Voter Participation / Citizen Participation

Voter Participation / Citizen Participation in U.S. Government

How does the Federalist aspect of American government impact the participation of citizens and voters? This paper reviews the particulars and ramifications of those issues.

When the Founding Fathers created the American democracy they fashioned a "fragmented" federalist system for a good reason. Having fears that under a federalist system too much power could be held in the hands of too few people, they structured it to "…prevent any one leader, group of leaders, or factions of people" from asserting power over more "than a small part of it" (Welch, et al., 2009, p. 31).

Those Founding leaders believed that people are "…selfish, always coveting more property" and that leaders "lust after more power" -- hence, the Founders created the federal government that Americans live under today, executive, legislative and judicial supposedly balanced by individual states' powers -- which, unfortunately, negatively impacts citizen participation and voter contribution in many instances (Welch, 31). The basic paradox of American government lies in the fact that while every citizen has the Constitutionally guaranteed right to vote, not every vote counts.

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary," James Madison asserted. But of course people are less than angelic and so Madison and his colleagues worried about the "mischiefs of factions," e.g., groups seeking power for themselves without regard for the rights of others (Welch, 31). This problem could be best addressed through federalism, Madison believed, and while a particular faction could potentially dominate one state, that faction would be "less able to dominate many states" (Welch, 31).

A classic instance during which the federalist system failed the will of the majority can be found in the presidential election of 2000. According to the Federal Election Commission, Al Gore won the popular vote by 543,895 (50,999,897 to 50,456,002); however the Founders had created "the Electoral College to prevent the people from choosing the president" (Welch, 32) and so Gore lost the election because Florida's 25 Electoral College votes went to George W. Bush following an unprecedented and provocative series of voting irregularities in Florida.

Electoral College members in each state equal the number of U.S. Senators (2) plus the number of elected members of the U.S. House of Representatives from that state. Why set up a presidential election in which voters do not directly elect the president? Welch (32) explains that the founders devised this system "…because of their view that the people could not be trusted. The people were seen as an unruly mob threatening stable, orderly government," she continued. Even after Gore successfully petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to have election officials count 9,000 previously uncounted ballots by hand, that may well have given him the victory in Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court trumped the Florida High Court and ultimately gave Florida's 25 electoral votes -- and the presidency -- to Republican candidate Bush (the High Court vote was 5-4: 5 Republican justices to 4 Democrat justices).

Meanwhile, according to professor Mary C. Segers (Rutgers University), the U.S. system of government actually "enhances citizen impact on government" (Segers, 2002, p. 182). The Founders "struggled with a conflict between representative government and their fear of majority tyranny" and so they created a system in which "The fragmentation of political power and redundancy of functions within government multiply the points of access for groups attempting to influence public policy" (Segers, 181-82). Segers' opinion offers a counterpoint to the view that fragmented government is anti-majority, and somewhat balances the argument.