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[balladofwindfishes]

I very much doubt the people that are supporting this would be still be in favor of it if a Republican politician said this.

A Republican wouldn't say this because by and large Republicans only get into office due to voter apathy and low turnouts. In a 100% voter situation, you'd probably find the Republicans as a niche far right party for ultra-conservative religious blocks in the south, the Democrats would be for everyone else and the majority and you'd probably find a more far left party begin to form as they could get votes in the very far left areas of the country that generally just settle on Democrats because they have to.

 

[Briarios]

The answer is mandatory voter registration, not mandatory voting. There are many things we must register for -- that's not unconstitutional.

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

You're going to get major resistance from this. But I support the compulsory voting that we have in Australia.

You should not. Compulsory voting is borderline dictatorial act. People are free to vote or not. Forcing people to vote should never be even on the discussion table.

 

[The Technomancer]

This isn't a terrible idea, provided it allows for abstaining, write-ins, and the like.

What would be much more effective and much less controversial would be to hold the goddamn elections on a weekend, or just make it a freakin' holiday already. We have the shittiest turnout rate, and while plenty of people have no excuse, not all employers make a habit of giving time to people to go vote, and even then, (especially poor people) many people don't want to take time off to go vote because it hurts their take-home.

Badabingo

 

[Funky Papa]

How about we start with making voting easier? Right now it's a pain in the fucking ass.

I propose:

- Voting day. Major elections (mid-terms, etc) are days off, like a holiday. (How in the name of FUCK is this not a thing already!?!?)
- New machines. A lot of the machines now are garbage. The one I used in the mid-terms was archaic is THE fuck.
- Open up more areas to actually vote in. And advertise their locations better.

Why machines? It's something I've never understood. Voting in most nations is conducted by picking a piece of paper with the name of your preferred politician or manually checking some boxes with a pen.

Introducing machines in such a simple process seems like a sure way to mess things up.

 

[quickwhips]

An app for voting would increase the voting with young people. Make it exclusive to Iphone if you don't want poor people using it.

 

[BajiBoxer]

This isn't a terrible idea, provided it allows for abstaining, write-ins, and the like.

What would be much more effective and much less controversial would be to hold the goddamn elections on a weekend, or just make it a freakin' holiday already. We have the shittiest turnout rate, and while plenty of people have no excuse, not all employers make a habit of giving time to people to go vote, and even then, (especially poor people) many people don't want to take time off to go vote because it hurts their take-home.



He's not wrong.

Yeah, that's where I would start in figuring out voter turnout, making it a holliday.

 

[POWERSPHERE]

Its so crazy that it's not mandatory.

 

[pa22word]

The answer is mandatory voter registration, not mandatory voting. There are many things we must register for -- that's not unconstitutional.

+ make election days a national holiday and have polls open 24/7

It's ridiculous that I was forced to use PTO to go vote during work hours because there was no feasible way for me to both go to work /and/ vote due to the poll hours...which is something I think repubs in Red states love to absolute death.

 

[UnforgivenTwin]

Don't agree with this. If people don't want to vote,they shouldn't have to.

 

[balladofwindfishes]

You should not. Compulsory voting is borderline dictatorial act. People are free to vote or not. Forcing people to vote should never be even on the discussion table.

And yet it works in democratic societies like Australia, unless you want to argue Australia is a totalitarian wasteland.

 

[DrSlek]

how about making it more convenient for people to vote?

"Go out of your way to basically do what you were already going to not do" is extremely silly

If I'm going to be forced to do this shit, then let me fucking send an email, do it online, or anything else.

But then you miss out on the sausage sizzle!

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

You should not. Compulsory voting is borderline dictatorial act. People are free to vote or not. Forcing people to vote should never be even on the discussion table.

Why? I'd actually like to hear reasons other than "X dictatorship did Y in the past, therfore evil." I mean, people have opposed universal health-care in this country by saying the Nazis did it first. "It's unconstitutional" is also a statement of fact, not a lological reason.

