Is This The End of American Democracy?
Is America a democratic country when there is no freedom of speech?
The US midterm elections results are in and the ‘red wave’ that people anticipated turned out to be just a small splash. While the result is still being analyzed, it shows a deeper problem with US democracy: namely, the voter turnout.
The low voter turnout rate
The turnout rate for the 2020 Presidential election soared to 62.8% and the 2018 midterm election was also considered high at 47.5%. As a pew research article showed, the US trails behind other developed countries in voter turnout. Here is the voter turnout for presidential elections between the US and South Korea.
Given that voting is the primary mechanism of the democratic process, the lackadaisical attitude of the US voters should sound an alarm. Citizens in countries like Sweden, New Zealand, South Korea, and the Netherlands are more willing to make sure that their votes are counted.
