What if Nobody Came to the Election?

Discuss this statement with reference to the political systems of the UK and the USA.

Although the notion of a turn out of zero per cent may seem fancifal, it must be noted that trends on both sides of the Atlantic are suggesting the shadow of apathy hangs more prominently with each passing election. Apathy once a term associated more singularly with the American political culture is now a problem for Western democracies as a whole. Apathy was perhaps most noteable in the recent General Election and Presidential Election results. In 2000 George Bush was elected by a reasonably credible 49.8% of the voters. Yet this mandate was provided by only 25% of those entitled to vote; as only 93 million out of the 196.5 million eligable to vote choose to do so. This figure is as poor as that of the 1924 election of Calvin Coolridge, which was clouded by the fact that African- Americans were not to gain full suffrage for another fifty years, the newly enfranchised women were in many cases unsure of how to utilitze their newly as yet unused vote. The following year in Britain Tony Blair was swept into power, by another "historic" Labour landslide, but was it really a landslide of popular support? In 1

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Some common words found in the essay are:
Tony Blair, Queen's Speech, United Kingdom, Labour Party, Jeremy Paxman, House Representatives, Mandelson June, Party Conventions, Paddy Ashdown, Lutz Republican, united kingdom, negative campaigning, opinion polls, president clinton, potential voters lay, type person, australian system, five cent, paddy ashdown, voters lay dead, closeness contest, party conventions, medicare social security, party political broadcasts,
Approximate Word count = 3230
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)