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Voting and Elections , livre ebook

Capstone Global Library - Michael Burgan

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66 pages

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This book looks at how citizens are connected to the political process, and how this gives ordinary people the ability to be involved in politics. It also examines how campaigns work and the process by which leaders make their way into power. This title will also answer questions such as, "Where does the concept of voting come from?", "How do potential leaders convince people to vote for them?", and "Has corruption ever helped someone get into office?"

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Publié par	Capstone Global Library
Date de parution	08 octobre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781406255805
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	13 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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ETHICS OF POLITICS

voting and Elections

Michael Burgan

Raintree is an imprint of Capstone Global Library Limited, a company incorporated in England and Wales having its registered office at 7 Pilgrim Street, London, EC4V 6LB – Registered company number: 6695582

Text © Capstone Global Library Limited 2013 First published in hardback in 2013 The moral rights of the proprietor have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS (www.cla. co.uk). Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission should be addressed to the publisher.

Edited by Adam Miller, Louise Galpine, and Adrian Vigliano Designed by Marcus Bell Original illustrations © Capstone Global Library Ltd Illustrated by Darren Lingard Picture research by Tracy Cummins Production by Alison Parsons Originated by Capstone Global Library Ltd Printed and bound in China by Leo Paper Products Ltd.

ISBN 978 1 406 24013 9 (hardback) 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Burgan, Michael. Voting and elections. -- (Ethics of politics) 324.6-dc23 A full catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce photographs: Corbis pp. 9 (© Bettmann), 27 (© Haydn West/epa), 37 (© Corbis), 48 (© Lirio Da Fonseca/X01340/Reuters); Getty Images pp. 7 (Leemage), 12 (Robert King/Newsmakers), 16 (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post), 21 (Marty Melville), 23 (Frederic J. Brown/AFP), 28 (Scott Olson), 35 (AFP PHOTO/Alberto Pizzoli), 40 (Joel Saget/AFP), 45 (Waleed Ahmad/AFP), 50 (Gabriel Bouys/AFP); istockphoto pp. 11 (© jcarillet), 19 (© Chris Schmidt), 25 (© tirc83); Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division pp. 26, 42; Shutterstock pp. 4 (© homeros), 31 (© Frontpage), 46 (© homeros), 39 (© Robert Park), 53 (© Frontpage).

Cover photograph of a Sudanese voter casting a ballot reproduced with the permission of Getty Images (Roberto Schmidt/AFP).

We would like to thank Jonathan Lipman for his invaluable help in the preparation of this book.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of any material reproduced in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in subsequent printings if notice is given to the publisher.

Disclaimer All the internet addresses (URLs) given in this book were valid at the time of going to press. However, due to the dynamic nature of the internet, some addresses may have changed, or sites may have changed or ceased to exist since publication. While the author and publisher regret any inconvenience this may cause readers, no responsibility for any such changes can be accepted by either the author or the publisher.

CONTENTS

ETHICS OF POLITICS

The will of the people . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Democracy through the ages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Democracy in action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

The role of parties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Campaigns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

The role of the media in voting and elections . . . . . . . . . . 38

Voters and the voting process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Voting and elections today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Notes on sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Find out more . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Some words are printed in bold,like this. You can find out what they mean by looking in the glossary.

THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

In 2010, citizens across Iraq entered schools and gave their names. Someone checked a list of all the people who hadregisteredto vote. People whose names were on the list received a paperballot.This ballothad the names of all the localcandidatesrunning for Iraq’sparliament. The voters put their own names on the ballot, then went off by themselves to mark their choices.

All the completed ballots went into large plastic bins, so they could be counted later. Then, the voters dipped one finger in ink. The ink would show everyone 1 that they had voted, which meant they could not legally vote again. Thanks in 2 part to this system, the election of 2010 was the fairest in Iraqi history.

In countries holding their first free elections, such as Iraq, voters often proudly display the ink on their fingers that show they voted.

ETHICS OF POLITICS

“Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his 3 country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.”

United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Democracy in action As these people discovered, people perform an important function when they vote. Voting and elections are part of thepoliticalprocess. The term “politics” refers to the system used to construct a government and decide how that government is run.

A government based on the free, fair elections of public officials is called a representative democracy. Voters choose people to represent their views. These elected officials then go on to run their country’s government and shape itspolicies. People who live in representative democracies believe they have the best form of government in the world. It gives people great freedom to shape their own lives.

But some countries have different systems. Saudi Arabia, for example, is a kingdom. Voters cannot choose national leaders. Cuba, acommunist4 country, limits who can run for office. The rulers of these countries value order – or keeping their own power – rather than giving people the greatest freedom possible. Also, all countries that have elections are not necessarily 5 democracies. Rulers sometimes arrange who can run for office and who can vote in such a way that citizens don’t have true freedom to choose their elected officials.

The ethics of voting and elections Given the importance of voting and elections in democracies, people want to ensure that the process is totally fair. But there are many challenges to having open and fair elections. Indeed, voting and elections raise many difficult ethicalquestions.Ethicsis the study of deciding which kinds of behaviour are right and wrong.

For example, sometimes people are influenced to vote a certain way. This raises many ethical questions about fairness. The way that votes are counted is another ethical question. So is the role of money in determining who wins an election. Deciding who can and cannot vote raises more ethical questions, as do many other issues. By looking more closely at the ethics of voting and elections, we can better understand how truly free and fair ademocraticcountry is.

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