Preview

POL 201 Week 5 DQ 2 Voting and Turnout

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
8316 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
POL 201 Week 5 DQ 2 Voting and Turnout
POL 201 Week 5 DQ 2 Voting and Turnout http://homeworkmonster.com/downloads/pol-201-week-5-dq-2-voting-turnout/ POL 201 Week 5 DQ 2 Voting and Turnout
Voting and Turnout. The U.S. has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among modern democratic political systems. One study ranks the U.S. 120th on a list of 169 nations compared on voter turnout (Pintor, Gratschew, & Sullivan, 2002). While during the last decade many initiatives have been undertaken to increase voter participation, concerns about the possibility of election fraud have also increased. Additionally, some political interests feel threatened by the increase in turnout among some traditionally low-turnout ethnic minorities.
Several states have recently passed legislation imposing new registration and identification requirements. This has sparked debate about whether these are tactics intended to suppress turnout or to prevent fraud.
Soon after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Bush administration developed a plan for holding and interrogating captured prisoners. They were sent to a prison inside a U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, on land leased from the government of Cuba. Since 2002, over 700 men have been detained at “GITMO.” Most have been released without charges or turned over to other governments. In 2011, Congress specifically prohibited the expenditure of funds to transfer GITMO prisoners to detention facilities in the continental United States, making it virtually impossible to try them in civilian courts. As of April 2012, 169 remained in detention at GITMO (Sutton, 2012).
An assumption made by the Bush administration in selecting this location was that it was beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. The administration wanted to avoid any judicial oversight of how it handled detainees, characterized as “enemy combatants.” A possible legal challenge to indefinite detention with no formal charges or judicial proceedings might arise from the habeas corpus provision of the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Habeas Corpus and the War on Terror. Soon after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Bush administration developed a plan for holding and interrogating prisoners captured during the conflict. They were sent to a prison inside a U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay on land leased from the government of Cuba. Since 2002, over 700 men have been detained at “GITMO.” Most have been released without charges or turned over to other governments. In 2011, Congress specifically prohibited the expenditure of funds to transfer GITMO prisoners to detention facilities in the continental United States, making it virtually impossible to try them in civilian courts. As of April 2012, 169 remained in detention at GITMO (Sutton, 2012).…

    • 6132 Words
    • 16 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hamdi vs Rumsfeld

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen, was captured in Afghanistan shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Hamdi was classified as an “enemy combatant” by the United States. His father filed a petition of Habeas Corpus that his fifth and fourteenth amendments were in violation. Although the petition did not specify on the actual circumstances of Hamdi’s capture and detention, the record indicated that Hamdi went to Afghanistan to do “relief work” less than two months before September 11th and could have not received military training. The Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Michael Mobbs, issued a response, outlining the Government’s position. The district court found the “Mobbs Declaration” insufficient in supporting the Government’s case. The Mobbs Declaration provided details regarding Hamdi’s trip to Afghanistan, his affiliation with the Taliban during a time when the Taliban was battling U.S. allies, and lastly his surrender of an assault rifle. The District Court found that the Mobbs Declaration, standing alone, did not support Hamdi’s detention and ordered the Government to turn over numerous materials. The Fourth Circuit reversed, stressing that it was undisputed that Hamdi was captured in an active combat zone, no factual inquiry or evidentiary hearing allowed Hamdi to be heard or to rebut the Government’s claims were necessary or proper. If the Mobbs Declaration was accurate, it provided a sufficient basis upon which to conclude that the President had constitutionally detained Hamdi, the court ordered the habeas petition dismissed. The appeals court held that, “no citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress”. This provides that The AUMF’s “necessary and appropriate force” language provided the authorization for Hamdi’s detention. Also that Hamdi is entitled only to a limited judicial inquiry into his detention’s rationality under…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    soil since the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Unlike the proceeding at Guantanamo Bay,…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    POSC AG21 13

    • 1446 Words
    • 7 Pages

    7. One of the reasons for the low turnout among American voters is that the individual in the U.S. assumes responsibility for registering to vote, whereas in most other democracies voters are registered automatically by government officials. True…

    • 1446 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Since the government leased that portion of the land from Cuba, for most of its time there was a lack of government oversight (Ryan 14). Some were U.S. citizens and others not (Hoffer 2017). It was possible for the U.S. to have their. In Allan A. Ryan’s book, “The 9/11 Terror Cases: Constitutional Challenges in the War Against Al Qaeda” he explored the 9/11 cases with both historical and legal context. The Unitary Code of Military Justice (1950) established military law and within outlined military commissions (Ryan 88-89). The four detainees in the 9/11 cases were subjected to the UCMJ standards although, a military commission rarely occurs in the United States (Ryan 89). One possible reason for having the cases held in a military court as opposed to the U.S. federal court was that the standards were lower, though similar. Another reason is that the government feared having court cases heard in U.S. federal courts. They could be set free due to insufficient evidence (Hoffer 2017). Plus, the voluntary acceptance of the Geneva Conventions code for treating prisoners during wartime could be ignored since member of Al Qaeda were not included (Ryan…

    • 644 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Jennifer Daskal, the author of “Don’t Close Guantanamo” is a renowned American lawyer who is specialized in criminal law and national security law. She has served as the senior counterterrorism adviser to the “Human Rights Watch” and has also helped the US Department of Justice in prosecuting terror suspects in civilian rather than military courts. (Jennifer). The article was written in 2013, years after Guantanamo prison facility was widely exposed for its human rights violations and labeled the “Gulag of our times” by the Amnesty International and remains the cause of great anti American sentiment till this day (Khan). In the article, Jennifer, once an ardent supporter of the closure of the facility discusses why she changed her opinion.…

