A whole crop of senators and representatives are up for reelection this November. Because of the emotional power and contentiousness of the health insurance bill, there is a very strong likelihood that factions from all sides will attempt to wrest control of government from the citizens and place it into their hands. Do not allow that to happen.

No matter what you believe happened over the past few months, and no matter what source from which you receive your news,you are going to be fed disinformation, propaganda, and outright lies in order to sway  your opinion for the polls this November. This will happen across all racial, societal, and religious lines. Conservative or Liberal. Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Atheist. Your vote is the target of some desperate faction looking for power.

It is up to you to remain in control of your political representatives. It is up to you to ensure that those factions do not sway you to their side, no matter how right they may sound.  It’s up to you, but I’m going to give you some advice on how to know what’s happening and stay in control.

1. A faction is any group looking to push an agenda that has only a benefit to them. If it can’t be proven that it’s beneficial to a sizable majority of the population, it’s not worth voting for.
2. Those pushing their factional ideas will often use “scare” tactics, inflationary rhetoric, or mis-represented facts in the guise of real facts. If you’re not hearing sources cited for information you’re receiving, it’s not worth voting for.
3. Factions can be large or small, a majority or minority. Check out what your hearing from objective sources: read the bill, calculate the cost on your own, ask your neighbors. If you can’t corroborate what you’re hearing, it’s not worth voting for.

Running a republic is no easy feat, but the American People are up to it as long as they keep their head.

Follow your representative or senator through www.govtrack.us. Track the cost of issues you’re concerned about through www.cbo.gov. Above all, remember that this November the people who are in charge of budget, war, taxes — the laws of this land — are going up for reelection. Remember that you’re in charge of them.

Everyone, please start now to get at least 20 other people to commit to voting in November, 2010. If we don’t vote as a group, the factions win.

1. We’ve set up a Facebook page.
2. There’s a Twitter stream over here.
3. I’m busy working on collating more data from the US Census.

In short, the desire to spread the word about how important voting is to our society has not abated one iota. In fact, my passion has increased more with every moment I think about it.

That’s all for now, but I leave you with a parting quote.

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.

- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 33

The short answer is no. I do not believe that politicians are corrupt because so few people turn out to vote, nor do I think that the ills of society rest on the shoulders of those citizens who didn’t vote. The long answer is a bit more complex.

Over the years, the rate of voter participation as it relates to the voting population as a whole as decreased by about ten percent from a maximum of 69% in 1964 to just around 60% in 2008 — highest participation rates are always during presidential elections. This is a disturbing trend by itself, but when taken against the increase in eligible voting population over the same time period reveals the real impetus for this group: the people making decisions about who will make decisions about the direction in which this country goes is a small percentage of voting-eligible society.

What we’re seeing is that there is less democratic pressure on elected officials than there is supposed to be for a republic this size. A smaller percent of an officials’ regions elected them, so they are beholden to a smaller range of constituent desires. It means that the pressure to “do the right thing” is not as strong as it should be, because the voting base is too small in comparison with their region’s population, and that voting base gets its way regardless of what is right for the region as a whole.

Will a higher voter turnout fix all of the corruption and corporatization of congress? No. Will increased citizen participation, however, give stronger voice to the people and more pressure on congress to listen to their constituents’ needs as a larger group? Absolutely.

Politicians have long subverted the purpose of the election process and turned their representational duties into a career. They are free to do this because they know that only around half of their constituents will show up and vote, so they’re really only beholden to 51% of that group.  This was never the intention of the authors of the Constitution.

The intent was to have full participation of voting citizens in order to keep out the influence of minority interests: corporations, lobbyists, special interest groups, fly-by-night political parties, etc. Their intent has never come to fruition. That can change.

While we believe that there is not a causal relationship between voter turnout and political corruption, we recognize that a low voter turnout makes it easier for political corruption and factional influence to occur. Conversely, we assert that an increase in citizen participation will make it more difficult for corruption to happen and more likely that it does not go unpunished.

My job on these pages is to produce data and analysis that shows disturbing trends in voter participation in relation only to itself. My goal is to let the data feed common sense in order to get more people participating in the election process.

In order to do that, the first thing I did was produce a histogram of the data at hand:

This histogram shows the distribution of voter turnout percentage since 1964.

What is quickly apparent by this graph is that we’ve never had a turnout percentage of  more than 70% at any point in the last 44 years. In fact, the most common turnouts are in the 40-45% and 55-60% range. Averaged out, then, we’re looking at 50% — actually a median of 54.7% and a mean of 53.72% —  turnout over 44 years. Is that enough people to properly elect representatives of an entire nation?

In order for a republic to function properly, to ensure that representatives feel as though they are beholden to a “mandate from the people”, we should never see that few people turnout in any election. It’s what the writers of the Federalist Papers would refer to as a “faction”, a term I use a lot and one which I’ll explain in a future entry.

Let’s look at a microcosm of what the histogram shows us. If there are 100 people, it would seem to stand to reason that 50 of them aren’t going to relinquish control to the other 50. A majority of half of a population, after all, is just over 25%. However, that is – in effect — what happens in this country every election cycle. Politicians are getting sent back to their jobs by just over one quarter of the nation, in some cases by far fewer people.

There’s more to talk about here, and I have more charts to share with you in future posts.

The data for the above chart was taken from the US Census report of July, 2009. The calculations are based on a total population of people who were eligible to vote in that year.

Within the pages of The Federalist Papers, the term “faction” was used to describe the type of splitting-off that could happen were there not to be full participation of eligible citizens. In fact, these factions are the primary weakness of our government and, presumably, of any democratic republic.

You can imagine the situation by picturing a small community of one thousand people. Let’s say that out of that thousand, all are eligible to vote, but 750 of them register to do so. Out of that group of 750, then, 375 of them choose to go vote. In that vote, 190 of them win their battle and a large decision is made for the entire community. Does a community of one thousand deserve to be managed by the decision of 190 of them?

That’s what happens in this country every four years. My example numbers above are based on average percentages. For instance, since 1964, the mean percentage of voter turnout was 53%. Just over half. By not voting, we are handing the country over to factions.

Vote your Voice is our attempt at changing that.

the framework for the government of the United States is a good one;
a government for the people and by the people is the best government;
it is the right of each citizen to be properly informed of the election cycle’s due process;
it is the right of each citizen to be properly informed of all issues that are of importance to them;
every citizen of voting age must have a basic understanding of civics;
a democratic republic can only be successful with maximum participation of its citizens.

Whereas,
factions are the greatest threat to our democratic republic;
the number of lobbyists and their power to influence representatives and senators has increased substantially;
corruption and favoritism control the attentions of representatives and senators more than their constituents’ issues;
elected officials worry more about the cost of an election than the issues at hand;

Whereas,
citizens who choose not to vote are undermining the framework of government;
refusing to vote does not excuse one’s self from the influence of law;
politicians are not required to listen to their constituents who don’t vote;

We shall,
ensure that all citizens have a basic understanding of civics and the workings of our government;
assist all citizens with the registration process for their region of the country;
ensure all citizens understand where their representatives and senators stand on issues concerning their region;
ensure that each voting district has a citizen voter turn out of 85% or more of it’s eligible voter population, ie: all US citizens over the age of 18.