The basic premise of a democracy is that adults can vote -- not that they have to.

Hindrances (in the U.S.) include:

-- The sorry state of civic education ("how a bill becomes law" never seems to involve lobbyists, contractors, or constituents who don't want to see the helicopter-blade factory close).

-- The relentless gerrymandering by whichever party's in power in a state, with the exception of places like Iowa, which has a nonpartisan commission charged with redrawing district lines after each census. (In the 2004 congressional election, I could scarcely find a congressional race outside of Iowa as competitive as the LEAST competitive of Iowa's.)

-- Pandering to the simplest elements in each party's base.

-- The overwhelming advantages of incumbency; in the 2004 congressional elections, only four incumbents who ran for re-election lost, a success rate greater than the old Supreme Soviet.

-- Neverending posturing by candidates criticizing "that government," as if it were an alien body rather than the post they lusted to belong to. (E.g., George Bush, asked about a topic he didn't want to talk about, said he'd received the report "from the bureaucracy," as if he hadn't sought to head that body.)

As for voting on Tuesday or Saturday -- why? The state of Oregon shifted to voting by mail, and in 2004 eighty-seven percent of registered voters voted.

You're always going to have stupid people, lazy people, venal people, single-issue people. I'd like a little more faith in the general electorate, and some help for them in terms of making information available sooner, in more forms, as well as making voting slightly more desireable than a trip to the Division of Motor Vehicles.