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Should it be illegal not to vote?
In Australia, for example, it is a criminal offence, punishable by a fine, if you do not vote when you are entitled to and you dont have a good excuse. Would you be happy to see such a law enforced in your country?
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In a word, no.
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Re: Should it be illegal not to vote?
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Not voting for any candidate is as much a political statement as voting. Meaning, if voting were mandatory, then I would be forced to pick the least of all the evils, so candidates would not have to work as hard to attract me. In our current system, my vote is up for grabs, but I have to actually want to give it. Candidates can be made in this manner - Howard Dean and Ralph Nader both claim their support came from people who wouldn't have gone to the polls otherwise. I don't know if I believe it in those specific cases, but the number of people who don't vote is a measure of how much potential there is for a new party/candidate with the right views could galvanise the voters.
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No, it should not ever be illegal. If someone feels that abstention from voting is necessary, why not allow that? I do feel that it is good to have a say in government, but it should not be mandatory by any means.
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A better solution to the low turnout problem is to either create an election holiday (either a new one or merged with an existing holiday like Veteran's Day) or move the election to a weekend.
This way, everyone who wants to vote can do so. If we force people to vote who are uninformed and really don't want to vote, they'll just end up voting for a random person or whoever they happen to recognize. |
You could spoil the ballot paper if you didnt want to vote for any of the candidates.
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You can always cast a spoiled or empty vote..
oops.. i see that Strange Famous has just said the same thing.... Vo Quote:
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I think mandatory voting is a good idea, but I'd rather uninformed people stay at home than go out and vote.
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No.
I don't want someone taking the responsibilty on that doesn't want it. |
I'll cast my vote for yes. Voter turnout in the US is abysmal. You've all made good arguments for why people shouldn't vote, but if people had to vote, they might take more of an interest in what was going on.
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No, shouldn't be illegal. If you actually don't care, then you'll show up on election day basically ignorant of the issues and vote at random or according to old information. How does that help democracy?
Personally, I wouldn't be against not giving people the vote until they did some public service thing -- a certain number of hours of volunteer work, military service, employment in an important service profession like education, EMT, or whatever. Everybody would be able to qualify in some way, if they made the effort. And if they didn't care to make an effort for the community, why should they be able to make decisions about it? |
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The principle of representative democracy is that people who have power are responsible to and accountable to the people who's lives they effect - a world in which only one "type" of person is allowed to vote becomes something other than a democracy. Oh, Brave New World!! |
I didn't really expound on my earlier post, so I'll make just one point.
It's not clear that the system of democracy would be improved by increasing voter turnout. If 5 million more uninformed or superficial people voted, would our system be enhanced? Compulsory voting doesn't make for better democracy. |
I think that instead of not voting at all , candidates should have a choice to vote "none of the above" in the ballots. That way, it would be easier to have a much more accurate count of how many citizens actually vote and how many eligible votes actually voted for a particular candidate.
While I agree with Scipio's point of view that forcing a bunch of uninformed and superficial people to vote would not make for better democracy, I still think that every individual has some sort of opinion (including "I don't know or "none of the above"), and they should be made to put their opinion in the ballots rather than just abstain. |
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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We seem to be making an interesting assumption here--that the people currently voting are doing so based on careful research and without regard to personality, etc. I would argue the opposite. Most of our votes seem to be contigent on various emotionally charged topics, not on careful research of the candidates' policies and actions. |
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Not being registered to vote should be illegal. Evidence points to this as being the reason people dont vote. They simply arent registered.
The percentage of the US's registered voters who vote are comparable to the rest of the world. As far as voting or non-voting I think thats totally up to the individual, and I'd rather someone who has no clue about the candidates and will only vote for the name they recognize to stay out of the ballot box anyways. |
I'd say yes, just because reaping the benefits of democracy without participating is stupid. How much of a democracy is it when less than a majority participate?
