Advantages And Disadvantages Of Voting

While voting seems like a simple task, it is way more than that. A lot goes into a task of checking a few boxes and submitting your vote. First of all, even getting the opportunity to vote requires work. Before even having the ballot in your hands, you need to make sure you are eligible and registered to vote. Pretty much any American citizen over the age of 18 can register to vote, except for some felons who are removed from political process. The effort does not stop once you are registered. When it is Election Day, you have to make yourself available to submit your ballot, which can be challenging for some more than others. Some people do not have the resources to take some time off of work to go cast their vote, which can result in them

Others see the paradox of voting where the costs heavily outweigh the benefits and decide not to vote. The costs of voting are: registration itself, receiving information about how, where and when to vote, the low chance of your vote being a decisive one, and as stated before, actually taking the time to do it. The benefits, aside from the incumbent actions, are expressing your group membership to a particular party, social benefits within your social networks, and following through with the mobilization enforced by campaigns or again, your social networks. Besides the costs versus benefits determining whether you are more likely to vote or not, your age and education also influence your

A large portion of voters are less sophisticated voters. When people, who actually vote, receive the ballot, it all comes down to which party they represent. Party ID is the dramatic deciding factor within any major election, therefore elections do not represent American democracy. It should be about the candidate and their positions on various topics, but it rarely is. Most of the time the party members are all in favor of the same things; for example, Democrats tend to be more liberal, and Republicans more conservative. It really does not matter how hard, let’s say a presidential candidate, works to make themselves a strong contender because in the end it is just their party affiliation that matters. In smaller scale elections it is more about the candidates, but the participation is lower. People care less about Party ID in small scale elections, when they should have that attitude towards the larger elections as