One of the biggest misses in the way we set up our Democracy is that we elect everyone all at once. Everyone running for federal office, everyone running for state offices, and everyone running for county offices -- we vote on them all on the same day.
Have you ever heard of information overload? Do we really expect voters to sort through all the myriad of races and make educated decisions when we hit them with so much at once?
Democracy organized this way loses much of its meaning. If you go to the polls, but vote in a meaningless fashion -- not knowing anything about the candidates you are voting for -- that cheapens what democracy is all about.
No, everyone should not be elected on the same day. There is an element of chaos in this. Rather, each race should be given its own attention, its own stage, its own election day.
Elections every month, perhaps. One scenario is instead of Nov. 4 each year, the fourth day of each month.
Not this also: Now, we often (perhaps, usually) cast our ballots knowing no more about the candidates than what party they belong to. We say, Vote the person, not the party, but there is often no more to go on than that. This increases the political divide in our country. If voters had time to study the candidates, they would be less inclined to vote based on no more than which party the person belonged to.
Someone will shout that having elections every month is going to be too expensive, but democracy is worth this dime.
Democracy can be practiced more than just once a year. It will greatly benefit our nation if we were to split up our elections to more than just once or twice a year.
No comments:
Post a Comment