Low Voter Participation among Canada's Youth: A Result of In

             Since the establishment of democracy in Ancient Greece campaigns have cost money. The role money plays in elections has recently become a concern and has opened up much debate about regulatory policy in several democratic countries. In Canada the Canada Elections Act outlines restrictions on campaign spending. In the case Somerville v. Canada the courts stress that in order to preserve the financial equity between candidates and encourage public confidence in the electoral system, restrictions are needed. In a United States court case, Buckley v. Valeo Supreme Court, it was decided that campaign spending limits violate freedom of speech. But with the average Senate campaign costing $4.5 million one starts to question the equality of election campaigns and consequently democracy. This paper argues that restrictions on campaign spending are democratic because they protect the integrity of popular sovereignty and preserve the equality of political competition.
             Campaign restrictions are needed to allow equal representation of the people. Popular sovereignty is supreme rule by the people not by corporations or the wealthy elite. As a result of high cost in running a campaign in some democracies the representatives are not the average citizen, they are the wealthy elite. Without restrictions, elections are a "money race" and one by the one the "poor" drop out, leaving the multimillionaires as the elected. You might then ask what does a multimillionaire and yourself, an average citizen have in common? Ellen Miller, a campaign reformer, describes the effect of the elite holding office:
             The problem with more and more wealthy people running and winning is that then tax policy, health care policy and education policy are seen through the lenses of multimillionaires, people who don't need government services. They are a different class of people and from a different world than most Americans, who sit around the...

More Essays:

APA     MLA     Chicago
Low Voter Participation among Canada's Youth: A Result of In. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 01:31, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/4549.html