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in an ideal world mandatory voting would inspire people to be more informed -- since they have to go out and vote anyway. Unfortunately, way too many people are willing to cast votes based on superficial information like whether or not the candidate seems like a nice guy. If voting were mandatory I think we would have more uninformed voters which isn't conducive to the democratic process.
However, I disagree with those of you who claim that staying at home and not voting is making a great statement -- I think when you abstain from voting you get lumped in with the apathetic and uninformed -- a greater statement would be made by casting a blank vote (though arguable this would be less of a statement is voting were NOT mandatory -- I think if you institute a mandatory voting policy and then get a number of blank ballots a rather enormous statement would be made.).
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