    • 1702 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many people are convinced that Guantanamo Bay should be shut down for a handful of reasons, one of them is that they're not getting treated like they should be, it is also an exorbitant amount of money that us taxpayers pay just to run and keep open, some are in their with no trail no chance to prove their innocence. The people who are locked up in here are one of the world's most dangerous people or so that’s what most of the people on the outside think. The question of shutting it down and moving the prisoners to federal prison in the U.S or just keep the prison where they are running has popped up in many people's minds.…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Guantanamo Bay Vs 9/11

    • 1651 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Instead of calling the alleged Taliban and Al-Qaeda detainees “prisoners of war”, the Bush administration called them “unlawful enemy combatants”. By doing so, the Bush administration denied the detainees all rights of prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. If the detainees at Guantanamo had prisoner of war status, they would be protected under the Third Geneva Convention against the inhumane treatment and the forceful extraction of information they faced in the detention camp. By interpreting the Third Geneva Convention in a literal manner, the Bush administration justified their decision to name the detainees at Guantanamo “unlawful enemy combatants”. According to the Bush administration and American lawyer John C. Yoo, because the Taliban was a “failed state”, its militia was not entitled to protection under the Conventions. In addition, because Taliban and al-Qaeda soldiers did not wear uniforms in combat they were not prisoners of…

    • 1651 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Voter turnout is defined as a number of voters who actually cast ballots in an election, to a percentage of people eligible to register and vote. About half of the voting age population historically does not vote, even in presidential elections. The voter turnout is even lower in off year congressional and state elections. Turn out in local elections is even lower. Voter turn out is always higher in years with a presidential election. Voter turn out has generally declined since the 1960’s. Voter turnout can take a huge upswing when the elections have highly contested issues with differing candidate platforms.…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Guantanamo Bay is a US prison for terrorists and other threatening people, located off of US soil. This means that the processes that go on in the institution, legally, do not need to follow US rules. Many painful and tortuous things are performed on the prisoners, such as force feeding and the topic of this essay, water boarding, where the victim is made to feel as though they are drowning. Although Gitmo is legal/allowed to an extent, it still begs the question how the guards consciously perform such cruel acts and what I would do if I were faced with the decision of torturing a prisoner or not.…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In January 11, 2002 the first 20 detainees arrive in Guantanamo Bay. They are called “unlawful enemy combatants” and not “prisoners of war” because they do not fall under the rights of the Geneva Conventions. During the arrival of detainees they were placed at Camp X-Ray where detainees were believed to be abused, tortured and held in cages while the new detention facilities were being built. Those accused of torturing detainees were the CIA under the Bush Administration. Reports leaked to the media that detainees were water boarded on numerous occasions bringing the CIA and the U.S. under great scrutiny which led to New Interrogation Teams known as High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG).…

    • 113 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Voter turnout can increase if the United States makes it compulsory like the other democratic nations who turnout is 90% and up. The US is one of the few democracies that require its citizens to register to vote. In most other democratic nations this is not a separate step. The government provides the polling location to each citizen as they comprised a listing of each citizen with the person’s name, age and address. The person just has to show up to the poll to vote, show identification and then are checked against that location’s list. The US leaves the registration to each citizen. A significant number of voters never take the initial step of bothering to register. And then those that take this step may show up to vote to find out there…

    • 161 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Voter Turnout

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Knowledge of candidate’s issues, sense of civic duty and overall displeasure with our current president. Those are some of the main factors contributing to voter turnout. I believe that voter turnout is fundamental to a healthy democracy. With this being a political analysis class, I felt that my topic of choice was very interesting and I was very curious to develop the preliminary outcomes. Voter turnout is usually attributed to political disengagement and the belief that voting for one candidate, party or another will do little to change public policy. I found the topic very interesting in the fact that the numbers tell all. In the last presidential election in 2012, only 60.4 percent of the voting age population voted. Despite the central…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Guantanamo bay

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In September of 2001, the United States endured one of the most catastrophic events in the nation’s history. These terrorist attacks sent a shockwave throughout the entire world. The United States found itself facing a challenging type of enemy: terrorists. Once combat operations began in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. detained many individuals for interrogation and held them indefinitely if they continued to pose a risk to the United States or the rest of the world. The fundamental reason for detaining these individuals was to keep them from rejoining the fight. As such, the U.S. chose to create a detention facility at the Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. By June of 2002, the U.S. had transferred over 500 Taliban and al Qaida fighters to Guantanamo Bay.1…

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Torture has existed all over the world for millennia but what is torture in America today? The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. have recently used torture against terrorists who were suspected to have vital information concerning American safety. Since torture is illegal in the United States, most of this torture took place at Guantanamo Bay in the southeastern corner of Cuba. Detainees at the detention camp were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Convention due to the fact that Guantanamo Bay is not considered to be within legal jurisdiction of the United States. Captives at the camp were subject to horrendous “enhanced interrogation” techniques such as waterboarding, hypothermia, stress positions, and sleep deprivation. Martin describes torture as “… a stain on our great country.” Even though torture has been known to produce answers and in return save lives, it is still an immoral act.…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays

Related Topics