They really don’t, you know. More Iraqis vote than Americans, as a percentage of the population. Iran has a higher rate of participation in the democratic process. So do 128 other countries. So WTF is up with Americans?

Compare U.S. voting with foreign voting and it’s not a pretty sight. Americans are less apt to vote than are people in other old democracies, in new ones, in dangerous places, dirt poor ones, freezing cold ones, stinking hot ones and highly dysfunctional ones.

Even that theocratic “axis of evil,” Iran, has bragging rights over the United States in this regard. So does chaotic Iraq, where an estimated 70 percent of voters cast ballots in December parliamentary elections.

They invented this process. Have they moved on to something else, discarding representative democracy like an outdated (but still superior to the alternatives) Betamax player? If so, what can it be? Looking at the current model, I’d have to invent a new term; as the British have a Constitutional Monarchy, I’d have to say the Americans have a Constitutional Dictatorship. They also, apparently, have very little faith in the transparency and accuracy of the voting processes, although still more than the facts seem to justify.

The Pew Research Center says

They vote ­ but not always. Compared with Americans who regularly cast ballots, they are less engaged in politics. They are more likely to be bored with the political process and admit they often do not know enough about candidates to cast ballots. But they are crucial to Republican and Democratic fortunes in the Nov. 7 midterm elections.

They are the intermittent voters: Americans who are registered to vote but do not always make it to the polls. They differ significantly from those who vote regularly. For one thing, they’re less likely to be married than are regular voters. Intermittent voters also are more mistrustful of people compared with those who vote regularly. They also are less angry with government, though no less dissatisfied with President Bush than are regular voters, according to a survey conducted Sept. 21-Oct. 4 among 1,804 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in collaboration with the Associated Press.

The survey also finds large differences between Americans who are not registered to vote or vote only rarely, and intermittent or regular voters. The two groups at the bottom of the voting participation scale are much less likely than regular or intermittent voters to believe that voting will make much of a difference. They also are less likely to agree with the statement: “I feel guilty when I don’t get a chance to vote.”

Americans won’t vote if they don’t think it will get counted, and they won’t vote if they don’t like the options, and they won’t vote if the election process itself is typified by negative advertising.

So what will get them out to vote?

Golly gee, that’s a toughie. Probably this rather motivational video from South Park will work. It’s a spiffy initiative to encourage those kiddies to get out, engage proactively with the democratic process and the society in which they thrive, and cast their votes for the candidate they feel best represents their interests in Washington. And it speaks directly to the things that concern kids most nowadays.

It’s called Vote or Die.