What's the most important element of effective democracy?

Question

1. The right to vote
2. A well-informed electorate.
3. The availability of good quality information on which voters can make choices.
4. A real choice between significantly different candidates.
5. The non-availability of widespread misinformation.

Is one of these elements not necessary? Are all of these elements present in countries that we unquestioningly believe to be "democratic"?

ck4829 - Without the vote, everything else is meaningless. With the vote, and without a real choice and without enough information on which to base a choice, there is no meaningful basis on which to vote.

Answer 1

1, without that then everything else is meaningless.

Answer 2

Elements Of Democracy

Answer 3

1 is of course needed.

2 never really happens, so I don't know why you bother mentioning it. It's like having kids. Anyone can copulate and produce a child. Raising them is another story.

3 happens with a free press. We don't really have one of those because it's owned by about 5 people and they are all Republicans.

4 is not needed. You assume that there MUST be choice like this or our democracy is doomed. A one-party system can be an effective democratic system if that party truly represents the people of the nation. It has happened and it can happen. It's called being INDEPENDENT. Actually, a two party system is no better than a one party system. A system with political parties is actually bad for democracy.

Too bad the US is not a democracy. We are a republic.

5 has been present since Washington left the White House.

Answer 4

All of those things are important, but you left out the most crucial one:

The willingness of the electorate to act in a manner representative of the will of the people.

Answer 5

Lets go for involvement in the process by the electorate.