As long as they allow people to continue to write in candidates not on the ballot, what rights are you losing by being compelled to vote? I see it as no different from being compelled to pay your taxes.

 

[Blader]

Why is serving on a jury considered your mandatory civic duty but compulsory voting unconstitutional?

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

Write in a fake name if you don't want to participate in democracy.

And yet it works in democratic societies like Australia, unless you want to argue Australia is a totalitarian wasteland.

Forcing people to vote is undemocratic. It does not matter if Australia is still democratic the act of forcing people to vote is not. Fyi look who is governing Australia now. The U.S. is very different demographically, geographically, culturally and politically and forcing people to vote is an assault on personal freedom.
It's an assault on personal freedoms everywhere.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Why is serving on a jury considered your mandatory civic duty but compulsory voting unconstitutional?

Precisely. I'd like to hear an argument that isn't rooted in tradition for the sake of tradition.

If you don't like any candidates, you can vote for captain crunch for every position.

I'd especially like to hear arguments against extending voting hours, making voting a holiday, allowing universal absentee balloting, or allowing online voting.

Forcing people to vote is undemocratic. It does not matter if Australia is still democratic the act of forcing people to vote is not. Fyi look who is governing Australia now. The U.S. is very different demographically, geographically, culturally and politically and forcing people to vote is an assault on personal freedom.

So your reason is "because I say so?" Come on, you can't hold this strong of an opinion without some logical base.

 

[Blader]

If I can pay my taxes online, why can't I vote online?

I feel like the consequences of a hacked election are far more serious than a stolen tax refund.

And fraudulent online tax returns are a very real, very costly trend that's getting worse every year and the IRS is hopelessly unable to stop.

 

[Omikaru]

I'm actually all for mandatory voting (in the UK here, but I support it in principle in every country), but there needs to be better ways to vote:

- Online in addition to postal voting (though obviously security concerns are a real issue here).
- Spread the voting over several days (say do it from Thursday to Sunday), perhaps even assign people two days (say one weekday, and one weekend day) to vote on to reduce congestion and last minute voters.
- Make polling day(s) national holidays so everyone has guaranteed time off work on at least one of the polling days so they can easily get their vote in.
- For people who aren't happy with any of the candidates, a "None of the above" option should be available on the ballot so you can express dissatisfaction with the candidates on offer. If that gets the majority, run the election again in the future and bar all the rejected candidates from running for that seat again for the duration of the term (so 3-5 years depending on the country).
- Also kinda unrelated, but I support lowering the voting age to 16 too. I think 16 year olds are, on the whole, responsible enough to decide their leaders. Plus a lot of policy will be affecting them in the near future (such as jobs, post-mandatory education, and so on) that they really should be entitled to a say.

Honestly, I feel that as citizens of democratic countries, casting our ballot is our responsibility (on par with civic duty of serving on a jury, for example), even if it's only so we go to the ballot to express our dissatisfaction with all the candidates on offer.

When voting is only an option, you create an endless loop where people (especially young) don't vote because the parties don't care about them, and the parties don't cater to these people because they don't vote anyway. If you want to end the kind of geritocracy/corporatocracy/oligarchy that we're currently living in (and make no mistake, those baby boomers ain't gonna stop voting for their own self-interest above their children and grandchildren) then you really need mandatory voting.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I feel like the consequences of a hacked election are far more serious than a stolen tax refund.

And fraudulent online tax returns are a very real, very costly trend that's getting worse every year and the IRS is hopelessly unable to stop.

And yet despite the risk, I must still put all of my financial information on the mail or on the Internet every year, because we operate under the mutually assumed premise that not paying taxes would be bad for society. So obviously, the benefit outweighs the risk.

What are the rates of fraudulent tax returns each year?

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

Precisely. I'd like to hear an argument that isn't rooted in tradition for the sake of tradition.

If you don't like any candidates, you can vote for captain crunch for every position.

I'd especially like to hear arguments against extending voting hours, making voting a holiday, allowing universal absentee balloting, or allowing online voting.



So your reason is "because I say so?" Come on, you can't hold this strong of an opinion without some logical base.

