Voting System In Sparta

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Controlled Democracy: Implementing Voting in Spartan Government While the Spartan system of governmental organization and other cultural values served them well in large part, there are some changes that could be made to improve the way Spartan government worked. It would not be necessary to completely overhaul the positions in Spartan government. Two main leaders and the Council of twenty-eight elders worked for Sparta. They are not a people who needed or wanted long flowing rhetoric. Debates were not necessary to get things done, and straightforwardness certainly assisted the military prowess of Sparta. While most Athenian practices may have seemed distasteful to Spartans, voting for those in political office rather than selecting based on…show more content…
In Athens, their political system was taken to such an extreme thats participating in a democracy became a full time job for many of its citizens. When an entire city is focused day in and day out on making their voices heard, there ends up being neglect in other areas of peoples’ lives. The Athenian voting system was tiered, with the entirety of the population of Attica having a vote on most issues and a large group of officials, the boule, deciding almost everything else by vote as well. This clouded the judgment of many Athenian citizens with the idea that if there is a vote for them to cast, the system must be fair. However, despite checks for the financial honesty of elected officials, there is evidence of corruption in the Athenian voting system as they used it. Because voting was done by casting stones or writing names on slips some people simply provided large numbers of other people with determined votes or switched real votes for false ones when it came time to…show more content…
Because military power is so highly prioritized in Spartan culture it is possible that the non-military leader or leaders would not be well respected. Still, this system could work because of the voting aspect of it. If people have voted for a specific leader they are more likely to respect that position because they know what has been done to achieve it. Voting could also be implemented for the council of elders. Having twenty-eight representatives to temper the two main rulers still acts as a fail safe without going to the boule-like excess of Athens. Voting only once a year or once every two years also prevents the Athenian problem of democracy taking over Spartan
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