Friday, October 04, 2013

A nation of complainers

I'm sure that you've met people whose mission in life seems to be to complain.  Their complaints may be valid, but they never attempt anything to eliminate the problem about which they are complaining.  So it is with our complaints about our leaders.  

When given an opportunity to 'fire' the leaders by voting, we don't do a very good job.  The only time more than 80% of us have voted for president was in 1876 when 81.8% of those eligible voted.  By the 20th century (1908) we voted less than the 19th century voter; the highest in the 1900s was 65.4% in 1908.  This century's results are worse: 57.48% in 2008. We are worse when it comes to non-presidential elections.  The year with the highest percentage was 1966 with 48.7%.

We are not doing well when compared to other democracies.  For example, Canada 70-75%, France 86.8%,Luxembourg 91.7%.

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