Democracy Participation Quotes

In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.

I do know that I don't want to see anybody legitimately have the excuse that they are not voting because their votes don't count. That can't happen - whether I'm the one impacted by that vote or not.

If we want people to vote, we need to make it a larger part of their self-image.

I think to understand how the democratic process works is the most important thing, so people don't get frightened by it, and get put off, and give up.

Be it bumper stickers on your car, yard signs on your lawn, a letter to your local newspaper or member of Congress, the Internet or a voluntary contribution of your own hard earned money to candidates or party of your choosing, these are all constitutionally protected means of participation in our democracy.

Abstention is a dereliction of citizenship: always cast a vote, if only to cast stones at the most hated.

When you restore democracy, you cannot say that only those who worked for the restoration of democracy will be allowed to use the privileges of a democracy.

People who are registered to vote should vote. I vote all the time. If I'm not in the country, I do it over mail. Sometimes I don't know who the people are - I just pick whatever girl is Democratic.

If you don't vote, then you may be leaving the decisions up to someone dumber than you.

I'm a big believer that we get the politicians we deserve.

Internet referendums will not, in the beginning, have any legally binding effect, but they will be politically binding.

This is supposed to be a participatory democracy and if we're not in there participating then the people that will manipulate and exploit the system will step in there.

We must demonstrate our power by exercising our right to vote.

We all know that election reform takes time. That's because those who have benefited from the system are the ones who fight hardest to preserve it. So if we're going to succeed, we need an independent coalition of citizens who believe in reform, who believe that our election laws should treat every voter equally, who believe that low levels of competition and participation are not healthy for democracy. The Independence Party is helping to build that coalition and I am happy to join you in doing so.

You're a sovereign as a citizen. If you're not involved in your government, you're not doing your job. In the long run that's very bad for the Republic.

It is not good enough to say, "Well, hey, I vote every two years. I vote every four years." That's fine, but that is not good enough.

I want to make an extremely strong appeal to those who abstained. Vote. It takes five minutes and then it's for five years.

I just think it's really important that we don't put people in a position where they're trying to decide between their health and wellbeing and their fundamental right to vote.

Islamism implies some sort of political and social plan for Muslim people. In that classification, we find different categories. Legalist ones, traditional ones and revolutionary ones. Some of them are revolutionary but are non-violent, others are extremely violent. There are also the ones we call the literalists, like the Egyptian party Hizb al-Nour that used to be against democracy and now is getting into the political game.

Whether you either passionately think we should stay in, or on balance think we should stay in, or on a balance of risks think we should stay in - for heaven's sake get out and vote in, because you might wake up and find out you're out.