review and a report on his tests of an involvement model. The level of involvement of voters in a particular election could depend on a wide range of factors, but Rothschild offers three general ones: 1. the level of the election (national/local etc.); 2. the closeness of the race; and 3. the volatility of the issues or candidates. There is some more recent work examining voter recall of political messages. Faber and Storey (1984), note voter responses to different messages and presentations (see, for example, Thorson et al., 1991), in particular negative ones (Faber et al., 1993; Garramone, 1984; Tinkham and Weaver-Lariscy, 1994). These studies used subjects in experimental groups rather than actual electoral or opinion poll data. More recently Ansolabehere and Iyengar (1995) have substantially added to the literature on negative advertising through the use of a very rounded and full quantitative and qualitative study which shows that a highly focused negative campaign can increase the turnout of those potential supporters predisposed to abstain by something in the order of approximately 29 per cent, thus maximising your supporters’ vote. Weaver-Lariscy and Tinkham (1987) investigated how Congressional election candidates evaluated different media and proposed six levels of response to political...
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...There could be a desire in many hearts to keep the candle of Urdu alight in India, but there are few who take actual task of spreading the message of the language across the country. alive The desire to keep Urdu alive xx New Guard takes over the PCI TR Ramachandran of G Files has been elected as the new President of Press Club of India (PCI) for the year 2010-11 in the elections held on November 13, 2010, for which the results were declared on the evening of November 24, 2010. Sandeep Dikshit of The Hindu has been elected as Secretary General. Ramachandran polled 692 votes, defeating his rival Parvez Ahmed, the incumbent president who got 444 votes. Dikshit defeated Pushpendra Kulshreshtha, who has been occupying the post of the Secretary General for a record four time. Dikshit polled 626 votes as against 520 votes secured by Kulshreshtha. Anil Anand and Vineeta Pandey of DNA have been elected as Vice-Presidents, while Nadeem Ahmad Kazmi of NDTV is the new Treasurer of the Club. The elected members of the executive committee include Aarti Dhar, Aditi Nigam, Anoop Saxena, Avtar Negi, Dinesh K Tewari, Jagdish Yadav, Jomy Thomas, MK Tayal, Narendra Bhalla, Nitin A Gokhale, Rajeev Ranjan, Sanjay Singh, Sanjeev Upadhyay, Shambhu Nath Choudhary, Sumit Mishra, and Vijay Saluja. This year’s elections at the PCI assume significance as these were held under the supervision of a Court observer. Delhi High Court had appointed an observer to hold the elections after a suit filed...
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...In Search of the Black Swan: Analysis of the Statistical Evidence of Electoral Fraud in Venezuela Ricardo Hausmann Harvard University Roberto Rigobón Massachusetts Institute of Technology September 3, 2004 *This study was requested by Súmate who also provided the databases we used. We appreciate the great information gathering effort carried out by this organization. We are equally indebted to a hard working collaborator who, because of institutional reasons, must remain anonymous. We thank Andrés Velasco as well for his useful comments. The opinions expressed in this report and the errors we may have incurred are our responsibility and do not compromise either Súmate, or the universities to which we belong. 1 Abstract This study analyzes diverse hypotheses of electronic fraud in the Recall Referendum celebrated in Venezuela on August 15, 2004. We define fraud as the difference between the elector’s intent, and the official vote tally. Our null hypothesis is that there was no fraud, and we attempt to search for evidence that will allow us to reject this hypothesis. We reject the hypothesis that fraud was committed by applying numerical maximums to machines in some precincts. Equally, we discard any hypothesis that implies altering some machines and not others, at each electoral precinct, because the variation patterns between machines at each precinct are normal. However, the statistical evidence is compatible with the occurrence of fraud that has affected every machine...
