Chapter 10 - Elections, Campaigns and Voting

1. Read Bush v. Gore in the text.  Do you agree with the majority or the dissenting opinion?  Why?

I do not agree with the Supreme Court ruling and I am not sure that I believe that Bush won the election.  I guess my main problem is that because of the time limits that have been established there was inadequate time to perform a recount.  Also based on the difficult tasks that it would have taken to do the recount, I do not feel that an adequate recount could have taken place.  I personally believe that there should have been and should be a better system in place for being able to revisit voter’s intentions in a case such as this.  In other words, the race was too close to be determined by an inadequate ability to recount the voter’s intentions in a case such as this.

2. Is the ability to fundraise too important in elections?  In other words, are good candidates prevented from running because they cannot raise the needed funds?  Can/should something be done to correct this if it is a problem?

I do believe that the ability or the “need” to raise funds is too important during elections.  I do not believe that it should cost millions of dollars to run for President, nor do I believe that the money is used in a way that would benefit anyone other than the candidate.  I do believe that money issues do keep good candidates from running for President as it seems that everyone that is running is already wealthy in some way.  I do not know how this issue could or should be addressed but I do believe that additional sanctions on the limits that a person can raise should be put into place.  If a candidate wants to run for President, there should be the opportunity to do so and if I had my choice, for once it would be a blue collar worker that has really had to work for a living.

3. Why is there such voter apathy- in other words, why is there often such a low voter turnout for elections?  Is there a way to rectify this problem?

I do not believe that the voter turnout is as poor as we think.  While other countries, it may seem, have a larger turn out that we do, they go other extremes to ensure that voter turnout is mandatory.  I do believe that there are better ways to increase turnout however.  It could be to allow early voting or by allowing voters the option of voting via the internet.  It does seem that too much emphasis is placed on showing up directly at the voting stations to vote and that with technology today, there should be easier ways to increase voter turnout.  In America however, we have the right to choose to vote ourselves and while we want to encourage people to vote, it definitely should not be made a mandatory action.

Blog comments:  Pam Smith, Tinisha Key, Stephanie Griffin