Participating in elections is crucial

By Dick Beckman, Las Vegas

Wednesday, June 11, 2014 | 2:02 a.m.

I support Doug Goodman’s ideas in Sunday’s edition of the Sun for improving our election process. I, too, believe these advances will encourage more participation in this fundamental act of citizenship.

I encourage everyone eligible to vote, just to demonstrate how important this opportunity is for us and how thankful we are for our country, even with its flaws.

Have you noticed how low our turnouts for elections are? Many other countries that have real contested (not sham) elections have much higher turnouts. Can we really brag about how exceptional we are as a country when so few of us exercise our most precious right and responsibility?

Personally, I find it hard to take anyone seriously if they fail to fulfill their citizenship responsibilities.

The law and voting are very important to me. As a result, I don’t really believe we should have partisan elections for secretary of state, sheriffs or judges. I have always refused to vote for any judge. The concept itself is unacceptable to me. I also believe it is unseemly that our Supreme Court justices can be readily thought of as being aligned with one major party or another when they are ostensibly committed to the Constitution, the law and all people.

Sheriff and judge candidates taking donations and acting like candidates for all other contested positions on the Nevada ballot is incompatible with my idea of partisan democracy.

Finally, we have let the two major political parties gain too much power in our form of representative government. The Democratic and Republican parties sometimes seemingly have an unlimited quest for power, influence and outright control. This is what drives gerrymandering and suppresses the exercise of our most precious right — voting!

May each declared winner in Tuesday’s election truly seek to serve all citizens, conduct responsible campaigns and work to improve our elections.