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Mandatory voting

Do you support mandatory voting?

  • Yes, those who do not vote should be fined

    Votes: 1 2.9%

  • Yes, those who do not vote should be jailed

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No, people should have a choice whether to vote or not

    Votes: 24 70.6%

  • No, however the government should establish an Election Day Holiday to allow everyone to vote

    Votes: 14 41.2%
  • Total voters
    34
S

Smart

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How do you feel about mandatory voting?

Personally, I oppose it. However it would help fix our elections, by getting the youth out to vote. :mrgreen:
 
Smart said:
How do you feel about mandatory voting?

Personally, I oppose it. However it would help fix our elections, by getting the youth out to vote. :mrgreen:
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I strongly oppose mandatory voting.Its bad enough we have politically uninformed people out there voting once every four years for president, mandatory voting would make that worse. Mandatory voting won't make people informed it will just make the elections worse.
 
Forcing people to vote is a horrible idea. It makes the informed and people who don't care to just pick a random candidate or none at all. It can also cause voter fatigue.
 
madatory voting is a bad idea, obliging people who cannot or will not inform themselves on the issues or a too ajded ot bbother voting will be bad for the democracy as a whole
 
Smart said:
How do you feel about mandatory voting?

Personally, I oppose it. However it would help fix our elections, by getting the youth out to vote. :mrgreen:
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I oppose it, however all our voting days should be official days off.
 
I oppose it. There are already enough uninformed people voting in our elections. It is sad there aren't more people who take the time to make an informed vote, but making voting mandatory isn't the way to fix this.
 
0bserver92 said:
Forcing people to vote is a horrible idea. It makes the informed and people who don't care to just pick a random candidate or none at all. It can also cause voter fatigue.
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I'm curious: Would you support a voting ban on the uninformed?
 
I like the idea of a voting holiday. We could get rid of Columbus day.
 
Mandatory voting would make it a lot worse. Its already bad enough millions dont vote because the "lack of real choice" on the ballot.
 
Absolutely not. There's far too many ignorant people out there; their ill conceived opinions would only serve to damage the nation.

In fact, I'm more inclined to support the idea that voting should be allowed for only certain kinds of people; not every dolt needs a say in politics or important issues.

Lokiate said:
The vikings beat him to it by about 400 years.
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The prehistoric humans beat them to it by several thousand years.
 
Lol nothing screams free country like "Vote or else we throw you in jail." You'd have to give everyone the day off for starters. I'd rather focus on preventing or otherwise discouraging the uninformed from voting. Something like waving a candy bar across the street from voting booths, or turning on a TV in the parking lot with Idol reruns.
 
Smart said:
How do you feel about mandatory voting?

Personally, I oppose it. However it would help fix our elections, by getting the youth out to vote. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

What on Gods' Green Earth makes you think that adding in more of our least-informed, least-experienced, least-wise populace to the voter rolls with "fix our elections"?

I've been (and posted on here before) in favor of a Federal Holiday for elections. The current system makes it harder for people with jobs and kids. But the last thing we need is mandatory voting. Not only would it likely be unconstitutional (per the SCOTUS decision on Obamacare), it would have deleterious effects on our body politic. Our problem now is too many low-information voters, not too few.

Make it a holiday. Then add a poll test, based on the US citizenship exam. If you can't name the three branches of government, sorry, buddy, evidently you aren't clued in enough to be trustworthy with the governance of the worlds' hegemon.
 
cpwill said:
What on Gods' Green Earth makes you think that adding in more of our least-informed, least-experienced, least-wise populace to the voter rolls with "fix our elections"?

I've been (and posted on here before) in favor of a Federal Holiday for elections. The current system makes it harder for people with jobs and kids. But the last thing we need is mandatory voting. Not only would it likely be unconstitutional (per the SCOTUS decision on Obamacare), it would have deleterious effects on our body politic. Our problem now is too many low-information voters, not too few.

Make it a holiday. Then add a poll test, based on the US citizenship exam. If you can't name the three branches of government, sorry, buddy, evidently you aren't clued in enough to be trustworthy with the governance of the worlds' hegemon.
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Allow me to explain.

The youth are overwhelmingly pro-gay marriage, pro-term limits, pro-marijuana legalization, pro-prostitution legalization, etc.

Their voices being heard on these issues will easily get them passed in most states.
 
Lots of people seem to be stating definitively that compulsory voting would increase the number of "uniformed" people voting but is there any kind of evidence backing that up? Are all the politically informed people currently voting actually well informed or are they voting on the basis of bias and misinformation?
 
Smart said:
How do you feel about mandatory voting?

Personally, I oppose it. However it would help fix our elections, by getting the youth out to vote. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

I am in favor of another approach.

Can Science Plant Brain Seeds That Make You Vote? : NPR

potential voters were asked a series of carefully constructed questions:

"What do you think you'll be doing before you head to the polls on Tuesday?" recipients of the call were asked. "Where do you think you'll be coming from that day?"

These questions were designed by a Harvard professor named Todd Rogers. Rogers, among other things, is a behavioral psychologist, and he says he chose those questions for a very particular reason.

"We borrowed that from cognitive psychology," he says, "There's a lot of research showing that thinking through the actual moment when you will do something makes it more likely that the behavior will pop into your mind at the appropriate time."

Essentially, the questions plant a cognitive seed deep in your brain that sits there, mostly forgotten, until you arrive at the moment you talked about during the call. And then, says Rogers, "It pops into my head! 'Oh! I said I was going to vote now!' "
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No need in being authoritarian when you can simply ask the right questions and often get people to do what is right anyway.

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As a secondary consideration. The problem with rulings like citizens united is that so much money is going to influence those who did not, for whatever reason, look into who is the best candidate themselves but let those commercials influence them. As a society, we need to find ways to reduce the effects of this ruling, not increase it.

If anything, we need to find ways (like shown above) to convince people to do research and think, by leading them if we have to.

Our society would be better off for it.
 
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Smart said:
Allow me to explain.

The youth are overwhelmingly pro-gay marriage, pro-term limits, pro-marijuana legalization, pro-prostitution legalization, etc.

Their voices being heard on these issues will easily get them passed in most states.
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They also do "bath salts" and shoot bottle rockets out of their asses.
 
HonestJoe said:
Lots of people seem to be stating definitively that compulsory voting would increase the number of "uniformed" people voting but is there any kind of evidence backing that up?
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Well it would definitely increase the number of uninformed people voting in absolute numbers. As for percentages, I'd say it stands to reason that the people who don't vote are generally less informed on political issues than those who do, although admittedly I don't have any hard data for this.

Are all the politically informed people currently voting actually well informed or are they voting on the basis of bias and misinformation?
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Some of them probably are, but I'd say the answer to this isn't to increase the number of people voting that are uninformed or voting on bias and misinformation, which is what I strongly suspect would happen if voting were made mandatory.
 
Smart said:
Very very very very few have done either of those.
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Just small examples. American youth aren't exactly know for demonstrating the best judgement. I don't see a problem with allowing the immature idiots within our youths ranks to mature. Forcing them to vote would be asking for trouble.
 
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