African-American voter turnout was incredible for the 2008 presidential election, but those figures, while encouraging, do not reflect the normal trend of African-American voter turnout. Instead, that trend shows that black voter turnout generally hovers between 40% and 50% of age eligible voters for presidential elections, and between 20% and 30% for midterm elections (Marcelo et al
He found an overall turnout rate of truly eligible people of 61.7%, which means that almost 40% of people who were eligible to vote in the 2008 election, failed to do so (McDonald, 2009)
There is the other category of non-voters who are simply afraid of discrimination hence would rather avoid making their stand known through voting, for instance the African-American who live in the south in U.S. (Ginsberg & Shefter, 2009)
Most people fail to vote for their candidates because they think that their vote will not make a difference. Therefore, voting may be ineffective when people fail to go and vote, hence, it is the citizens' duty to listen to the information provided by the candidates since this will enable them to decide who the best is to represent them within the country (Teixeira, 2008)
Obama says: "Ensure More Accountability in the Subprime Mortgage Industry: Obama has been closely monitoring the subprime mortgage situation for years, and introduced comprehensive legislation over a year ago to fight mortgage fraud and protect consumers against abusive lending practices. Obama's STOP FRAUD Act provides the first federal definition of mortgage fraud, increases funding for federal and state law enforcement programs, creates new criminal penalties for mortgage professionals found guilty of fraud, and requires industry insiders to report suspicious activity (Obama, 2008, 15)
Factors Related to Selecting and Nominating Supreme Court Justices. The first Supreme Court Justice nominee that was denied confirmation by the Senate was John Rutledge, who was nominated by President Washington in 1795 to be chief justice of the United States; therefore, nominees should be selected with a view to passing the rigors of the Senate confirmation process, which will usually relate to both how the potential Justice might vote on hot political issues in the future but to any political "baggage" that the candidate might have as well (Gross 39)
These and other constitutional scholars have disagreed, though, about precisely what comprises consistency with democratic rule. "One approach," he says, "which takes different forms in Bickel's and Ackerman's writings, insists that the Court's consistency with democracy depends on the connection between the content of its decisions and the will of a majority of citizens" (Stack 2236)
Clinton was touted as receiving 59.5% of the Democratic vote, officially, yet the exit poll results showed only 45% (Newton, 2008)
Given the challenges Florida had with the 2000 presidential election, it is not surprising that Florida's Miami-Dade County quickly turned to an electronic voting system, in order to prevent future 'hanging chads'. The county invested $25 million in a Election Systems & Software's (ES&S) iVotronic system (Songini, 2005)
Finally, the government did not allow for even the notion of failure. By 2004, darn it, we'd all have touch screen voting" (Cringely, 2003)
Soon after Holt raised his objections one particularly egregious example arose in yes, Florida: "In a special election for House District 91, which includes parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties, the winner -- Ellyn Bogdanoff -- won by 12 votes. But electronic voting machines in Broward County recorded 134 'undervotes' (a person comes to vote but doesn't actually cast one -- not a likely scenario, since there was only the one contest on the ballot)" (Kantor, 2004)
To be fair, not all members of Congress were equally confident in Diebold's efficacy and security. For example, Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey, "introduced a bill requiring that digital voting machines leave a paper trail and that their software be available for public inspection, but was told that this was unnecessary, as such systems "lacking these safeguards haven't caused problems" (Krugman, 2003: 1)
Firstly, it tried to give the 14th Amendment a stronger and more important role in the issue of voting. In this sense it underlined the fact that "no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color," thus pointing out the fact that there should be no obstacle imposed to citizens to exercise their right to vote (Bolick, 1995)
While the first two did not consider the mechanism established by the vote as being a useful tool in the conduct of politics, democracy is opposed to such a view. As theorists of democracy have argued, pluralism is the means to reject the institution of the absolute power (Dunleavy and O'Leary, 1987)
In a democracy there is nothing more fundamental than having the right to vote." (Jackson, 2006) These are some of the words which express nowadays the commitment of the U
First and foremost, it legalized the right to vote for every citizen, without consideration to his skin color or race. This was indeed a major breakthrough taking into account the period under discussion when the Civil Rights Movement was at its peak through personalities such as Martin Luther Jing jr, or Malcolm X (Jenkins, 1997)
Therefore, the voting results did not meet an essential criterion: representativeness. Without a proper representation, it cannot be said that the result of the vote and the ones elected are legitimized by the entire population, an issue Rousseau considered to be at the basis of the "social contract" (Noone, 1970)
Historical background In the early days of the American democracy, there were various conditions one had to meet in order to be eligible for voting. In this sense, "one had to be white (except in a few Northern states), male (except in New Jersey, where women voted until 1807), and a landowner (nearly everywhere)" (Olson, 2006)
was in this sense one of the most important figures of the emancipation process because he constantly tried to advance the issue of the right of black people to vote and bring it to the attention of the public through peaceful manifestations and quiet marches. However, despite his efforts "when Congress wrote the act, many southern states were engaged in extraordinary efforts to deny black citizens their Fifteenth Amendment right to vote" (Ponnuru, 2006)
Although there were voices and black people petitioned for their right to express their opinions and beliefs, little had achieved. For instance, "in 1780, seven blacks in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, petitioned the legislature for the right to vote, linking taxation to representation: we apprehend ourselves to be Agreeved in that while we are not allowed the privilege of freemen of the state having no vote or influence in the Elections of those that tax us yet many of our Colour (as is well-known) have cheerfully entered the field of battle in the defense of the Common Cause and that (as we conceive) against a similar exertion of power (in regard to taxation) too well-known to need a recital in this place" (Zinn, 2003)