What is the central theme and the author's purpose in the text below? How does the author develop and communicate this theme and purpose? Give specific evidence from the text to support your answer. 

"In our current system of voluntary voting, the winner of an election is determined by the candidate's ability to create controversy rather than by leadership skill. Campaigns therefore focus on highly motivated voters. These also tend to be the most partisan. This constant appeal to extremes on both sides of the political spectrum abandons voters in the middle. In turn, these moderates opt out on Election Day, since none of the candidates seem to be speaking to their concerns. Compulsory voting would offer candidates less incentive to inflame passions (Ornstein, Galston). Without having to spend so much of their time trying to appeal solely to the highly partisan voters most likely to show up at the polls, they could instead spend more time crafting policy proposals to meet the needs of all voters. Fewer highly partisan lawmakers would mean more cooperation and less unnecessary government gridlock"

 

Answer:

I am going to assume this is about American politics because it sounds like American politics right now even though it could be anywhere in the world with voluntary voting. The theme is that divisive Partisan (One political party against another instead of the members of both parties cooperating) politics is tearing apart the political system and the cause is what the author sees is the need to appeal to the people who are most likely to vote when elections aren't mandatory... those with the most passionate political views who will respond to partisan political rhetoric (Discussions centered around dividing people by their political parties and belief instead of finding political solutions where people can all come together no matter what party they are from). This stuck out to me because I am an Independent (I don't belong to a political party because I don't like the party politics either) and I never thought about the fact that politicians of both parties use dirty politics because it rouses up the people most like to care to go vote on election day. But now that I have seen this, it kind of makes sense. I was of the belief that the political parties fight among themselves so that when no problem is actually solved they can blame the other party. Anyways, the author seems to think making voting mandatory (You have no choice but to go vote.) would mean that politicians would not focus on solutions and not fighting because political games wouldn't be responsible for encouraging people to go vote.