Voter Power Quotes

The right to vote is a consequence, not a primary cause, of a free social system - and its value depends on the constitutional structure implementing and strictly delimiting the voters' power; unlimited majority rule is an instance of the principle of tyranny.

When I first ran for governor, the political class and party leaders opposed me with great vigor, and some even said if I won the primary they would never vote for me. But the voters had other ideas, and they are the only ones who count.

Only the people who elected the President -- only those people -- can determine the President's fate.

You cannot make elected officials … do what they will not do.

What the electorate gives, the electorate can take away

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

A single seemingly powerless person who dares to cry out the word of truth and to stand behind it with all his person and all his life, has, surprisingly, greater power, though formally disenfranchised, than do thousands of anonymous voters.

For over a century, popular struggles in the democracies have used the nation-state to temper raw capitalism. The power of voters has offset the power of capital. But as national barriers have come down in the name of freer commerce, so has the capacity of governments to manage capitalism in a broad public interest. So the real issue is not "trade" but democratic governance.

You have not fully expressed your power as a voter until you have scientific literacy in topics that matter for future political issues.

If there is a constant to the American campaign story, it is that elites can’t predict the future very well. News is what surprises us, which is why the political press always has news. Voters are always undoing our certainties.

Politicians generally respond to who is going to help them get elected and re-elected.

To me, political action involves making the politician who represents us know that he either produces or he is out, and he's out one way or another.

During their tenure, the elected representatives of the people walk with the gods. And it is only when an election is announced that they realise it is the people in their constituencies, with whom they have not really bothered to keep in touch, who will decide their fate.

Is it average Joes like ourselves who go to the ballot box and truly decide who are going to be the leaders, not only of their party - of their government - at the local, at the state, at the federal level? Is that really who's still in charge?

The first thing I would like to say is that I don't think folk at Westminster - or for that matter at Holyrood - constitute an elite. They are representatives who are elected and who are at the service of voters who can fire them.

As consumers and as voters we can say 'no' to rogue economics and demand regulation.