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Compulsory Voting

      It seems our electoral process brings confusion, frustration, and an utter lack of interest almost every national election.  Even in a controversial and bombarding election as the one we experienced in 2016, barely half of our eligible population participated in the voting process. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, the last time America had a turnout rate above sixty percent in a presidential election was the 1960s (besides Obama's 61% in 2008) and for mid-term elections that number has not reached fifty percent since 1912. Although voting may seem like a trivial aspect, it is a crucial facet of democracy and our nation’s leaders are being chosen by not even half of our population. This disproportion of voters actually participating in elections has created a divisive and gridlocked governmental system that is not representative of the true electorate. A solution to this issue could be to mimic Australia's successful electoral system of compul...
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Cutting Out Gerrymandering

     Congressional districts are hugely important to our governmental and electoral system and the gerrymandering of these districts has had many negative affects like obvious advantages given to the controlling party, increased party polarization, and the marginalization of certain groups of voters. Gerrymandering is when a state, county, etc. is divided into election districts in a way that favors one political party over another. This is typically done by the party that is in control of the government at that time so it is clear that there is a great deal of influence wielded by the party drawing up the districts.       The advantages that gerrymandering can bring to the majority-holding party can be seen in places like North Carolina where there are about an even number of Democrat to Republican voters yet Republicans hold the majority of congressional seats in North Carolina very comfortably because of their intensely gerrymandered districts. Thi...
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Stage #3: Gerrymandering and Computers

This is an opinion piece, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/opinion/sunday/computers-gerrymandering-wisconsin.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=7&pgtype=sectionfront , from the New York Times written by Jordan Ellenberg on October 6, 2017 about gerrymandering and how computers have affected the practice. Gerrymandering, while being a ridiculous name, is a serious issue. It is the process in which governmental officials redraw district's boundaries to favor their own party and and Ellenberg explains in this article why this has become such a big issue in the 21st century. The author's probable intended audience would be all U.S. voters regardless of party but it could be seen as more geared towards Democratic voters because the evidence used is only about republican's gerrymandering, specifically in Wisconsin. Ellenberg is seen...
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