Those advantages included: the opportunity for citizens to debate, evaluate, and choose any proposal; citizens knowing that they are being heard, and that they have peaceful outlets for expression; reduction of the risk of civil violence; incentives for compromise; and incentives to the government to invest in all citizens (ultimately, because they vote), rather than just in an elite fraction of citizens. Insofar as Americans choose not to vote, are ill-informed when they vote, or can’t vote at all, those are the advantages that we are losing.
