John F. Kennedy once said, “The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” In about two months voters from all around the world will be choosing the next president. This year is the most important presidential election I think ever! It will determine which direction our economy will go, the shape of Social Security and the war in Iraq. Do you know why you vote for those candidates? Where do they stand on the issues? Do you make your selections based on their political party? My views strongly support Barack Obama and Joe Biden. However, you may have different views, but know why your voting. Don’t just vote because Obama is a Black guy or Palin is a woman.
An informed electorate is a prerequisite for democracy. If voters do not know what happens in politics, they cannot rationally exercise control over government policy. Large-scale voter ignorance poses a danger to American democracy.
Many voters around the United States know very little when it comes to voting. Candidates, such as judges and school board members, have the hardest time campaigning since citizens know even less about them and select random names. Each candidate brings a variety of views to the table. Even a voter who cares about the outcome has almost no incentive to invest time to acquire sufficient knowledge to make an informed choice.
In their classic work, The American Voter, a University of Michigan Survey Research
Center team defined three minimal knowledge prerequisites for voters to be able to exert meaningful influence over a given issue:
1. Voters must be aware of the issues existence;
2. Voters must have a position on the issue;
3. Voters must know the positions on the issue of the opposing candidates.
During the 2000 National Election Survey, the average respondents only answered 14.4 questions correctly out of 31. In another survey, Gallup found in January 2000 that while 66 percent of the public could name the host of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” only 6 percent knew the name of the speaker of the House. Last year, a polling company survey found that 58 percent of Americans could not name a single federal Cabinet department.
While doing research for their book, “What Americans Know about Politics and Why it Matters,” Michael Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter collected more than 2,000 surveys. The average level of knowledge was low - only 4-in-10 of these questions could be answered correctly by over half of those surveyed.
How informed should voters be? Informed voters should at least be aware of basic tradeoffs between different policies in cases in which those tradeoffs would be immediately obvious to political leaders informed about the issue at hand. Most individual voters are ignorant of even very basic political information.
It has become the standard procedure of many political campaigns where candidates lie about their opponents, which distracts voters away from the real issues and policies at hand. If they have the money, they even hire professionals to assist them. Sometimes candidates will say they support issues, knowing that the ignorant voter listens, when all they can do is advocate.
A possible response to the arguments of voter ignorance is to require a political course as a Gen Ed requirement that touches on the different issues. It is important that we listen, discuss and ask questions about the many issues, including a political science course in the curriculum can educate our students to make informed decisions that affect their lives.
Also, as Towson President Robert Caret suggested in his blog, we should be involved and committed to the upcoming election. The first way to be involved in the process is by registering to vote! Voter registration ends on October 14, so go now and send in your registration! Another way of learning about politics and being committed is by volunteering with a political candidate or by joining one of the political groups on campus or in your neighborhood. I am not arguing that all of us should be experts on politics, but I do suggest that the more informed citizens are about the issues of the day, the behavior of political leaders, and the rules under which they operate, the better off they are, the better off we are. It is important that we, as young Americans, get out there and vote, but we should know what we vote for.
