Not Enough Voters

Voter's Registration. A right of passage that every young American who is freshly 18 will partake in. Well... almost every American. There are still millions of eligible Americans who are unregistered. So why is this?

When you compare the American system of registering to vote to that of other countries, it's easy to see why. In America, registering is solely the responsibility of the individual. Whereas in other countries, there's much better voting encouragement and even compulsory voting in some places. So, what could America do to increase the amount of voters?

Personally, I believe one solution in which America could increase their voter turnout is by removing the "burden" from the individual. I have many friends who have just gone through the voter's registration process for the first time. And many who haven't. But while they all have their reasoning, not one of them said it was because they didn't want to vote. When kids turn 18, they don't just magically turn into adults who have time management down to a science (how many adults actually do?) or even start to think about the fact that they're legally adult in the eyes of the law. Many people just simply forgot, or maybe there wasn't time for them to go register, I mean, many probably didn't know how. So, by having a system of a voter registration that took the pressure off the individual, America would see a much greater number of its people at the poles, being able to speak freely and use their rights as a citizen. This could even be handled at the time of getting a drivers license (with an option for them to opt out of course, as it is their right). Now, of course they wouldn't be able to vote until they turned of age, but it'd already have people pre-registered when elections roll around, all they'd be required to do is show a valid form of i.d. Those who don't get their license would of course be left out of this system, but they of course should be given easier access to voter registration as well. 

But hey, maybe it's a system that wouldn't work or maybe even backfire, but I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that more Americans should be voting. So a solution should be looked for, and if you think my idea isn't viable or necessary (or even if you agree with me!), I'd love to know. 

How to Fix The Supreme Court Without Blowing it Up: A Critique

I read "How to Fix The Supreme Court Without Blowing it Up" from Washington Monthly, which is where Noah Berlatsky laid out the issues he sees with the Supreme Court and a few proposed ways in which it could be fixed. He writes for a liberal audience, as it's written on a left leaning blog, who most likely share the same views as him on the issue of a power imbalance. Berlatsky himself is very left leaning and he's written very liberal articles on several different sites. However, in this article, he seems to portray a more centralist view. While still left leaning and explaining liberal views, he describes solutions that wouldn't hurt the Republicans (in fact one could even give them more power potentially). He appears to at least be trying to remain impartial, while still relaying his beliefs. This causes me to see his credibility seems as reliable, as he seems fairly knowledgeable on leftist politics yet isn't trying to claim that his opinions are anything other than that.

His main argument is that the Supreme Court is imbalanced, and will only remain this way in the foreseeable future. This is because Republicans only retire when a Republican President is in power, and Democrats only retire when Democratic Presidents are in power. However, at the moment, Republicans seem to hold a much higher degree of power in regards to the balancing of the system. It's because of this that Berlatsky claims that many Democrats are starting to petition for a change in the system. In a country where power is supposed to be equal and unbiased, it doesn't seem right that one political party gets to hold it and call the shots. Berlatsky then lays out a couple of different ways in which the Supreme Court could be fixed: from simply implementing a one judge per term rule to a constitutional amendment.

Overall, I agree with his message. I do believe that the government should be more balanced in the way it functions, and one party shouldn't be able hold all the power in their hands. An unbalanced world is a dangerous one. I don't know what would go into changing the rules for creating more harmony, but I don't think it's an argument that people should balk at or even just jump on immediately. Because to create a balanced system, it requires communication from both sides. Otherwise, it's not "fixing" it, it's just wrapping it up in duct tape and saying "that'll last." Until it doesn't.