AP United State Government and Politics
Mr. Trupin
Unit 2 Essay
Due: October 29, 2012
Part A
Today, with the advent of the modern media, political interests, and politics are a non-stop entity that will never go away. Ironically, voter turnout is at its lowest since the turn of the Twentieth Century. Two reasons for the low turnout can be found in inadequacies which occur in the United States and are unheard of in many member states of the European Union, and other Industrialized democracies. The first problem is that there is no consequence for not voting, the other being the difficulty of voter registration. These problems have both great affects on the government’s legitimacy, and might as well cause mis-representation of the United States abroad by electing a reprentative (the President) which could possibly represent the “American-Ideal” incorrectly causing problems with potential allies.
Consequences, they are what push people to move. This principle can easily be applied to voting. In Australia, Hungary, and many other countries there is a voting tax, but it is not for people who do vote, but it is for people who do not vote. When a person goes to vote in Australia per se, the voter brings along a booklet that is stamped and that person signs off in a ledger to signify that he or she had voted. By the end of the elections, those who had not voted yet are issued hefty fines and taxes for not partaking in their citizen responsibilities. This simple tax if implemented in the United States would automatically increase voter turnout, and if not that then increase tax revenue for a short period of time. This tax provides the monetary incentive to vote for all classes.
While the monetary incentive for voting may be extremely influential another influential factor is registration issues. Studies show that over eight million voters were not able to vote due to registration issues, and other issues concerning paperwork. Additional faults in the