Be careful with your vote so we don't vote democracy out of existence

Ironic, isn’t it, that a system that provides so many advantages for its citizens also provides the means of its own demise.

Unlike nearly every other system of government that came before it, U.S. democracy offered its citizens individual freedom, respect and relative equality. Yes, it’s true that the founders left women and enslaved people out of their plans, but, thankfully, the nation has moved to implement the founders’ original principles as we have learned more about and moved to embrace what they actually mean.

American democracy makes us the government, gives us a voice in what happens in our name and on our behalf. It gives us the right to go to the polls and elect representatives we believe will perpetuate the principles that have made our system viable for more than two centuries. Thanks to the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution, our system protects our rights to form and voice our opinions even when our views are in the minority.

Or not.

Our system, which relies on people’s choices at the ballot box, can be voted right out of existence if that’s what the majority chooses to do. “Majority rule” means that the candidates who get the most votes get to wield authority on our behalf. If we choose candidates who assert that they will ignore our founders’ original principles – particularly the obligation to protect the rights of those who hold minority views – in favor of efficiently enforcing the will of the majority, democracy may easily disintegrate.

It wouldn’t take a war. It wouldn’t require a police state – although that could follow if democratic principles are rejected. No, the very heart of democracy, the process by which each of us votes for our leaders, can result in democracy being voted out of business.

That reality places an additional obligation on all of us voters to think carefully about our vote choices. Instead of simply voting for “our” political party’s candidates or the candidates with the most campaign ads or the best campaign slogans, we must find out at least a minimum about what the candidates stand for and propose to do if they are elected.

Will they uphold the rights of both the majority and the minority? Will they respect and enforce the democratic principles that support “the general welfare” promised in the Constitution’s preamble? If not, we might use our democratic privileges to destroy the very system that makes them possible.

Before you go to the polls, do some research about the candidates. Think carefully about their avowed goals and how they say they will try to reach them. Vote to preserve American democracy. Vote to be sure this won’t be the last time your vote matters.

Charlyne Berens,of Lincoln, is a professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Journalism and Mass Communications. She is the author of two books about the Nebraska Unicameral legislature and of a biography of longtime State Sen. Jerome Warner.