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Published on 9/9/2008

By Lynn Mueller

On Nov. 4, American voters will go to their polling places to cast their ballots for the President of the United States, 33 U.S. Senate races and 435 Congressional contests nationwide. The outcome of this process will set the context and the framework for our nation's direction.

We do have a problem. Those who actually vote represent a relatively small subset of the nation's eligible body politic. Just take a look at these facts:

* Of the 100 percent eligible to register to vote, only 70 percent actually register.

* Of the 70 percent who actually register, only one-half, or 35 percent on average, vote.

* If a candidate wins 60 percent of the vote that is cast, the headline will be: "Candidate Wins Landside." The reality is that candidate will have received 21 percent of the total votes that could have been cast if all eligible voters had exercised the franchise.

Given these facts, it is hardly surprising that it is difficult to next to impossible for the elected officials to find a consistent and enduring public policy set of parameters on which the clear majority of the citizens could agree on.

This situation is further exacerbated by the fact that the two major political parties have written themselves into the federal and various state election laws to ensure that one of them will ultimately succeed in winning an overwhelming majority of the contested races in America.

This is a problem because fewer and fewer citizens join either of the two parties. This is coupled with the fact that even those who join, when asked if they are a Republican or a Democrat, respond by saying, "Yes, I am a member, but I vote for the person ... I split my ticket."

The percentage of individuals eligible to vote who actually participate in either the party apparatus or the primary process is a small subset of the whole in the party and even a smaller subset of the body politic.

It is apparent that both parties need to do a better job of attracting participants, and as a nation we certainly need to do a better job of increasing voter registration and voter turnout. When more people on a percentage basis that are eligible to vote turn out to vote under the threat of death in two national elections held in Iraq than participate in the electoral process in America, we have a problem.

In spite of the warnings of our first president, George Washington, in his farewell address concerning the potential negative implications of the emergence of "parties," our two-party system has served us well and still can if only individual voter participation increased dramatically. That simple act would send a serious wake-up call to the leaders of both parties and their candidates.

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Mr. Mueller, a resident of Georgetown, received a doctorate in monetary economics from George Washington University and taught investments and portfolio management for three years.