The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Petitioning is an expeditious democratic tradition, used frequently in prior centuries, by which citizens can bring issues directly to governments. As expressions of collective voice, they support procedural democracy by shaping agendas. They can also recruit citizens to causes, give voice to the voteless, and apply the discipline of rhetorical argument that clarifies a point of view. By contrast, elections are limited in several respects: they involve only a few candidates, and thus fall far short of a representative democracy. Further, voters' choices are not specific to particular policies or laws, and elections are episodic, whereas the voice of the people needs to be heard and integrated constantly into democratic government.
- By giving citizens greater control over shaping political and democratic agendas, political petitions are invaluable as they represent an ideal form of a representative democracy.
- Petitioning has been important to democratic functioning, as it supplements the electoral process by enabling ongoing engagement with the government.
- Petitioning is definitely more representative of the collective voice, and the functioning of democratic government could improve if we relied more on petitioning rather than holding periodic elections.
- Citizens become less inclined to petitioning as it enables vocal citizens to shape political agendas, but this needs to change to strengthen democracies today.