Voting in a democracy (#348, Topic P)

Our retirement community holds, on the first Sunday evening of each month, a "fireside forum." Tonight's forum was billed as "Our place in the world of politics." I thought our refers to USA. I was wrong; it refers only to a school at the state university. Luckily, the talk was short, lasting about 15 minutes. Then it was the Q&A period. The first question was raised by a fellow resident whom I know. She asked: "Except for [our retirement community], which has high voter participation, why citizens do not care to vote?" (One research component of this school deals with voting; that unit provided voting machines for our retirement community.) That was indeed an interesting question. But the answer was even more interesting. Candidly, the speaker said: "Many people feel that they have nothing at stake, so they simply do not vote." After a moment, he added: "Many countries declare the election day a national holiday. But this is not so in USA. Perhaps you could write to your senators and propose making the election day a national holiday." To my way of thinking, voting is another example of "Do what I say, don't do what I do." USA travles around the world promoting democracy, which, according to the president, equals voting. But the percentage of eligible voters in USA who voted in the past several presidential elections -- if my memory serves -- never exceeded 60%. When the speaker was answering this question, I thought to myself. What is needed, for USA, is not promoting democracy around the world, but showing the world that citizens of USA respect democracy and cast vote. Show the world a passing grade in voter participation -- say, 70% -- and then promote democracy around the world. Before this threshold is reached, look inward and educate the citizenry instead.