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Should voting be mandatory?

Should voting be mandatory?

  • Yes

    Votes: 8 16.0%

  • No

    Votes: 39 78.0%

  • Unsure

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Did Punxsutawney Phil see his shadow this year?

    Votes: 3 6.0%
  • Total voters
    50
dogtowner said:
Yes and limited to tax paying (as opposed to tax recieving) non felon land owners.
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Smart take!

So if you buy a pair of socks subject to sales tax, you can check off that box as a tax payer. Unless you meant adding up all taxes paid and then subtracting government benefits, but that would be messy. How much benefit does an oil company get from the U.S. Military? $billions per year? Probably, but we'd need a bureaucrat to do an audit of every person and every company (so we could attribute company taxes/benefits to shareholder/owners). Lots of new government jobs, and we'd all be under permanent audit, which sounds good. I borrow a LOT of books on tape from the local library. I wonder what value the bureaucrats will place on each of those???.....

Also smart to tie voting to land ownership, so no renters. Too bad a farmer who leases farmland won't be able to vote, but the landowner will. But I do see a business opportunity. We've got a small farm, and I can sell square inches of land on this farm for purposes of meeting this 'land owner' test. Each acre is about 6 million square inches, so my family could qualify roughly every registered voter!! And at $1 per sq. inch (reasonable price to be a landowner, plus postage and handling of course!) it would be FAR more lucrative than the soybeans and corn grown on it now...
 
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I think maybe mandatory or give a tax credit to those that vote, so say it takes you 2 hours our of your time to go to the polls figure minimum wage is $7.50 so you would get at least a $15 tax credit if you choose to file it. Maybe something like that.
 
JohnWOlin said:
I think maybe mandatory or give a tax credit to those that vote, so say it takes you 2 hours our of your time to go to the polls figure minimum wage is $7.50 so you would get at least a $15 tax credit if you choose to file it. Maybe something like that.
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Thats illegal for obvios reasons.
 
It provides reasons for people to go out and vote. The reason we have to many old timers in office is because we don't have everyone voting. Or make voting day a holiday.
 
DA60 said:
Should voting be mandatory?
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absolutely not! I will not be voting and want to distance myself from political filth as far as possible. mandatory voting would just be another way for the gov to make criminals of people.
 
If the President were to push for this, I hope he advocates for "Present" to be an option.
 
I can't support mandatory military service for any purpose or at any time-- peace or war. But I think mandatory military training could be a very good thing, so that every citizen is ready to bear arms in case they are needed in their capacity as the militia.
 
No, but politicians should and they should also have to have a childbrother, sister or parent in the armed forces in a front line position in order to be a politician
 
DA60 said:
Should voting be mandatory?
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Dont you think that most people that care, do vote?

Do you think that people that dont care put much effort into learning about candidates and their positions on issues, records, etc?

(Not that everyone does now but certainly, it devalues their contribution)

Sorry, obviously I havent read thru the thread yet.
 
Cephus said:
No, thanks for proving you can't read. I responded to a statement that Republicans benefit from as few people voting as possible so they could win elections. That means that the people who are disinterested in voting, who are politically ignorant and are too lazy to go to the polling place are more likely to vote Democrat. Logic. Figure it out.
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I'm sorry, I was operating under the apparently mistaken assumption that you know how relative clauses work in the English language. Forgive my presumption. Consider me chastised.
 
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dogtowner said:
Vote buying may not be quite so direct.
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It's not really vote buying though, if you are giving someone a small $15 tax credit for the 2 hours of time it could take them to get to the polls and it doesn't matter if they vote for Republican or Democrat or 3rd party, all you are really doing is paying them for there time. Besides that the person would have to actually fill out a form or show that they voted when filing taxes. We give tax credits for things that are necessities such as cars (depending on if it is a electric car or not) and 1st time home buyer credits, things that you don't have to even buy. There is nothing stopping people from doing write in candidates, and I think in general it gets people involved.
 
No, but.

IMO there should not be an "election day", but rather "election days" or an "election week".
During the period, however long, every single person must be given a day off work - ideally I would say it should be a day of paid leave.
This is so:
  1. Everyone can go vote without losing money (especially important for those on the lower end of the pay scale).
  2. Businesses can stagger the days off, allowing for staffing needs.

This may seem extreme, but I think a "voting holiday" every November might get people more engaged in the process.
 
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