Why is voting insufficient as a form of participation for citizens seeking to influence public policy?

Answer:

An ideal response will:
1. Note the various ways that citizens can seek to influence public policy: voting, joining interest groups, writing letters, sending e-mails, confronting legislators at community meetings, and running for office themselves.
2. Identify two primary reasons why voting is insufficient: (1) it does not convey precise information, and (2) it neglects the complexity of the policy process and the tendency toward nondecisions.
3. Elaborate on the first reason noted above. While voting is important for ensuring the responsiveness of government to its citizens, it is a blunt instrument that does not convey precise information to elected officials. In contrast, the other methods of participation allow citizens to clearly spell out what they would like government to do. These other approaches have shown to be more successful.
4. Elaborate on the second reason noted above. The policy process is complicated, with the possibility of a nondecision at any stage. To ensure that proposals move through all eight steps of the policy process, citizens need to aggressively and frequently convey their preferences to government officials.