Matters of Scale - Paying a Price for Democracy
Amount bid (as of August 25) on the Internet auction eBay for the vote of one U.S.
citizen who had put his ballot up for sale to protest corporate influence in politics | more than $10,000 |
Amount that the American Gas Association, the National Mining Association, the Nuclear
Energy Institute, and other business concerns paid to sponsor "America's Energy Texas
Barbecue," a party for delegates at a U.S. political convention in August | more than $100,000 |
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Turnout of East Timor's 439,000 registered voters for the nation's independence
referendum last year, despite months of intimidation and threats of genocidal retaliation
from pro-Indonesia militias | 98.6 percent |
Turnout of U.S. citizens of voting age for the 1998 Congressional elections | 36.0 percent |
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Amount of money oil companies have "cheated" the U.S. government out of since 1991
by undervaluing the worth of oil they've pumped from federal lands | $2,000,000,000 |
Amount of money oil companies donated between 1987 and 1998 to U.S. Senator Phil Gramm
of Texas, who has voted successfully three years running against enforcing fair oil royalties | $200,000 |
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Number of people who watched the final episode of the U.S. television series "Survivor" | 51.0 million51.0 million |
Number of people who voted for U.S. President Bill Clinton in the 1996 elections | 47.5 million |
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Share of the 69 million registered U.S. voters who, among other reasons, didn't
cast ballots in 1998 because: | |
they forgot -> 5 percent they didn't like the candidates -> 5 percent they were not interested -> 13 percent they were too busy -> 35 percent | |
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Sources: Richard Stegner, “Constituent Puts Vote Up for Sale on eBay,” <CNN.com>, 16 August 2000; Common Cause,
“
Schmooze or Loose 2000,” <www.commoncause.org>; Geoff Spencer, “Militias
Besiege UN in East Timor,” Associated
Press, 8 September 2000; United Nations Development Programme, Human Development
Report 2000, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000), p. 243–46; Federal Election Commission, <www.fec.gov/pages/reg&to98.htm>;
Common Cause,
“
Some Like it Hot,” <www.commoncause.org>, 1999; Common Cause, “Drilling
for Bargains,” <www.commoncause.org>,
1998; League of Conservation Voters, <www.lcv.org>; CNN.com, “Nielsen
Ratings Show more than 50 Million Watched
Finale,” <www.cnn.com/2000/showbiz/tv/08/24/survivorfinale.ap/>,
24 August 2000; Jennifer Day and Avalaura Gaither,
“
Voting and Registration in the Election of November 1998,” U.S. Census
Bureau, 2000.