Removing a dual-party system would do a lot more for voter turnout than mandatory voting.
Remove electoral college while you're at it too.
Removing a dual-party system would do a lot more for voter turnout than mandatory voting.
Remove electoral college while you're at it too.
You have to rock up to the polling location, get your name ticked off, then go to the booth and put the paper in the box. You can vote, or you can draw a giant ballsack on the ballot. As long as you get your name ticked off, you're sweet.
As an aside, it's a stupid system. If you don't care about voting, you shouldn't be voting. It just makes it easier to buy votes (Kevin07 bought them for what, $900 a person?)
If people can't be arsed to vote chances are they are also can't be arsed to do the proper research. Really what America needs is a test to see if you are eligible to vote. In that test would be questions concerning things like candidate voting history, positions on the issues, and recent news.(basic math and English would be nice too)
Frankly America needs less idiots voting not more.
The compulsory voting is enforced via fines. If you don't show and get your name ticked off the list you get a nice fine in your mail box.
I agree that it should be easier to vote, but only when it can be done so without risking that people cheat.
I don't agree that it should be mandatory by law to vote. If people don't want their voice to be heard then so be it.
In Denmark where I live 87,7% voted at the last election in 2011 (googled it). And We don't have laws that tell us to vote. What we do have, is a population which is generally interested in politics at a national level.
A way to increase the voting % in the U.S could for example to change the way the presidential elections are decided. If I was a democrat in a republican dominated area or opposite I'm not sure I would want to vote either. with a fair system Bush would not have won in 2000.
Last edited by Mikael123; 2013-01-15 at 01:38 AM.
Uninformed voting would probably skyrocket, so I doubt it would, OP.
I'm not sure. I've heard that it helps to reduce the effect money has on politics (not sure if true).
I'd really like to see our voting period extended. Perhaps a week long process. I couldn't vote this year because I was working insane overtime hours because of Hurricane Sandy. Or at least changing the voting day to a Sunday instead of the middle of the work week.
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
Speaking as an educated Republican in New Jersey, that correlation is retarded and not indicative of jack shit unless you live in Ohio or some other swing state.
I'm educated enough about civics to know that my vote literally does not matter. I've voted in 3 presidential elections and several congressional elections. in 10 years the only Republican vote I've ever cast that made a difference was for Chris Christie.
Yeah, even more uninformed people voting will surely help.
Absolutely not. We already have enough morons voting we don't need to encourage more. If you can't be arsed to wake your ass up and vote now. We don't need your opinion influencing anything.
That last part is a load of bullshit ignore that. What he said first was true but. If you don't get your name ticked off you get a fine of a few hundred dollars. If you are out of the country/sick or even out of your home state you will not be fined.
People vote for nothing to show who they want in. Which can be nobody. I voted for nobody last time because i think both major parties are dickheads. Last election there was the most blank voting slips there have ever been so i was not the only one that felt like that. If there was someone worth voting for i would have voted for them. Both parties here are more interested in attacking each other then proving to people they can run the country.
Last edited by Airwaves; 2013-01-15 at 01:37 AM.
Aye mate
Oh, I know it isn't a realistic option... but if people want to fix things it is about the only option. As things stand far too many people vote based on the horse and pony show that is the candidate advertisement campaign. If you want to get the corruption out of politics, the only hope you have is for the voters to be intelligent enough and to actually care enough to do the research and figure out who is talking out there ass(hint: all of them)
Regardless of how realistic some sort of test would be, the country absolutely does not need more lazy people going to the polls than we already have.
Op
In regards to an American Presidential election force voting would not change a thing thanks to the electoral college. In regards to local elections most people have no clue who they are voting for on the ballot, and that is done by design. Instead of compulsory voting, how about compulsory transparency for each politician running? how about a standardized list of how they voted through out their term(s), the amount of time they spend in service to the community and how much money they make directly from their job and how much "charities" in their name or for their causes have raised?
To assume the electorate is uneducated couldn't be more fallacious people know what they want, that is undeniable, its just picking the person closest to what they want that they struggle with, and rightly so as most politician try to be what people want instead of being who they actually are. why? because its a popularity contest not a scientific nomination.
source (The Way the World Works, by Jude Wanniski)
The problem with that, and what essentially sealed the fate of the two party system, is the innovation of modern media and mass advertising. Ultimately, money is power when an election is based on spreading as much information as quickly as you can. If you split, you lose resources. If you lose resources, another group that has consolidated its resources wins. So people are forced to compromise with people that they share some views with, in order to win against those that they are vehemently against.
Nonetheless, the correlation exists. The less educated someone is, the less likely they are to vote. If anything, I'd rather push that number even farther in that direction. If not a single high school dropout voted, it wouldn't upset me the tiniest bit.
Your point that votes are pointless is, of course, correct. I don't think anyone that's well informed votes because they think their vote really matters; in fact, believing that your vote matters is basically the definition of being uninformed. Informed people vote primarily for social and psychological reasons, not because they think their votes really count.
I don't see how making lazy idiots vote would improve the quality of votes. For me, it would just make me more sure than ever that the guy in line next to me is spectacularly stupid and cancels out whatever I think.