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...services the cities supply to their residents. The races held in your towns, cities, townships, and counties affect you more directly than any national race does. Mayors and Aldermen decide budgets which affect your taxes, the price of water, the local funding for projects, and numerous other decisions. Just because the candidates don't get plastered all over cable news networks and they don't go on campaign tours, it doesn't mean that their views and platforms aren't important. Politics in America has become about looking good on television and saying the right thing to get a soundbite on the 5 o' clock news. It's more about having a good image than a good policy. Americans need to get out of this slump of voting for the candidate who has better hair, or nicer teeth. Voting is a privilege. Not to downplay the importance of national politics, but local races are pretty much the only serious races remaining. Those races are the ones in which the candidates are required to have sound ideas for policy and a concern for the real issues. It shows the mentality of our nation when the only remaining serious elections are the ones which enjoy low participation. People don't want to...
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...who vote by party identification. It has fallen from 45% in 1964 to 10% in 2010, it is apparent that voting may be becoming an issue of deliberated choice, a rational exercise rather than something decided by your upbringing or you socio-economic group. To name one reason, it is clear that voting is a rational exercise when we take into account party leadership, and how that has affected past general elections. Past general elections have shown us that the image of the party leader is in-fact of most importance, with elections having significant swings based on the image of the party leader. An example of such an occasion was the 1979 general election. Labour leader Michael Foot was a kind-hearted man, an ex-pilot and had credible policies, yet he cared not for his appearance and was often quite scruffy and poorly dressed. Mrs Thatcher on the other hand was well-spoken, well-dressed and an looked the part of a prime-minister - and it was her that won the election. It is also often the case that opinion polls also show this is the case, and that an appealing party leader will often result in a win at the general election. This fact that a party’s leader’s appearance affects the outcome of a general election is significant evidence in favour of the view that voting now is a rational exercise. Yet further evidence that voting is now an essentially rational exercise is voting behaviour regarding the economy, especially in times of economic crisis. Sanders’ theory is that the...
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...1) What business is Threadless in? - Threadless is in the custom designed, user-created shirt business. - Threadless acts as facilitators for community-run business What is their competitive strategy? - Threadless’ designs are completely user created on Threadless’ website. - Online community of artists creates potential T-shirt designs, rather than Threadless creating them. - Ideas are voted on by the online Threadless community. - Threadless staff reviews highest rated ideas; chooses winner How sustainable is it? - Strategy has been copied by other websites (Design By Humans, for example). - However, Threadless is already massively popular/has established, loyal, talented user community. - Most competitors won’t be able to offer comparable financial incentives to user community. - As such, it is likely that Threadless won’t be seriously threatened by similar, community-driven companies. 2) What motivates various members of the community to participate? - Simple customers use website to simply buy creative shirts. - Designer-conscious students use website to generate feedback from fellow artists. - People have opportunity to interact with designers on company blog. - Monetary incentives include $2,000 cash and $500 in Threadless gift cards for winning shirt designs. - Each time a design is reprinted, the winning artist receives additional $500. - Winning designers have their art distributed...
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...Festivity of Political Campaigns Still Persist By Francel Salas Election from the word itself “elect” which means to choose or to vote a righteous person that will lead his country and his people with his intention of further boost the development of the country side. As a democratic country Philippines used to have its election. And now election 2013 is fast approaching, politicians are becoming very ostensible to the public due to their political campaigns that will convince our voters to vote for them. Different tactics and skims are evident to these aspiring politicians. Nowadays, vast number of banners and tarpaulins sponsored by prominent politicians are encircling the different municipalities and cities of the country that are obviously bespeaks of the upcoming election. Furthermore, even holiday seasons are also utilize for political purposes wherein last Christmas, some of the well-known politician candidates used to distribute “hamon”- definitely for their political intention. Also the “Feast of the Black Nazarene” last January 9, became an instrument for campaign, politicians gave free t-shirts to those devotee with the face of Black Nazarene in the front and the name of politician at the back. Additionally, television networks, radio stations, newspapers and even social media will be used as their medium to broadcast their propagandas. Political campaign would not be complete without the prepared speeches from the candidates with their smiling faces to the...
