Should voting be manditory?

[AussieFanKurt]

In Australia, if you are over the age of 18, you must vote but I know in the States it's different but I've never heard much opinion on the matter. What does everyone think

[clambake]

i didn't know that. what happens if you don't?

[AussieFanKurt]

It's a fine of $120 I think or something along those lines. You can get away with not voting if you live in Australia but are a citizen of another country I think but otherwise you must. What kinda percentage of USA vote each election?

[Blake]

curious, is there a button to push for "none of the above"?

[baseline bum]

curious, is there a button to push for "none of the above"?

I think we should have negative votes available. e.g., I don't like anyone, so I vote for no one, but I hate Candidate X most, so I give him a negative vote and take down his count of total votes by one. Of course you could only do either a positive vote or a negative vote.

[CosmicCowboy]

Jeez, we already have enough uninformed voters.

[AussieFanKurt]

Ahh didn't think of that but yeah I see your point. I had the same trouble in our most recent election. Didn't really like the choices but had to vote regardless

[CosmicCowboy]

As to your question on voter turnout I think I heard that San Antonio hit 45% this election cycle which was a record for a non-presidential vote.

[admiralsnackbar]

Our 1st Amendment would make a mandatory communication like voting very difficult to defend, I'd think. Less strictly, I think if you aren't voting, you may very well be uninformed about the candidates/issues, so you aren't missed.

I do think the government needs to create a political channel like CSPAN in which politicians are forced to have policy discussions and debates with a panel of ideologically distinct interviewers/proctors who give them no quarter. The level of spin in this country gets more grating and misleading with each election cycle. People need to know who they're voting for, especially since the Supreme Court granted corporations the right to campaign and contribute for political figures.

[DarrinS]

Democrats would LOVE such a law.

[admiralsnackbar]

Democrats would LOVE such a law.

Here we go again.

[Wild Cobra]

Jeez, we already have enough uninformed voters.
No shit. I don't want someone voting who doesn't care.

[BlairForceDejuan]

lol HEEELLLLL NO

[ChumpDumper]

I refuse to vote in this poll.

[diego]

many countries force you to vote. And even though that can be tainted by apathy and ignorance of the issues/representatives, it does force some peole to actually care about their country. maybe its not that terrible of an idea, depending on how it is implemented and punished. in some countries it is illegal to commit suicide, (if you are trying to commit suicide and they catch you before the act, they'll lock you up for disrespecting your body and therefore god). that sounds much crazier to me.

Many countries also, let you vote none of the above, and if none of the above wins, they have to redo everything (allowing new candidates to surface). This rarely actually happens but I think even if wasteful its a good mechanism.

From what I've heard, the germans have it best. You are automatically registered, they send you a little pamphlet when you hit voting age explaining the bureaucratic procedure, and you either vote or you dont but the government actually encourages and facilitates doing so- it might sound trivial but to me that actually gives a little hope, that the political class is not desperate to keep the power to themselves. between a forced vote and a country that makes it difficult to vote (restricting certain citizen's right to vote, overly complicated bureaucracy and criterions, unsafe conditions, etc etc), I think I actually prefer a forced vote, even if you will have some corruption from it thats better than 10% of the population (a large part of which is from that "political class") getting to chose favorable rule for their own.

[AussieFanKurt]

One argument people have say is if you dont vote you dont have the right to comment on politics

[baseline bum]

One argument people have say is if you dont vote you dont have the right to comment on politics

8KkA29CvLzw

[Nbadan]

.....people are manipulated by the M$M to vote against their best interest in this country...take health-care and the stimulus package for instance, the health-care law is not perfect by any means, but it is a beginning....whereas with wing-nuts in power the health-care industry would still be writing their own legislation, that's who the wing-nuts really want to 'return the country' too...

[AussieFanKurt]

8KkA29CvLzw

haha touché ;)

[The Reckoning]

its not a true democratic republic if youre forced to participate

[diego]

its not a true democratic republic if youre forced to participate

why not? not "free", I'll grant you, but why not truly democratic

Like I said in my post, I think its more democratic to be forced to vote (a truer representation of the citizenry) than to live in a republic where voting is restricted / discouraged (over representation of elites/minorities/extremists)

There's this concept in the US of democracy and freedom being an inseparable pair. By definition, democracy takes freedoms away. If you want "true" freedom, be a pirate. You don't find that type of freedom in any kind of country.

[DarkReign]

Dear. God. No.

[boutons_deux]

"we already have enough uninformed voters."

yes, red-states are full of bubbas and ignorant "Christian" shits who are duped into voting against their own interests.

[AussieFanKurt]

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[boutons_deux]

Voting will never be mandatory in USA, and certainly never with govt penalties. Democracy just isn't that important in USA, beyond lip service, vs other countries where voter percentages are nearly always a lot higher.

Voting doesn't really matter in USA-for-sale. Voting is a Georg-Carlin bullshit charade, since Corporate-Americans' votes are what really counts, effectively disenfranchising Human-Americans' votes.

One improvement that (Senate) Repugs will never approve is moving to Sunday voting, rather than workday voting.

Why would Repugs be against Sunday voting?

The Repugs/wealthies/conservatives know they are the minority/losers if 90% of American voters voted, so they are most interested in keeping votes down (intimidating/lying to voters), while Dems are most interested in getting out the votes.

A recent poll showed that the less money you make, the less inclined you are to vote Repug, since you want to "progress", while the wealthy want to "conserve" their status quo, eg, them as privileged super wealthy predators and everybody else under-privileged non-wealthy prey.

predator/prey? see "financial deregulation" and "Banksters' Great Depression"

[Stringer_Bell]

Unless there was a "none of the above" vote in an election, all a law would do is give false legitmacy to the shitty way our political system works. We don't have many good candidates in either party.

[AussieFanKurt]

If it happens in australia then no its not the right thing for a superior country like the usa to do



I hope you're trolling or you're fitting a perfect stereotype of an American thinking they are best at everything

[GSH]

I think we should have negative votes available. e.g., I don't like anyone, so I vote for no one, but I hate Candidate X most, so I give him a negative vote and take down his count of total votes by one. Of course you could only do either a positive vote or a negative vote.

That's one of the best ideas I've ever heard. "I don't care who actually wins, but I definitely want to cancel out one vote for that guy."

Think what it would do to the two-party system. Some of the third parties might actually have a chance.

The problem is that for something like that to be made law, it would have to be voted on by the very people who it would target. I think that's the real loophole in our whole system. Any efforts to reform Congress have to be approved by Congress. I always picture a few founding fathers scratching their heads and saying, "Oh, yeah... didn't think about that."