by Iowaprodigal

Created on: December 05, 2007

Common sense seems to dictate that people vote with their hearts. Common sense, however, is wrong. People do not, in fact, vote with their hearts, but with reason and logic. One of the factors determining a vote is invariably emotion, but it is not the governing factor. Instead, the information revolution and the Internet have placed reason at the fore.

The public today is saturated with information. Every democratic nation has access to the Internet, which provides instant communication and accessibility to a vast array of knowledge. Within seconds of discovery, every major news story is on the Internet; within minutes, thousands are reading about it and responding. Add blogs to the equation, and every news story or political action is analyzed ad nauseam. TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines bring even more information to the citizen's eye. The world is very much in the midst of an information revolution.

This revolution has practical effects for voting in democratic nations. Many government publications or records are on the Internet, providing more bureaucratic transparency to better observe currently elected officials. The statements made by candidates on the election trail can be easily investigated (and often refuted) through a search engine by the average citizen, and thousands of op-ed pieces exist critiquing any particular candidate. The information is there, and the citizens of democratic nations are accessing it. Even more importantly, the youth are accessing it. The Pew Internet Project's survey indicates that "young broadband users are replacing [their] time with online news outlets for political information." Young people are without the wisdom brought by age, so they are normally much more likely to vote according to their emotions. However, the Internet is providing these voting youth with the information they will use to vote with reason.

Those who ostensibly base their vote on emotion are still using reason to determine their candidate of choice. Most voters realize the gravity of their choices, and the consequences of placing "the wrong person" into office. As a result, there is at least some premeditated reasoning that goes into any voter's selection.

In today's information-filled world (al la Internet), everyone uses their minds, at least to process the flow of information. When Joe Voter walks into a booth, he will be subconsciously sifting through information if he did not mindfully do so previously. Now, although some of that information may be tainted or untruthful, most voters have proven good at recognizing bias, and conflicting reports are even easier to resolve with information from the Internet. Now, more than any other time in history, voters in democracies are using reason over emotion to determine our national leaders.

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