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...Over recent years, a lot of attention has been placed on this so called born free generation. But why? Born after 1994, this generation is born into Democratic SA, free from the horrors of apartheid, and it is this generation that is coming of age, able to vote and become participant’s in democracy rather than beneficiaries. It is this reality that has drawn the attention, mainly political toward potentially powerful generation. They don’t carry baggage from apartheid for they were not there. They don’t feel loyalty to the ANC because the ANC did not free them. Born free is not always a compliment. The social character of the born-free generation is perceived to be carefree over-indulgence in leisure, entertainment, and promiscuity. Reference to a born free is used to describe the youth as an ignorant generation that has no regard for history but is at the same time happy to enjoy life under a free and democratic dispensation. This conception is true; 18 year olds are generally pleasure seeking, so why is this used as a negative characteristic? It is used by the elder generations in the ANC to remind youth what they did for South Africa; an attempt to gain the born frees loyalty to ensure the ANC’s stronghold in the government. Change is inevitable as it is this Born Fee generation who are already showing signs of being fed up, with the standard of education, unemployment/crime, and BEE. There is a general view that South African youth is faced with an array of life threatening...
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...the problem. As Morris Fiorina and Samuel Abrams do in their work, Political Polarization in the American Public, researchers search for ways to prove popular polarization exists, and struggle. With the lack of a universal definition of polarization, the changing and fairly unpredictable nature of the human voter, and even with the proven existence of elite polarization, the existence of true political polarization will never be determined. When attempting to prove polarization, it is much easier to use the choices voters make in elections and determine from that information whether polarization is present. While easier, the choices voters make do not necessarily represent their specific preferences. In nearly all elections, when voting for a candidate, a voter will not agree with all of the stances a candidate takes on various issues. Rather, they will go with the candidate they agree with on the most issues. Therefore, such a method is a poor way of measuring polarization, as it is far too broad. Looking...
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...Journal- Harborco Background: In this negotiation exercise, I was assigned as the Seaborne Governor’s negotiator as part of a six member party meeting to negotiate a deal with Harborco to build and operate a deepwater port off the coast of Seaborne. The Governor on the whole was very interested in seeing this deepwater port built in Seaborne as she believes that the size of the project would provide the stimulus for a dramatic recovery in the state. However, as there were many parties involved in the meeting, each party had its own interests and objectives that they wished to obtain from the negotiation and the deal. The five main issues that were negotiated between the six parties were Industry Mix, Ecological Impact, Employment Rules/ Distribution, Federal Loans and Compensation to other ports. In particular the governor was interested in bringing federal money into the state as it would provide the governor with huge political leverage. Therefore, obtaining a huge federal loan was one of our main agendas that we wished to obtain from this negotiation. Next, the employment distribution was also important to the governor because of the political strength of labour unions in the state. The industry mix was also important in terms of economic stability and revenue in the long run for the region and the governor had expressed that “primarily dirty” industries were most desirable. In terms of the ecological impact the governor was not too concerned about the...
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...Ryan Brown COM 702 3/18/2010 Final Paper In his paper entitled Idolizing and Monetizing the Public: The Production of Celebrities and Fans, Representatives and Citizens in Reality TV, Yngvar Kjus explores audience participation theories and new media by analyzing both the Norwegian and American versions of Idol, a popular reality musical competition series. His exploration of the program via the analysis of collective participation, idolization, and production tactics ultimately unveil a well thought-out and persuasive spectacle that is not as real or grand as it comes off in societies around the globe. While Kjus does touch on theories like massive participation and voter behavior, there is certainly room in his paper for expansion on these topics as well as room for the inclusion of others. Over the course of multiple seasons of the Norwegian version of Idol, Kjus attends nine tapings and multiple production meetings in an attempt to answer his two main research questions. His questions set to find out how reality programs increase the participatory scope and empowerment of audiences and everyday people, as well as how television industries are reinventing themselves as new forms of media emerge, namely online and social media. Kjus starts the paper by presenting these research questions and then explores the history of reality TV and studio audiences, touching on game shows, talk shows, and docusoaps. He then gets into Idol, a show created by Simon Fuller...
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