I don't feel many voters vote on the issues...
The only issues I feel the majority of people vote on are hot-button knee-jerk reaction topics, that have little variance based on the position up for grabs in the election... For example, Abortion is a topic that people have used at a litmus test for years... but despite all the off-balance courts, nothing has changed since Roe V. Wade... and likely won't regardless of who is elected...
Another one is racial, gender, or party bias... I feel people group up, and without even considering issues, vote for someone based on their affiliation with one of the large groups in these biases... That was readily apparent last cycle, when so many were voting for Obama because he was black, Hillary because she was a woman... However, most people ignorantly don't even know the names of the people running for most offices, and go in to vote anyone with a D or R next to their name... Included in there should be the numerous dead people who vote in each election... Since we don't check IDs, biased partygoers stuff the ballots with votes for their party from people who are deceased but still on the voter registration...
However, I feel the biggest problem isn't whether or not people vote on the issues... I think it's a major ignorance to the issues... The news agencies attempt to thwart the real topics and give the headline "the issues", and attach them to points that both the major parties agree to talk about... When in reality, most people are concerned with topics never addressed... Furthermore, many Americans are completely ignorant as to how government works, or know what stands on what issues are what... Last election, Democrats benefited from loads of ignorant voters, who couldn't speak to a single policy, but voted for Obama, because they liked him, or because "I want to get Bush out of office"... well, Bush was already going to be out of office... and in practice, it appears clearly that McCain would've been less like Bush than Obama has been... but it doesn't matter to them... Because they simply don't know, or care...
I would love to have the whole election process changed in so many ways to keep these types of voters from swaying the election, and to give more weight to the people who are intelligent and informed, and impartial...
One easy way to do so, would be to remove the party afiliations from being printed next to the candidate's name. If you don't know the candidate by name, you shouldn't be voting for them. It shouldn't matter what party is being represented by the candidate, so there's no need for it to be there on the ballot. The only reason it was put there, was to help elderly, foreign, or ignorant voters to support the party who instituted that rule...
Another way is to require voter IDs to ensure that the person voting is eligible to be voting, and is only voting once. There is simply no excuse not to be checking ID's at the voting booths.
If you do create a specific voter ID, you could also add weight to the voters registered to that ID, by counting their vote as greater than one simple vote. The vote of every citizen of this country should be counted, regardless of their education level, political views, criminal history, etc. However, I see no problem adding additional weight to voters who could pass a test to prove a greater knowledge of particular relevant civic establishment apparatus and general us history. I see no problem weighting the votes higher, if they can pass a test that shows they have a good knowledge of the candidates biographies and positions on significant positions. I could think of many other things which should have increased weight to people's votes. The Founding Father's did, too... Since when they established the Constitution, voting was done by property owners alone (which wrongfully exluded the poor, women and minorities, but rightfully limited the bounds to what they felt were the informed and interested parties in the political process). The President was also elected by the Electoral College, since they couldn't decide weather Congress or the States should decide who the president was... So we elected representatives to make that decision for us... So clearly thought there were certain people whose decisions should be weighed as higher than others...
I know there'd be a big backlash to it, which would attempt to liken it to the poll taxes, literacy tests (which I dont object to), etc. that were instituted during the Era of Jim Crow to prevent Blacks from voting... but that's clearly not the case here... Blacks get the same access to education that every other race or ethnicity do in America... There's no reason they couldn't get their votes weighed higher as well... My belief is that you'd see the same sort of divide between the smarter and more educated Blacks that you would in every other group...
Then our country would be on the road to making wiser decisions, from a more informed and intelligent voter pool, that would demand more of the media for focus on the issues... and not accept the drab yellow press that we see today...
