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Should the US have complusory voting?

Should the US have compulsory voting?


  • Total voters
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So when is the USA going to start rounding up those apathetic bastards and sending them to the re-education camps? :roll:

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I'm starting to think we should require that people vote. If you don't vote you should get fined. It's not a very libertarian position, but given how few eligible Americans actually vote, I doubt that the majority is very well represented. The fines don't even have to be high, since most people will turn up to vote just to avoid the hassle of paying one. And it works! It increases voter turnout by as much as 16%!

The following countries have enforced compulsory voting....

Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Chile
Ecuador
Fiji
Liechtenstein
Nauru
Peru
Singapore
Uruguay

Not exactly a list of totalitarian regimes.

I've sometimes thought you should have to take a class (like driver's education) and get a license to participate in politics, including voting. It would focus on the constitutional law, federalism, economic theories, the scientific method, etc...
 
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I'm starting to think we should require that people vote. If you don't vote you should get fined. It's not a very libertarian position, but given how few eligible Americans actually vote, I doubt that the majority is very well represented. The fines don't even have to be high, since most people will turn up to vote just to avoid the hassle of paying one. And it works! It increases voter turnout by as much as 16%!

The following countries have enforced compulsory voting....

Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Chile
Ecuador
Fiji
Liechtenstein
Nauru
Peru
Singapore
Uruguay

Not exactly a list of totalitarian regimes.

In that case, voting is no longer a, "right". Along with the right to vote comes the right not to vote.
 
If someone votes only to avoid a fine, chances are they aren't well informed on the issues and thus I would not want them to vote. Also, it would be easy to buy votes of people who are indifferent to begin with.
 
Personally, I don't think we need the gov't making a law that voting be a requirement to live in America. And I especially don't think we need to give the powers that be anymore ideas on ways they can fine us or maybe even raise our taxes, for that matter. They seem to be able to come up with enough ideas all by themselves without any help from us. Next thing you know they'll force us to have a video camera in our bedrooms in order to keep track of how many times we have sex so they can charge us a sex tax accordingly.
 
So when is the USA going to start rounding up those apathetic bastards and sending them to the re-education camps? :roll:

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Their not, it's a little something we in the US like to call freedom of choice. Don't suppose you have heard of it? :doh
 
And you call yourself a libertarian?
 
What a silly form of protest. Thats like my child holding his breath if he doesn't get what he wants.

Why?
The analogy doesn't hold, because a child does that for irrational reasons, while not voting can be done for a myriad of differing reasons.

Choosing between to wrongs does not make a right.
 
What a silly form of protest. Thats like my child holding his breath if he doesn't get what he wants.

Not silly if you don't like jury duty. I seem to get nailed every two years--twice by the county, and twice by the Feds. (The first time I got called to jury duty to U.S. District Court, I took the summons and shredded it. I figured they'd just assume I moved and didn't leave a forwarding address. Wrong. They sent me another one, this time with an explicit threat to either return it or face a contempt charge along with a bench warrant. I returned the second one.)
 
No.
We should make voting day a holiday.
We should not "force" people to vote because that gets a lot of people who do not care in the voting system making a lot of stupid people vote, but we should make voting day a national holiday and off work.
But we also need to reform the election system. We need 3rd party candidates given a fair chance and a national debate spot and much more...
 
I disagree. Australia and Brazil are quite successful.
Australia is much more successful than Brazil. This would be my list after most successful to least. Only the highlighted are part of the most successful countries in the world.

Liechtenstein
Australia
Singapore

Chile
Uruguay
Brazil
Argentina
Peru
Ecuador
Fiji
 
What a silly form of protest. Thats like my child holding his breath if he doesn't get what he wants.
IMO, non-voting is on the same level.
At the same time, the voting act must be made easier(which is being done with "mail-ins") and there must be a "none of the above option".
Those running for office must be honest and truthful - lying should be a criminal act.
And the campaigns short and sweet.
 
Why?
The analogy doesn't hold, because a child does that for irrational reasons, while not voting can be done for a myriad of differing reasons.

Choosing between to wrongs does not make a right.

The point of protest is to gain power. By giving up power, it is contradictory.
 
Humans have a cognitive bias where they tend to believe if they do nothing it will have no consequences but if they do something it will have consequences. That bias forces them to think about decisions when they are forced to make them.


We already have politically ignorant people voting in a system that forces no one to vote. These people took the time to register to vote. These people took the time to stand in line to tell the election worker their name and political affiliation, sign their name, get their ballot , check who they want to vote for and what issues they want enacted or repealed and submit their ballot. These people most likely do not pay attention to **** when it comes to politics. They may be college educated, some of them may run businesses and or have successful careers.But when it comes to politics and political issues they are as dumb as a bag of rocks. So this already disproves your notion that if they are forced to participate that they will go through the trouble of learning about the candidates, reading up on the constitution, actually care about various political issues and making more informed choices. Forcing people do something they do not want to do will not make them have the desire to learn about political issues and so on. The only thing you would be doing by forcing them to vote is bringing in more politically ignorant people to the polls. Many would argue that the better thing to do is make them take some sort of test to see if they are actually knowledgeable regarding our government,political issues and other related stuff before allowing them to vote, but this would border on the jim crow laws that were in place to purposely exclude blacks in order to prevent republicans from being elected.
 
No, compulsory voting sucks and is ineffective, you can't make people vote, you can only make them show up at the polling place. Some people show up and vote, other show up and draw penises on the ballot, some people call the government and say they're attending their grandmothers funeral for the 7th election in a row and thus avoid the fine associated with not voting, making people vote isn't gonna make them interested in politics.
 
No, compulsory voting sucks and is ineffective, you can't make people vote, you can only make them show up at the polling place. Some people show up and vote, other show up and draw penises on the ballot, some people call the government and say they're attending their grandmothers funeral for the 7th election in a row and thus avoid the fine associated with not voting, making people vote isn't gonna make them interested in politics.


Penises? Not Koala bears?:mrgreen:
 
I'm starting to think we should require that people vote. If you don't vote you should get fined. It's not a very libertarian position, but given how few eligible Americans actually vote, I doubt that the majority is very well represented. The fines don't even have to be high, since most people will turn up to vote just to avoid the hassle of paying one. And it works! It increases voter turnout by as much as 16%!

The following countries have enforced compulsory voting....

Argentina
Australia
Brazil
Chile
Ecuador
Fiji
Liechtenstein
Nauru
Peru
Singapore
Uruguay

Not exactly a list of totalitarian regimes.

Fiji and Singapore aren't exactly democratic either.

Compulsory voting should only be considered if there is a 'none of the above' option, candidates need majority (not plurality) vote to win and the 'none of the above' count when figuring out the majority.
 
Compulsory is a shortcut to tyranny.
 
Australia is much more successful than Brazil. This would be my list after most successful to least. Only the highlighted are part of the most successful countries in the world.

Liechtenstein
Australia
Singapore

Chile
Uruguay
Brazil
Argentina
Peru
Ecuador
Fiji

I would argue that Chile is actually quite successful. It's economy has improved and become much more diversified over the past couple of decades. However, there are a lot of very successful countries not on this list as well -- including Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan ... all of which are democracies and are very successful and prosperous...
 
:lamo Name me one nation where compulsory voting has lead to tyranny.

I suspect someone like Rufus T. Firefly of Freedonia would never have been in power were it not for compulsory voting.
 
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