My logic is not because what I say so. It is what it is. You are forcing people to participate in a democracy. Can't you see the irony in that thought?
What is your logic for forcing people to vote?

 

[DrSlek]

Forcing people to vote is undemocratic. It does not matter if Australia is still democratic the act of forcing people to vote is not. Fyi look who is governing Australia now. The U.S. is very different demographically, geographically, culturally and politically and forcing people to vote is an assault on personal freedom.
It's an assault on personal freedoms everywhere.

This is just silliness.

 

[PK Strawstorm]

Do the people know how to vote? Do they know what they are voting for? Do they understand the policy issues? Do they understand anything beyond pandering, empty political campaigns or trending hashtags?

I would argue that the answer largely is no. I was raised in a rich suburb and had no concept of how to effectively vote until I randomly found my way through two government degrees. And I still don't know how voting makes a legitimate difference given the education of the populace (the entire populace - old white people are some of the least informed), so I don't do it. Our educational system does not equip people to vote, and therefore a democracy of any percentage involvement is equally deficient.

But does the government want an educated public? If 100% of the people are given "the satisfaction" of voting, then perhaps a higher percentage will at least be placated by their participation, right? That is my cynical view of these types of movements.

Not voting is a vote. It is a vote against not only specific individuals/ideas, but against the system and the concept that majority rule is absolute when the majority has not been equipped to make decisions.

I've definitely framed my opinion in a super elitist way: "I went to school a lot so I understand the true workings of democracy." But what I want to say is that it shouldn't be elitist. Maybe we should give kids some Plato (or at least the cognitive abilities to understand Plato) instead of forcing them to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day, if we really want democracy to matter.

It starts with education. That said, do we need to buy in to a deficient democratic system at this stage in order to somehow manipulate people into power that could actually encourage the development of education that would create a less deficient system? Maybe that I could be convinced of.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

I wish we could online vote but due to hackers and the next, I don't think we will ever go to those lengths ever. Until it's something that's highly secure, which is never, we will never reach there. It's the only way to modernize voting and make people participate much easier to vote than inconveniencing them on their work Monday.

 

[NewGame]

So any country that has jury duty is engaging in human rights violations?

I believe in most countries they ask you "is there anything that may inhibit your ability to-"

"JURY NULLIFICTION BOO-YEAH"

They will promptly leave you alone.

 

[captainraincoat]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obama-floats-idea-mandatory-voting-us-29735579

Fuck yeah. Support this 100 percent.

Nooo dont look at australia

The issue is we only have 2 major parties..liberal and labour
the others never get enough votes to take power so we are left with tweedledee or tweedledumb and at the moment we have a pm that gives G.Bush a run for his money in most hated and biggest retard ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ9y1c73-IM

The alternative is slightly more attractive but you have to use the example of

Would you like a solid turd sandwich or would like like it runny????

That sums up our government

 

[victreeb3l]

Why cant I vote from the web or from my phone?

 

[Jarmel]

My logic is not because what I say so. It is what it is. You are forcing people to participate in a democracy. Can't you see the irony in that thought?
What is your logic for forcing people to vote?

It's your responsibility as a citizen living in a democracy to participate in said democracy.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

My logic is not because what I say so. It is what it is. You are forcing people to participate in a democracy. Can't you see the irony in that thought?
What is your logic for forcing people to vote?

Forcing people to vote ensures that you have a representative democracy, which I think is an important pillar of democracy. Everyone who is a Citizen should have a voice in public policy. That is my reason.

Three posts in, and you still haven't explained why mandatory voting is undemocratic. "It is what it is", until it isn't, as someone pointed out in the Australia example. I'm not trying to antagonize you here, I sincerely want to know how you came by this belief. Did you read it somewhere? Are you simply applying historical example? Is it a political mantra where you're from?

 

[Josh7289]

I don't necessarily agree with mandatory voting, because wholly uninformed people voting is already a big enough problem as it is. But I do agree with making it absolutely piss-easy to vote if you want to. We should open up as many avenues as possible.

