on limited levels include telephone voting, electronic balloting, early voting, absentee voting and mail balloting (Smith, 1994). Whether or not these new ideas will succeed requires close examination; we must be wary to implement changes that are desired by the people and that maintain high voter security.
It is clear that low voter turnout is perceived as a problem. However, it is perhaps the more compelling to resist labeling our poor voter numbers as problematic. By all means, voting must be made as convenient as possible for the public, and this may involve some changes in the voting system. After all, institutions must advance to keep pace with the times. However, voter apathy is an issue that transcends mere convenience. Politicians have clearly become more unsavory to the public, and many voters feel pressed to choose between the lesser of two evils come election time. Perhaps it is the act of not voting that is the only mechanism the average American citizen has to communicate his displeasure to the government and the officials who hold post in its chambers. If this is so, low voter turnout might be the most effective enduring cry for reform that the electorate has at its disposal.
Compared with the other democratic nations of the world, the United States has an abysmal voting record. Only on in four eligible voters went to the polls to re-elect Bill Clinton in 1996, and the Republican party won control of the House of Representatives with even fewer votes (Hill, 1997). Among the twenty or so other mature democracies that exist in the world, only Switzerland has a lower voter turnout than the United States (Voter Turnout Comparisons, 1998).
The reasons given to explain our low voter participation are numerous. Political scientists are generally sympathetic to the plight of the American voter, noting that "we make the task of voting harder in the U.S. than in most other democracies by having so many di...