The Duty to Vote PDF Download

Author: Julia Maskivker
Publisher:
ISBN: 0190066067
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
If you can vote, you are morally obligated to do so. As political theorist Julia Maskivker argues, voting in order to improve our fellow citizens' lot is a duty of justice. It does not matter that individual votes may rarely tilt elections: the act of voting is a valuable contribution to a collective activity whose outcome is good governance, and we must do it in order to protect the rights and interests of our fellow citizens.

Author: Jason Brennan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400838738
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Nothing is more integral to democracy than voting. Most people believe that every citizen has the civic duty or moral obligation to vote, that any sincere vote is morally acceptable, and that buying, selling, or trading votes is inherently wrong. In this provocative book, Jason Brennan challenges our fundamental assumptions about voting, revealing why it is not a duty for most citizens--in fact, he argues, many people owe it to the rest of us not to vote. Bad choices at the polls can result in unjust laws, needless wars, and calamitous economic policies. Brennan shows why voters have duties to make informed decisions in the voting booth, to base their decisions on sound evidence for what will create the best possible policies, and to promote the common good rather than their own self-interest. They must vote well--or not vote at all. Brennan explains why voting is not necessarily the best way for citizens to exercise their civic duty, and why some citizens need to stay away from the polls to protect the democratic process from their uninformed, irrational, or immoral votes. In a democracy, every citizen has the right to vote. This book reveals why sometimes it's best if they don't.

Author: André Blais
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 077486270X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
Elections are at the heart of our democracy. Understanding citizens’ decisions to vote or to abstain in elections is crucial, especially when turnout in so many democracies is declining. In The Motivation to Vote, André Blais and Jean-François Daoust provide an original and elegant model that explains why people vote. They argue that the decision to vote or abstain hinges on four factors: political interest, sense of civic duty, perceived importance of the election, and ease of voting. Their findings are strongly supported by empirical evidence from elections in five countries. The authors also test alternative explanations of voter turnout by looking at contextual factors and the role of habit, but find little evidence to support these hypotheses. This analysis is compelling and further demonstrates the power of their model to provide a provocative and parsimonious explanation of voter turnout in elections.

Author: Anthoula Malkopoulou
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317693345
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
Is voting out of fashion? Does it matter if voters don't show up at the polls? If yes, is legal enforcement of voting compatible with democracy? These are just a few of the questions linked to the thorny problem of electoral abstention. This book addresses the hot question whether there is a duty to vote and if this is enforceable in the form of compulsory voting. Divided into two parts, Anthoula Malkopoulou begins by expertly presenting the importance of compulsory voting today, situating the debate within the contemporary discussion on liberty, equality and democracy. Then, she questions the historical origins of the idea in Europe. In particular, she examines parliamentary discussions and other primary sources from France and Greece, including a few additional insights from other countries like Switzerland and Belgium. Focusing especially on the years between 1870 and 1930, the reader learns about the historical actors of the debates, their efforts to legitimate punishment of abstention through normative arguments, but also their strategic motivations and political interests. While discussions at the beginning of the century focus on introducing compulsory voting, Malkopoulou criticizes its misuse after the Second World War, exposing the contingency of relevant normative claims today and the conditionality of compulsory voting. From ancient times until today, you learn about the ideological debates, their political context and how the problems of equal representation and democratic moderation persist through the ages.

Author: Jason Brennan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139916734
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
In many democracies, voter turnout is low and getting lower. If the people choose not to govern themselves, should they be forced to do so? For Jason Brennan, compulsory voting is unjust and a petty violation of citizens' liberty. The median non-voter is less informed and rational, as well as more biased, than the median voter. According to Lisa Hill, compulsory voting is a reasonable imposition on personal liberty. Hill points to the discernible benefits of compulsory voting and argues that high turnout elections are more democratically legitimate. The authors - both well-known for their work on voting and civic engagement - debate questions such as: • Do citizens have a duty to vote, and is it an enforceable duty? • Does compulsory voting violate citizens' liberty? If so, is this sufficient grounds to oppose it? Or is it a justifiable violation? Might it instead promote liberty on the whole? • Is low turnout a problem or a blessing?

