Why We Get The Politicians and Politics We Do Not Deserve.

The largest block of potential voters is a block of potential voters than never get past the potential part. They do not vote. Some do not care. Some care a lot and have decided that their vote makes no difference. They justify the decision by rightly pointing out that with very few notable and exciting exceptions, one vote is meaningless. To their everlasting shame politicians of both parties encourage the process. They repress turnout of the opposition. They limit access to debates and they demoralize a lot of good people with scurrilous lies, claims and exaggerations. Just writing these words makes the anger rise in me for the cynical bastardized process that goes into an American election. I know there will be those that will say it has always been that way and they are probably right but there has always been a lot of things, like cancer.

The Telegraph has an interesting article about the voter's dilemma in France and Europe but it applies here as well.

I want the American voter to share in the excitement of the dilemma by voting in the first place.

What are your suggestions and thoughts on requiring Americans to vote? Does it matter? Should there be a fine or tax for not voting? If you like, go to the link and offer your comment here and to the slightly larger audience of The Telegraph than The Elephant.

From The Telegraph:

The voters' dilemma

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 18/11/2006

Ségolène Royal is a woman who not only talks in clichés, but thinks in them. The slogans flow like tepid bathwater – "opportunity for all", "a better future", "removing the walls that divide us" – but the observer is no wiser as to what, if anything, would change were Miss Royal, now the candidate of the French socialists, to win.

Much the same could be said of her likely opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy. Both talk a lot about "reform", while veering carefully away from specific commitments. Understandably, many French voters are reaching the conclusion that, whomever they vote for, nothing much will change: "bonnet blanc ou blanc bonnet," as they say across the Channel.

The two main parties argue like Lilliputians over a tiny patch of ground, leaving Jean-Marie Le Pen to range over the great tracts that they have abandoned. For the far-Right leader is the undoubted beneficiary of their convergence.


By taking up the themes that la France officielle has abandoned – imposing border controls, scrapping the 35-hour week, restoring the franc – he has turned his party into a place where voters can register their discontent.

Many, perhaps most, of Mr Le Pen's supporters, would be alarmed at the thought of him occupying the Elysée. They are not so much endorsing the Front National as spurning the clique of smug, self-serving, Euro-fanatic, corrupt énarques who run the republic.

Nor is this tendency confined to France. Across Europe, voters are left cold by the interchangeable politicians of the established parties. Sometimes they vote for fringe figures, such as Holland's Pim Fortuyn. More often they stay at home: turnout is plummeting in almost every EU country.

The phenomenon has a great deal to do with European integration: with economic policy, social policy, employment law and, increasingly, foreign policy and criminal justice decided in Brussels, there is only so much that the parties can argue about — unless, of course, they are prepared to challenge the EU system.

So politics increasingly becomes a scrap over who gets the perks and patronage that comes with office. Small wonder that many voters are giving up in disgust.