Chapter 6 Study Guide The Individual in Democratic Government The U S practices representative democracy at all levels of government Direct democracy has practical limitations American government continues to be organized by geography o Participation also is organized by geography Seeking public office In the US there are more than 270 000 elected offices to be filled and refilled after 2 years or so Although there are other elected officials who serve in the national government 100 senators and 435 representatives to Congress they are all elected by either state or local districts In short hundreds of thousands could directly participate in government by holding one of these offices school board city council ect for at least some time Nearly 17 million Americans could have experience at least running for public office o Less than 1 of Americans seek elective positions o This is likely because running for office is costly in many ways Contenders running for office must gather campaign contributions lose privacy and be objects of criticism Other candidates will purposefully try to destroy and embarrass them Attending Public Meetings As we move from more direct forms of participation to those that affect policy less directly the number of people involved increases Across five democracies 28 of the public claims to have ever attempted to influence the outcome of a government decision in their local community and about 16 at the national level Communicating with Representatives Writing to elected officials is a less direct but more common act o People who write to Congress are typically well educated and ideological and therefore are comfortable with writing and feel motivated to do so Voting o An aggregate action that is supposed to influence public policy o Aggregate in the sense that only your individual vote plus many more accumulating to either a plurality or a simple majority are needed to accomplish anything The Public Initiating and Repealing Laws Direct Democracy o Allows citizens to approve or disapprove proposals passed by state Referendum legislatures o Fairly rare Initiative o Allows citizens to enact a proposal of a new law or constitutional amendment that is placed on the ballot by petition by collecting signatures of a certain number of citizens o Not as rare compared to referendum o Initiative process can propose bad laws o Has not proven to be a viable form of direct democracy usable in large democracies Roll off o Declining to vote from the head of the ballot to the bottom o Initiatives and referendums appear at the end of the ballot during elections but some people fail to go all the way down to the end of the ballot Turnout Receiving more votes and the popular vote of an opposing candidate does not necessarily mean that you will win the election o Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000 but George Bush won the electoral college Turnout is highest when there is a presidential election Off year elections when the president is not on the ballot turnout is 15 20 lower 70 of local elections are held when there is no state or national office is on the ballot so turnout for local elections is very low o Lowest turnout for elections happens with the government that is closest to the people Voting Eligible vs Voting Age In order to vote one must be a U S citizen and 18 years old In many states you must also be a resident of the state o Felons are not allowed to vote and neither are the mentally ill and those protected by guardians Voting Age Population o Turnout measured in terms of of voters divided by those old enough to vote o This is a poor way to measure turnout Legal and non legal population has become large Felons ineligible to vote has become large Voting Eligible o Better representation of turnout Nonpartisan Elections When ballots do not list candidates political parties This practice comes from the reform effort because of machine politics Level of Government and turnout in American Elections Inverse relationship between level of government and turnout in American elections Local elections typically occur when no state or national offices are also on the ballot
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