Citizens Voting Quotes & Sayings

If you rely on the media for your information, to educate yourself about the candidates and what issues are facing the country, then you get just part of the equation. I think it's important that we as citizens of this democracy take the responsibility to get as much information as possible before we go into the voting booth. — Donna Brazile

The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media
none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty. — Howard Zinn

odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens. We believe that we have checks and balances, but have rarely faced a situation like the present: when the less popular of the two parties controls every lever of power at the federal level, as well as the majority of statehouses. — Timothy Snyder

Scoundrels will be corrupt and unconcerned citizens apathetic under even the best constitution. — William Earl Maxwell

First of all, citizens don't vote about laws. They vote on representatives. The representatives do the voting about laws. — J. Kraft Mitchell

The language we share is at the core of our identity as citizens, and our ticket to full participation in American political life. We can speak any language we want at the dinner table, but English is the language of public discourse, or the marketplace and of the voting booth. — S.I. Hayakawa

Maybe what stopped people from voting wasn't a lack of information about the candidates or a feeling that the outcomes of races didn't matter or a sense that a trip to the polls was inconvenient. What if voting wasn't only a political act, but a social one that took place in a liminal space between the public and private that had never been well-defined to citizens? What if toying with those expectations was key to turning a person into a voter? What if elections were simply less about shaping people's opinions than changing their behaviors? — Sasha Issenberg

Let the people decide whom to vote for, who has more authority. And only people, only our citizens, are able to place the final emphasis, voting for this or that person or political force, or rejecting it. That's democracy. — Dmitry Medvedev

OMG, I think I've become a feminist. I mean, I've always been in favor of women voting and being paid the same as men for doing the same job. But then, the other day on the train, I didn't get up and give a woman my seat. I thought about it. But then I thought it might insult her, might imply that I considered her weaker than a senior citizen, maybe even inferior in some way. But that's not what prompted me to fire up my laptop. I was brushing my teeth this morning and thinking about romance. People do that when they get older, I suppose. Romance is one area where men and women are still different - unisex lavatories and fashions notwithstanding. And here's the difference: a romantic woman envisions a knight on a white horse; a romantic man envisions a dragon in a dark cave. Think about it next time you brush your teeth. — Ron Brackin

We, like the natural world, have become mere commodities in the hands of corporations to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. Elected officials are manufactured personalities and celebrities. We vote based on how we are made to feel about corporate political puppets. The puppets, Democrat and Republican, engage in hollow acts of political theater keep the fiction of the democratic state alive. There is, however, no national institution left that can accurately be described as democratic. Citizens, rather than participate in power, are permitted virtual opinions to preordained questions, a kind of participatory fascism as meaningless as voting on "American Idol." Mass — Bertram M. Gross

I love voting day. I love the sight of my fellow citizens lining up to make their voices heard. — Beth Broderick

In a well-functioning democracy, citizens have the option of voting their political masters out of office. Not so in most companies. — Gary Hamel

A share in the sovereignty of the state, which is exercised by the citizens at large, in voting at elections is one of the most important rights of the subject, and in a republic ought to stand foremost in the estimation of the law ... That portion of the sovereignty, to which each individual is entitled, can never be too highly prized. It is that for which we have fought and bled ... — Alexander Hamilton

Communism is a form of government under which every citizen at election time enjoys the privilege of voting Yes. — Evan Esar

In proportion as the mass of citizens who possess political rights increases, and the number of elected ruler's increases, the actual power is concentrated and becomes the monopoly of a smaller and smaller group of individuals. — Paul Lafargue

Democracy is not just voting for your leaders; it's really premised upon ordinary citizens understanding the issues. — Howard Rheingold

We will all be better citizens when voting records of our Congressmen are followed as carefully as scores of pro-football games. — Louise Erickson

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens. — Howard Zinn

Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights - that's suppression by any light. — Artur Davis

My father once told me that American democracy is a people's democracy at heart, and that it therefore can be as great as the American people, or as fallible. It depends on all of us. But our system is more fragile than we know. To sustain it, we must always cherish the ideals on which it was founded, remain vigilant against the dark forces that threaten it, and actively engage in the process of making it work. — George Takei

Across the nation, the election protection movement attracts ordinary citizens who educate their neighbors about their voting systems and the private companies that built and run them. — Mimi Kennedy

The only reason I can imagine that it would be a good idea for government to foster dependency in large groups of citizens is to cultivate a dependable voting bloc that will guarantee continued power as long as the entitlements are provided. The problem of course is that such a government will eventually "run out of other people's money," as Margaret Thatcher once famously said. — Ben Carson

Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy. — Bill Moyers

The odd American idea that giving money to political campaigns is free speech means that the very rich have far more free speech, and so in effect far more voting power, than other citizens. — Timothy Snyder

A number of laws that are said to protect citizens harkens back to "Jim Crow" era. — J.C. Phillips

Unless they can pass the same test that immigrants must pass to become citizens, people shouldnt be allowed to vote. The idea that there is some public benefit in ignoramuses and morons pulling levers next to names on a ballot is one of the evil myths of post-modern America. The purpose of voting, in our country, is to select men and women with the competence and integrity to operate the mechanics of government fixed by our Constitution. For this process to have any public benefit requires that the choices be made on an intelligent, knowledgeable and reasoned basis. — Charley Reese

Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to stop millions of American citizens from voting. What part of democracy are they afraid of? I call on Republicans at all levels of government, with all manner of ambition, to stop fear mongering about a phantom epidemic of election fraud. I'm calling for universal, automatic voter registration, every citizen in every state in the union. — Greg Gutfeld

If shackling former prisoners with a lifetime of debt and authorizing discrimination against them in employment, housing, education, and public benefits is not enough to send the message that they are not wanted and not even considered full citizens, then stripping voting rights from those labeled criminals surely gets the point across. — Michelle Alexander

Every male citizen of the commonwealth, liable to taxes or to militia duty in any county, shall have a right to vote for representatives for that county to the legislature. — Thomas Jefferson

The unconscious democracy of America is a very fine thing. It is a true and deep and instinctive assumption of the equality of citizens, which even voting and elections have not destroyed. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Voting is the least arduous of a citizen's duties. He has the prior and harder duty of making up his mind. — Ralph Barton Perry

American democracy is supposed to be the paradigm for the rest of the world, and it no longer is. Citizens cannot be guaranteed that they can walk into a voting booth with any assurance that their vote will be counted. — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.