Essay on Voting Challenges in the US: Examining Election Ethics and Participation

In a standard article, Zimmerman and Desposato (2016) highlighted that there has been emergent research on political science, particularly on election ethics. People in the US experience challenges when it comes to decision making and formal expression of preference for a candidate. The government has failed to pay attention to voting, which is a significant approach that people use to participate in large scale national and regional elections. In as much as policies and laws of a state are concerned, election ethics matters because it is a key approach that guarantees citizens fundamental human rights. In this paper, the literature will demonstrate a growing body of political science, the voting crisis, and strategies used by the government to justify ethical elections.

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There are many dependent variables in political science behavior that directly impact the lives of people in the US. For instance, corruption, voting, engaging in protest, declaring war, and more are some of the challenges that are intertwined with election ethics. These challenges are particularly salient when information is executed in the context of an election in that most of the incumbent official's turnaround to respond to the information, which subsequently affects voters. Many unethical things happened when federal candidates and officers holders in the US are elected. Cram (2006) asserted that most political parties spend money in connection with the federal election; this in a large extent influences the outcomes of elections. At the same time, records show that political candidates participate in corruption by using donations and credits from the national party to increase their prospects of the election. The national party acts as guarantee access that enables political candidates to access national party sizeable donations.

As such, I ask two questions; what interventions does the US government use to justify election ethics? The other question is; does the government use the constitution to solve the voting crisis, which the majority of the public think is necessary? I also suggest ethical considerations that can provide information to the citizens where there is a chain of accountability from citizens to government officials through elections. The US constitution provides interventions, which are often designed to address the encounters. Also, it provides information to citizens about corruption, violence, and government performance. A transparent way of disseminating information to the people is a prime intervention that can be used to communicate policy issues and preferences about the government. The downstream outcome is for the public good because it affects everyone who participates in voting.

To answer my questions, I will analyze McConnell v Federal election commission and Federal election communication, which are available on the book written by Ian Cram "Contested Words: Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Speech in Liberal Democracies" and an article written by Smock in the year 2011. I will also randomly select peer-reviewed articles to develop an analysis framework. Based on this research, I anticipate what the government is doing to justify the policies as per the constitution. I will, therefore, hypothesize other strategies used by the government, which are present and consistent; these will employ specific framing including articles 25 of the international covenant on civil and political rights. I will also focus on a peer review work by Tomas (2014), which talks about article two of the international covenant on civil and political rights.

Annotated Bibliography:

1). Cram, I. (2006). Contested words: legal restrictions on freedom of speech in liberal democracies. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

Ian Cram in his book highlighted some of the legal restrictions on freedom of speech, which interfere with election ethics. He points out how political candidates and election officers have been controversial in policy choices and democratic politics.

2). Zimmerman, B., & Desposato, S. (2016). Information and Power: Ethical Considerations of Political Information Experiments. Ethics and Experiments: Problems and Solutions for Social Scientists and Policy Professionals, 183-97.

In this article, there is a growing body of research on political science and it touches independent variables such as voting, corruption, violence, to mention a few; this is things that interfere with election ethics.

3). Smock, S. L. (2011). Whose Interests Are Being Served?: A Political-Economic Comparison of Network and Public News Transcripts Surrounding McConnell V. Federal Election Commission and Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission.

Smock in this article covers court cases that were considered in a ruling McConnell v Federal election commission. The focus was a central rationale on the new rules to challenge the potential of corruption in most elections.

4). Tomas, S. (2014). International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Tomas sees the international covenant on civil and political rights as strategies, which can be used to address challenges such as voting crises and unethical practices in the election. His emphasis is on article two and 25, which talks about the universal rights to participate in elections.

References

Cram, I. (2006). Contested words: legal restrictions on freedom of speech in liberal democracies. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dLuKIO_H8iQC&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&dq=Contested+Words:+Legal+Restrictions+on+Freedom+of+Speech+in+Liberal+Democracies+By+Ian+Cram&ots=SxjMdgIzFI&sig=PwWUHmtKSYw_44K-eGLu4P1CUdg

Smock, S. L. (2011). Whose Interests Are Being Served?: A Political-Economic Comparison of Network and Public News Transcripts Surrounding McConnell V. Federal Election Commission and Citizens United V. Federal Election Commission. https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu%3A168500/datastream/PDF/view

Tomas, S. (2014). International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. http://rmozone.com/snapshots/2016/05/docs/CCPR_C_110_D_2155_2012-02.pdf

Zimmerman, B., & Desposato, S. (2016). Information and Power: Ethical Considerations of Political Information Experiments. Ethics and Experiments: Problems and Solutions for Social Scientists and Policy Professionals, 183-97. http://bseim.web.unc.edu/files/2016/08/Ethics-Chapter.pdf