Would compulsory voting help change America's political woes?

[Holofernes]

austria had compulsive voting til i think 1995 or so. This didnt mean u had to actually vote (u could turn in an empty vote, or u could vote for everyone), but u had to go to the voting office and sign, that u were there.
Which meant, more than 80 % went voting. If the mayor of the city / village / town u lived in didnt like u or your family, he could be evil and send u a organmandatverfügung, wich means having to pay some money, similar a ticket for wrong parking. so if u didnt vote and had bad luck / the guy at the town authority had a bad day , there was the possibility to get punished for not voting. If u refused to pay, u could theoretically even get into prison.

Rights always come with obligations. No right has been gained historically without being tied to a duty. Former it was the kings only right and duty to decide about war and peace, taxes, conscription and so on, and now the rights, and therefore the responsibility have gone to every single person. So the right to vote comes nowadays from beeing an adult human (even females may vote since 100 years), and all those ancient obligations and duties tied to this right (beeing a tax payer, being able to read and write, membership to a certain social layer / council /having at least 100000 acres land and so on) have lost their importance, and nowadays people often think that rights are free.

rights are privileges that historically were not given to common people, because they couldnt be trusted
a make the right decisions and
b) deal with the consequences,

whereas a king was blessed and wanted from god by birth (divine right), which justifies everything he does. On US Dollar there is still a reminiscence to the divine right, it says "In God we trust".

So if u refer to the old deal " no king who does the thinking and ruling for us, we rule ourselves and take responsibility for ourself", it would be ok to have compulsatory voting. It surely will help to get people out of their beds on vote days.

I cannot understand those who state no to this topic because of thinking the rights are for free.
Actually loads of people fought in the process of achieving this rights, and any true democrat or republican (not parties, meant the real sense of the word) should be proud of this achievement.

Rights that are not used tend to fall back to those who want to abuse it.

[Spectral]

Here's the thing. If you force democrats in Texas to vote, they might start getting pissed at how little it counts.

They may engender change in their state's allocation of electoral votes so that their vote DO count.

Why not treat the problem instead of the symptom though?

[Masark]

I would rather people have to take a test to be able to be able to vote. It would be way much better then making everyone vote...

Sure, but you can skip the test if your grandfather could vote.

[Catta]

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.

Currently they only focus on a fraction of the people because of the electoral college for example. Doing away with that would force them to either focus on those they easily had before or lose them to another party which would more easily emerge.

[Orlong]

Even if that is correct, which I doubt, that would provide no reason to force someone to vote.
making election day a national holiday or expanding the laws that require employers to give time off for voting to be more convenient sound reasonable, but forcing someone to express an opinion even if they don't have one sounds counter productive to me.

Polls in most places are open from either 6 or 7 am till at least 8 PM. Very few if any people work for that whole time period that they wouldnt be able to vote either before or after work

[Laize]

Why not treat the problem instead of the symptom though?

That depends on whether you view the electoral college as a problem.

[Orlong]

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.

But not everyone has off on Sundays either. Lots people arent lucky enough to have a m-f 9-5 job

[Raidenx]

This is quite informative

[goobernoob]

Polls in most places are open from either 6 or 7 am till at least 8 PM. Very few if any people work for that whole time period that they wouldnt be able to vote either before or after work

Yes, and if they were scheduled to work that entire time, their boss is legally required to give them time off to vote, not to mention you can vote early by mail.

[LilSaihah]

I'm Australian and been of age to vote for the last two state elections and the last federal. I haven't, and haven't gotten into any trouble.

I don't pay too much attention to politics. I probably absorb more by osmosis than most people, and I still don't feel adequately equipped to make a reasonable decision. Mandatory voting means that every nitwit you know who doesn't know a thing about politics has to randomly select a name on the ballot.

[Sicarus]

"Forcing you to vote"
"Liberty"
No, never.

[Jackmoves]

Having watched the lines to the voting "offices" this election I think there is a strong case to be made that there is active voting suppression in the US by simply organizing things in the most horrible way possible. I mean come on, having to spend hours upon hours in line to vote will make people not wanting to go out and vote.

It was shocking to see imo. So I think if they actually organized things better, or cared enough to organize things the right way people would go out and vote without it being compulsory.

Not bashing btw, it was just how it looked to me.

[goobernoob]

Having watched the lines to the voting "offices" this election I think there is a strong case to be made that there is active voting suppression in the US by simply organizing things in the most horrible way possible. I mean come on, having to spend hours upon hours in line to vote will make people not wanting to go out and vote.

It was shocking to see imo. So I think if they actually organized things better, or cared enough to organize things the right way people would go out and vote without it being compulsory.

Not bashing btw, it was just how it looked to me.

meh, it took me under 30 mins to vote, and you can vote early via mail rather easily.

[obdigore]

No. Un and Under informed voters are how a majority of politicians get away with the retarded stuff they do. Forcing everyone to vote is just going to make it more of an American Idol like spectacle instead of what it needs to be.

otoh, I wouldn't be against 'earning' citizenship through military or government service, but hey, what do I know.

[Santti]

I'm not sure if compulsory voting would make anything better. I'm a living example why it could be bad. I have no clue who or what to vote at all, which is why I leave voting to others who hopefully know better than I do. Appearance would be my only clue who to vote for.

I'm Finnish and not American, but I'm sure there are lots of Americans that think like I do.

[Deleted]

Forcing people to vote will not get you a clearer picture, you'd just have throwaway votes counted in the running.


And thats very very bad.

[kosuko]

I can predict a whole lot of trolling when you start forcing people to vote.

[Afrospinach]

More people to flip a coin for the future. I don't really like the idea that people should ever be given a list of choices and be required to tick one without a none of the above option. Also, why are people not voting? If they are just too lazy or carefree, keep in mind they have the same voting power as the most informed, valuable and educated people in society. I don't think this is ever a great idea. If you don't care enough to show up to vote of your own volition you probably should not be voting anyway.

[Deleted]

No but I think voters should be given a small test before letting them vote to make sure they even know what they're voting for. Letting everyone vote is just a bad idea. Even if you assume half are educated voters and know what each choice represents, it still leaves the other half who vote based on promises (bigger salary for truck drivers and such) and don't care about anything else or just get swayed by the PR.

An added plus to this would be less money wasted on baby kissing campaigns and the circus around it overall.

[Zhangfei]

All my civil rights bones are screaming that people are suggesting certain groups (non high-school graduates) shouldn't vote or even worse, there should be a test.

I don't support enforced voting but I firmly believe votes are eternally equal - what intelligent people may propose today is the idiotic, spastic failed idea of tomorrow etc. All citizens should be able to vote and be encouraged too as equals. A black chick in South Carolina is genuinely and literally worth the same as Donald Trump to me.