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6: Voting and Elections

  • Page ID
    3128
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    • 6.1: Voting
      Is it worth your time to vote? Not everybody thinks so, not all the time. A majority of citizens, in democratic republics around the world, think so when it comes to big elections. Elections for presidents and parliaments attract well over 50 percent of registered voters, all over the world. But fewer people think so in less prominent elections. In the United States, voter turnout drops by at least 10 points in the swing from presidential to non-presidential elections.
    • 6.2: Electoral Systems
      Elections are how officials get chosen in nations all around the world. States use a variety of systems to organize elections. First, let’s talk about what we do in the United States, and then compare that with happens elsewhere.
    • 6.3: Political Parties
      Parties are not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, and yet much of American politics is built around them, as is politics in pretty much every democratic state in the world. Even in the rare instances in which legislative bodies are organized on a non-partisan basis, party-like factions emerge. Parties evolved first in Great Britain and the United States, although there have been party-like factions in government dating back to Ancient Athens.


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