Our country's people all have the right and opportunity to vote, after the age of 18, if they choose to. Yet, many do not vote, which leads to a misrepresentation of what America wants. There is a multitude of misleading information, and a lack of information. I have found that predominantly people who can vote, but choose not to do so simply because they think they are just one person and their vote doesn't matter. There are other causes, most of which I feel could be solved rather easily.
The most obvious cause of voter apathy is mass misinformation by the media. Candidates are not always represented as they really are because the media is biased. News reporters should report the whole story, but let's face it, if a reporter is a die-hard Republican, they aren't going to go out of their way to make the Democratic candidate look good, and vice versa. Then there's the basic campaign by the candidates themselves. In the 1952 presidential election, the Eisenhower campaign had Walt Disney Studios prepare a cartoon the accompanied a jingle in favor of Eisenhower. In 1960, Kennedy had an advertisement, which used a simple jingle with graphics and photographs depicting "Democratic political heroes and Kennedy in appealing poses-. These were simple and even considered nave, but used the basic advertising strategy of getting a product or person's name in the viewer's mind by being clever, or cute (We Get. 43). Advertising has also been used in the opposite direction. For example in 1992, the Bush/Quayle campaign ran an ad that detailed with graphics and a female voice over, how Bill Clinton negatively effected Arkansas during his tenure as governor. Viewers were given the downside to Clinton, and some may have chosen to believe that side, and only that side. They were then misled by only having negative information to affect their voting decision. .
Many people do not vote because they feel that they aren't getting anything out of it for themselves.
