Democracy Edexcel 2012 January Answer
1a)
A referendum is a vote in which a person can either vote yes or no on a certain subject like the AV referendum in 2011, where the public voted on whether they wanted to change the current First Past the Post system. Whereas, an election are where you elect someone to represent your constituency in the general election or you vote for whomever to sit onto your council. These are held normally every 5 years due to the conservative and liberal democrats’ policy on having a fixed term Parliament. A referendum doesn’t have to have a set time they are used, they are usually used when the government are stuck on a policy and idea and want to hear the public’s view and can be on anything, where as election is just to vote for someone, not to have a view or an opinion on a subject.
1b)
Currently in the UK, there has been a decrease in having a participation crisis and one view that has been put across is to make voting compulsory.
An argument for having compulsory voting is that it would help with the representation of the House of Commons. Only around 70% of people vote in the UK and therefore it does not show the true representation of what the public want, where as with compulsory voting, everyone will vote and show the legitimacy and the true nature of what the public thing, which will make the political parties work harder in trying to gain public support and achieve what they set out to do and over all it would increase the legitimacy of Parliament when passing laws.
A second argument in favour of having compulsory voting is that it would increase the knowledge and ideas of politics and therefore educate everyone. Currently, not many 18-24 year olds vote, it is around 39% of the whole population in that age group in 2010 and therefore shows either the lack of intrest or lack of knowledge of politics. Compulsory voting would educate people into who they should be voting and why they should from an early age and furthermore increasing the legitimacy of the
A referendum is a vote in which a person can either vote yes or no on a certain subject like the AV referendum in 2011, where the public voted on whether they wanted to change the current First Past the Post system. Whereas, an election are where you elect someone to represent your constituency in the general election or you vote for whomever to sit onto your council. These are held normally every 5 years due to the conservative and liberal democrats’ policy on having a fixed term Parliament. A referendum doesn’t have to have a set time they are used, they are usually used when the government are stuck on a policy and idea and want to hear the public’s view and can be on anything, where as election is just to vote for someone, not to have a view or an opinion on a subject.
1b)
Currently in the UK, there has been a decrease in having a participation crisis and one view that has been put across is to make voting compulsory.
An argument for having compulsory voting is that it would help with the representation of the House of Commons. Only around 70% of people vote in the UK and therefore it does not show the true representation of what the public want, where as with compulsory voting, everyone will vote and show the legitimacy and the true nature of what the public thing, which will make the political parties work harder in trying to gain public support and achieve what they set out to do and over all it would increase the legitimacy of Parliament when passing laws.
A second argument in favour of having compulsory voting is that it would increase the knowledge and ideas of politics and therefore educate everyone. Currently, not many 18-24 year olds vote, it is around 39% of the whole population in that age group in 2010 and therefore shows either the lack of intrest or lack of knowledge of politics. Compulsory voting would educate people into who they should be voting and why they should from an early age and furthermore increasing the legitimacy of the