9 Jul 2023 1:24 pm
Remember, President Biden said, from the White House, the right to vote is not absolute. Liberals need to accept that restrictions to who can, and how votes can be cast, are perfectly acceptable.razoo » 09 Jul 2023, 7:08 am » wrote: ↑ Our democracy is in a descending crisis. Voter turnout is among the lowest in the western world, and America ranks in the bottom three of countries that hold free elections. The reasons for this democracy crisis are many:
-Redistricting often leads to gerrymandering, which ensures that very few incumbents are at risk in one-party districts.
-Barriers to full participation of candidates proliferate, such as restricting participation in debates, or setting prohibitive ballot access laws, making it very obstructive for third party and Independent candidates to run.
-Potential voters are confronted by obstacles, and deliberate manipulations to undermine their right to vote, for which penalties are rarely imposed.
-New paperless voting machines are raising questions about whether we can even trust that our votes are being counted as they are cast. When voter confidence decreases, citizens vote less and less, leading to a culture of non-voting.
-The expense of political campaigns creates a clear advantage for the highest spender. Money dominates the dissemination of campaign messages, mainly waged on television in the form of sound bites. This economic stranglehold of campaigns makes politics a game for only the rich or the richly funded.
This silences alternative viewpoints and turns off many voters who do not feel represented by privileged candidates.