Author: Jason Brennan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400888395
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutions Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But Jason Brennan says they are all wrong. In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse—more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government—epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable—may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out. A challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable, Against Democracy is essential reading for scholars and students of politics across the disciplines. Featuring a new preface that situates the book within the current political climate and discusses other alternatives beyond epistocracy, Against Democracy is a challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable.

Author: Martin P. Wattenberg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317347021
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
This book focuses on the root causes of the generation gap in voter turnout—changes in media consumption habits over time. It lays out an argument as to why young people have been tuning out politics in recent years, both in the United States and in other established democracies.

Author: Geoffrey Brennan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521585248
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
"The significance of this account should be clear. If, as economists frequently assert, proper diagnosis of the disease is a crucial prerequisite to treatment, then the design of appropriate democratic institutions depends critically on a coherent analysis of the way the electoral process works and the perversities to which it is prone. The claim is that the interest-based account incorrectly diagnoses the disease. Accordingly, this book ends with an account of the institutional protections that go with expressive voting."--BOOK JACKET.

Author: Sharon E. Jarvis
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271082887
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
For decades, journalists have called the winners of U.S. presidential elections—often in error—well before the closing of the polls. In Votes That Count and Voters Who Don’t, Sharon E. Jarvis and Soo-Hye Han investigate what motivates journalists to call elections before the votes have been tallied and, more importantly, what this and similar practices signal to the electorate about the value of voter participation. Jarvis and Han track how journalists have told the story of electoral participation during the last eighteen presidential elections, revealing how the portrayal of voters in the popular press has evolved over the last half century from that of mobilized partisan actors vital to electoral outcomes to that of pawns of political elites and captives of a flawed electoral system. The authors engage with experiments and focus groups to reveal the effects that these portrayals have on voters and share their findings in interviews with prominent journalists. Votes That Count and Voters Who Don’t not only explores the failings of the media but also shows how the story of electoral participation might be told in ways that support both democratic and journalistic values. At a time when professional strategists are pressuring journalists to provide favorable coverage for their causes and candidates, this book invites academics, organizations, the press, and citizens alike to advocate for the voter’s place in the news.

Author: John Fund
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594036195
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
The 2012 election will be one of the hardest-fought in U.S. history. It is also likely to be one of the closest, a fact that brings concerns about voter fraud and bureaucratic incompetence in the conduct of elections front and center. If we don't take notice, we could see another debacle like the Bush-Gore Florida recount of 2000 in which courts and lawyers intervened in what should have involved only voters. Who's Counting? will focus attention on many problems of our election system, ranging from voter fraud to a slipshod system of vote counting that noted political scientist Walter Dean Burnham calls “the most careless of the developed world.” In an effort to clean up our election laws, reduce fraud and increase public confidence in the integrity of the voting system, many states ranging from Georgia to Wisconsin have passed laws requiring a photo ID be shown at the polls and curbing the rampant use of absentee ballots, a tool of choice by fraudsters. The response from Obama allies has been to belittle the need for such laws and attack them as akin to the second coming of a racist tide in American life. In the summer of 2011, both Bill Clinton and DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz preposterously claimed that such laws suppressed minority voters and represented a return to the era of Jim Crow. But voter fraud is a well-documented reality in American elections. Just this year, a sheriff and county clerk in West Virginia pleaded guilty to stuffing ballot boxes with fraudulent absentee ballots that changed the outcome of an election. In 2005, a state senate election in Tennessee was overturned because of voter fraud. The margin of victory? 13 votes. In 2008, the Minnesota senate race that provided the 60th vote needed to pass Obamacare was decided by a little over 300 votes. Almost 200 felons have already been convicted of voting illegally in that election and dozens of other prosecutions are still pending. Public confidence in the integrity of elections is at an all-time low. In the Cooperative Congressional Election Study of 2008, 62% of American voters thought that voter fraud was very common or somewhat common. Fear that elections are being stolen erodes the legitimacy of our government. That's why the vast majority of Americans support laws like Kansas's Secure and Fair Elections Act. A 2010 Rasmussen poll showed that 82% of Americans support photo ID laws. While Americans frequently demand observers and best practices in the elections of other countries, we are often blind to the need to scrutinize our own elections. We may pay the consequences in 2012 if a close election leads us into pitched partisan battles and court fights that will dwarf the Bush-Gore recount wars.