 

[mackattk]

Republicans would be strictly against it, as well as proposing restricting voting laws that will make it so a certain segment of the population will be hard to get a vote out on.

The uninformed thing might hold up, but there are a ton of people who just don't look at the ballots and just put 'R' or 'D' all the way down the list.

 

[Basileus777]

I don't necessarily agree with mandatory voting, because wholly uninformed people voting is already a big enough problem as it is. But I do agree with making it absolutely piss-easy to vote if you want to. We should open up as many avenues as possible.

I'm not certain that uniformed people voting is a problem so much as it is people not voting.

 

[Edag Plata]

I don't necessarily agree with mandatory voting, because wholly uninformed people voting is already a big enough problem as it is.

That's why Obama supports it. Ensures Democrats will win elections for generations.

 

[Carnby]

We can debate this all day, but it is never ever going to happen.

Where did Obama even say "mandatory"? Did I miss it?

 

[Ourobolus]

I don't necessarily agree with mandatory voting, because wholly uninformed people voting is already a big enough problem as it is. But I do agree with making it absolutely piss-easy to vote if you want to. We should open up as many avenues as possible.

I get that it could be easily skewed based on who actually writes the ballots, and it's not really all that feasible, but I would love to see ballots that didn't even list the candidates' names or parties, and they only listed what they have agreed to do. Like "Wants to raise minimum wage. Raise taxes on those making $250K/year." etc.

 

[mackattk]

I get that it could be easily skewed based on who actually writes the ballots, and it's not really all that feasible, but I would love to see ballots that didn't even list the candidates' names or parties, and they only listed what they have agreed to do. Like "Wants to raise minimum wage. Raise taxes on those making $250K/year." etc.

You aren't suggesting people actually look into and read what they are voting for are you? That's insanity.

 

[Fury451]

Talking about a theoretical america where everyone voted is not the same as mentioning or supporting mandatory voting.

Correct. It seems that many people didn't actually read the article posted based on the "I'm for it" responses.

 

[Condom]

Why machines? It's something I've never understood. Voting in most nations is conducted by picking a piece of paper with the name of your preferred politician or manually checking some boxes with a pen.

Introducing machines in such a simple process seems like a sure way to mess things up.

Voted with a pencil yesterday.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

I don't necessarily agree with mandatory voting, because wholly uninformed people voting is already a big enough problem as it is. But I do agree with making it absolutely piss-easy to vote if you want to. We should open up as many avenues as possible.

That's why Obama supports it. Ensures Democrats will win elections for generations.

Who decides what "uninformed" means? There's a good chunk of this country that is "uninformed" about climate change, the war in Iraq, and evolution, should their votes not count?

 

[Ourobolus]

You aren't suggesting people actually look into and read what they are voting for are you? That's insanity.

I'm well aware.

 

[kess]

I wish there was a national Civic day or something on voting day.

 

[Davey Cakes]

I'm for compulsory voting if it brings the younger and more diverse folks out of the woodwork. We REALLY need to hear the voice of the younger generation.

As long as there's freedom of choice I don't see the issue. Don't care or don't support either of the major parties? Just vote for Pikachu or something. And as Ourobolus said, maybe an "abstain" option would work as well, so long as you have to actively pursue that. Anything to get people to care even just a sliver more than they currently do.

Sounds like a waste but it's not like EVERYONE who is forced to vote will waste their vote.

Another potential option is to be more aggressive with ballot initiatives. Focus on issues that really effect our generation (or issues that our generation cares about), especially in the social sphere. That'd get more people to the polls.

If you put something like marijuana legalization on there, you'll see a higher turnout. Same for anything regarding civil rights or women's rights. Same for anything regarding education, college financing, etc.

 

[Funky Papa]

Voted with a pencil yesterday.

As it should be. This whole machine talk baffles me. It only adds a third cog.

 

[mackattk]

I wish there was a national Civic day or something on voting day.

Voting day really should be a national holiday. That, and the expansion of voting venues and online voting.

