Voting as a Duty of Citizenship Essay

In every democratic country all over the world, the citizens are given the opportunity to elect their leaders. It is a critical exercise as it shows the will of the citizens. Thus voting can be defined as the process of an electorate conveying his views by choosing a leader of his choice. Voting should be a duty of citizenship because voter participation affects democracy.

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Voting is a duty of citizenship and all persons registered as voters it should be mandatory to them to take part in elections. This is because our laws recognize the right to vote and even enshrined them in many of our laws. Amendments number fourteenth, fifteenth; nineteenth, twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth all preserve this right. They have stiff repercussions for people who try to disrupt and or interfere with their people's vote. Voting as duty will ensure participation by all eligible people as voters in politics. This participation will lead to the people becoming more politically aware. They will be able to vote in leaders who look after their interests.

Voting is a duty of citizenship will lead to politicians focusing on issues that are of such high importance than concentrating on marginal and partisan issues. This is because every politician is looking for leadership will be forced to watch for votes from everyone in the society rather than one particular class of voters, e.g., looking for votes from old white men people only because of the financial muscle they have. Voting is a duty and citizens should be required to vote because of the benefit it brings in reducing the gender gap. Countries like Australia that have embraced compulsory voting the gender gap is deficient compared to the United States of America. More women are bound to participate in voting if it is mandatory therefore having a positive effect on the gender gap. In addition to these politicians will be brought to fore issues that affect all people instead of a specific class of persons.

Another reason for voting is a duty of citizenship is that mass voter participation leads to a more legitimate government than a low voter turnout. This is because a government that has been elected in an election where many people voted is likely to experience fewer problems with regards to legitimacy issue than a government elected in an election that the voter turnout was low. This will lead to a more active democratic country because persons from all works of life will be able to have his/her say in the government by his/her vote. In addition to this, decisions made by a government that was elected in a high voter turnout will be more legitimate.

When voting is taken as a duty political power will be able to be diverse. In our current system, we talk of having a democratic country but only the rich and powerful influence the elections. Compulsory voting will debunk this since people across the divide will participate in voting thereby limiting the power of the rich and powerful in society thus creating a much healthier democracy. Our current voter participation rates are low even though we are in a democratic country. This low turnout has some effects on democracy. This fact is crippling the American democracy. This is because political power will be concentrated on career politicians who will tend to favor people who donate to their campaigns rather than the person's he/she is elected to represent. This will lead to undermining of democracy.

Also, another effect that low voter participation has in our democracy is that it prevents people from indeed participating in politics and thereby making elections to be a sham. This is because it does not represent what the people want since a few people engaged in the voting process. He low voter participation in our elections go back to the very meaning of the word democracy. Democracy is a government for the people elected by the people. Due to our low voter turnout, the government is no longer a government for the people by the people because only a handful of persons participated in elections to elect the government.

A democratic system of governance requires that the minority to have their say and the majority have their way. Because of the low voter turnout experience in our country the opposite take effects. The minority people, i.e., the rich and well politically established persons have their way and the majorities, i.e., the poor people in society have their say. The low voter turnout rate has led our democracy into a not functional democracy from a functional democracy. A functional democracy is also known as substantive democracy. In this type of democracy whatever is the will of the people in the ballot boxes is what is mirrored as the results. Our system deviates from functional justice since it's only a few people who turn up to vote thereby the elections are not an accurate representation of the will of the people.

Conclusion

In conclusion, voter participation is essential. It is true there is freedom of choice and every citizen has the right to exercise it. What if a "bad leader" comes into power making ridiculous policies that even affect you, Will you complain? For citizens to take the voting process seriously I believe voting should be mandatory. Former American president Lyndon Jonson once said that a vote is the most dominant tool that can be used to liberate man from injustices.

Works Cited

Aly, Waleed. "Voting Should Be Mandatory." Nytimes.com. N.P., 2017. Web. 9 Apr. 2018.

Liu, Eric, and Eric Liu. "Should Voting Be Mandatory? | TIME.Com." TIME.com. N.P., 2012. Web. 9 Apr. 2018.

Stephanopoulos, Nicholas. "Should Cities Start Requiring Citizens To Vote?" The Atlantic. N.P., 2015. Web. 9 Apr. 2018.