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Being forced to vote wouldn't violate civil liberties? Lots of people say the government should stay out of peoples lives, be it with sex, or drugs, or entertainment, but its ok to force someone to vote who doesn't really want to or care? The befits of democracy have nothing to do with mandatory voting. Look at where you had mandatory voting and see if it made any difference. |
Democracy is meaningless if the majority choose not to participate. It is ridiculous that the majority cares more about who is going to win the superbowl than who is going to be president. I bet more people voted for american idol than will vote for president. That seems like model democracy to you?
It's not that fucking difficult to vote. Omigod, you mean i have to vote?!?!!? Whatever will i do?!?!? Being forced to vote wouldn't violate civil liberties any more paying taxes violates your civil liberties. I'm not sure about the wording of the constitution, but i don't think that it expressly outlines your right not to vote. I don't know about you, but i think people should be obligated to participate in the process that makes america what it is. |
Hell no. I don't want the lazy dipshits in this country to randomly choose some candidate they don't know anything about and put him in charge. And seeing as lazy dipshits are just about the majority, we're better off without their input.
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Nope, everyone has the right to choose whether they want to vote or not, and I likes it that way.
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How about we force people to vote, and then give the a little test to prove they know what they are voting on? Would you like that? Quote:
Now back to voting, America is 'not what is is' by forcing people to do things they don't want to do. America is what it is great based on the freedom we have, and if some people decide not to vote that’s their business, and not for you to decide what’s good for them. I'm sure the left would like this because more uninformed voters is good for most leftist causes, but even if it turned out that such voting gave republican majorities in all states, I wouldn't be for it. |
Force people to vote, that's worse then apathy towards voting.
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Oooh, no need imply that all lefties are uninformed. I know that many think that the masses are just too stupid to put in their two cents. Or maybe if we're going to throw around idealogical barbs, perhaps as a conservative, you disfavor the voting of the masses because the masses aren't wealthy and therefore probably won't vote for the current "put the rich people on a pedestal" status quo. Yeah, that's it.:rolleyes: As for taxes, i thought civil liberties were defined by the constitution. I didn't know they were defined by the opinions of a fringe minority. If taxes violate our civil liberties you'd think hotshot conservative lawyer anne coulter would have had them succesfully thrown out by the supreme court by now. It must be difficult for someone with your perspective to get around, seeing as how you must feel real dirty whenever you drive on a public road, because you know that in the process you're reaping the benefits of state sponsored theivery. Now... Back to voting. I guess i think that this country would be a better place if there was some incentive for people to be involved in the decision making process. |
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No you cannot force people to vote. Deciding to vote is part of the process.
Having people voting that don't want to could upset an election. What if they all did a write in for Osama? And he won? |
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It's accepted here because it's part of our tradition and status quo. It means we have a reputable National electoral commission that has consistent technology and procedures across all voting districts (operating under the KISS principle). Changing the system, either in Australia or America would disrupt the balance of power in either place. Therefore, it's just not gonna happen. Our compulsory voting might not be ideologically or philosophically "pure" but neither is the US selective service or electoral college - and America accepts the electoral college because it's part of your political history. |
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What the hell, institute national service and make sure everybody has to do it -- not necessarily the military, but something. When you're done, you vote. And if you're in a wheelchair, they have to find something for you to do. This is straight out of Heinlein, but I agree with him on this one. |
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Of course this would take a revolution like it did in the book. |
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Ha! |
Ustwo had it right when he said that forcing people to vote would violate civil liberties. We are a free society, and a free to choose to vote or not. I sincerely wish more people took the time and effort to vote, but they should not be forced to vote.
Unfortuately, Ustwo was unable to make a good point without making a kneejerk "liberals" slam that has no place in this discussion. |
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I was sorely tempted to post my favorite Mr. Dubois quote, but I've already posted it once in "Politics" and I didn't want to wear it out... |
I prefer the uninformed abstain anyway. Voting on name recognition is worse then not voting at all in my opinion.
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