 

[shadowsdarknes]

Forcing people to vote is undemocratic. It does not matter if Australia is still democratic the act of forcing people to vote is not. Fyi look who is governing Australia now. The U.S. is very different demographically, geographically, culturally and politically and forcing people to vote is an assault on personal freedom.
It's an assault on personal freedoms everywhere.

In the scope of human rights violations, this might be the most minor violation in history.
Will our country still hold its dignity after its all said and done?

 

[Future PhaZe]

putting voting on weekends would have a minimal effect on turnout

just make it fucking mandatory

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

It's your responsibility as a citizen living in a democracy to participate in said democracy.

It´s a choice whether you want to participate or not. Not voting is also a part of democracy. If you don´t like any of the candidates then you don´t vote for them. It´s also expressing that you don´t these people to represent you.

Forcing people to vote ensures that you have a representative democracy, which I think is an important pillar of democracy. Everyone who is a Citizen should have a voice in public policy. That is my reason.

Three posts in, and you still haven't explained why mandatory voting is undemocratic. "It is what it is", until it isn't, as someone pointed out in the Australia example. I'm not trying to antagonize you here, I sincerely want to know how you came by this belief. Did you read it somewhere? Are you simply applying historical example? Is it a political mantra where you're from?

You can have a better representative democracy with fixing the existing voting laws not by forcing people to vote. Second of all forcing people to vote in a democracy is undemocratic. People have rights to chose who to vote for who´s not to vote for. Being forced to chose the better of two bad choices is a big fuck you to people who want to protest the candidates by not voting for them. Not voting sends also a big message to politicians that people who don´t vote for them are unsatisfied with their policies. I will not be forced to elect a person who does not share my values just because the person is slightly less shit than the other. Besides, what if you are religious and you are being forced to vote for 2 candidates that support abortion for instance. Isn´t forcing people to vote against their own beliefs is an assault on their religious freedom? Same for the other side. If you have 2 candidates that are against abortion, should anyone who supports abortion being forced to vote for two candidates that have other values then them?

You want better representation for the poor, so do i. Fix the laws and make sure that everyone who can vote is able to do so, and not being stopped by because of race, religion or political calculation.

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

Fuck that. Not voting is the most American thing I do.

 

[Funky Papa]

It´s a choice whether you want to participate or not. Not voting is also a part of democracy. If you don´t like any of the candidates then you don´t vote for them. It´s also expressing that you don´t these people to represent you.


You can have a better representative democracy with fixing the existing voting laws not by forcing people to vote. Second of all forcing people to vote in a democracy is undemocratic. People have rights to chose who to vote for who´s not to vote for. Being forced to chose the better of two bad choices is a big fuck you to people who want to protest the candidates by not voting for them. Not voting sends also a big message to politicians that people who don´t vote for them are unsatisfied with their policies. I will not be forced to elect a person who does not share my values just because the person is slightly less shit than the other. Besides, what if you are religious and you are being forced to vote for 2 candidates that support abortion for instance. Isn´t forcing people to vote against their own beliefs is an assault on their religious freedom? Same for the other side. If you have 2 candidates that are against abortion, should anyone who supports abortion being forced to vote for two candidates that have other values then them?

You want better representation for the poor, so do i. Fix the laws and make sure that everyone who can vote is able to do so, and not being stopped by because of race, religion or political calculation.

Quick question: Do you believe in the social contract?

Because mandatory voting could very well be integrated into it.

 

[Future PhaZe]

Actually having people go in and choose to abstain is actually a clear representation that you don't like the candidates. Just staying home doesn't tell us anything though.

 

[Davey Cakes]

Voting day really should be a national holiday. That, and the expansion of voting venues and online voting.

Voting should be made really easy. It's 2015; we shouldn't have to "go to the polls" or send in absentee ballots. We have technology. We have the internet.

Why can't there be an online voting system? Potential breaches in security? Would it be possible to get around that with an authentication process of some kind?

Actually having people go in and choose to abstain is actually a clear representation that you don't like the candidates. Just staying home doesn't tell us anything though.

Great point!