Vote or die

[Gd5150]

Amateur night continues as our distinguished commander in chief now suggests voting should be mandatory. Thats bold, thats intelligent, thats leadership. Only Obama could come up with something so transforming. Well, or Diddy.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mandatory-voting-obama-says-it-would-be-transformative/ar-BBipf2F
[attachimg=1]

[PB the Deplorable]

A member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is proposing they lower the voting age to 16. 

http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/03/16/john-avalos-wants-teenagers-to-vote

[136 or 142]

There are a number of countries that make voting mandatory, including Australia.

[paladin1991]

Amateur night continues as our distinguished commander in chief now suggests voting should be mandatory. Thats bold, thats intelligent, thats leadership. Only Obama could come up with something so transforming. Well, or Diddy.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mandatory-voting-obama-says-it-would-be-transformative/ar-BBipf2F
[attachimg=1]

I like it.  Don't vote?  Felony conviction and fine.  Second violation?  2nd Felony. Harvest a kidney and cornea.  And so on.

[albrecht]

Not voting in certain elections might be a valid choice, depending on the choice of candidates and the election.

Also, considering the education-level, the new immigrants with no knowledge of our history, political system, or culture, and many people simply voting for "stuff" or on "looks" I have no problem with people not voting if they wish. If it is worth doing than you should be motivated to be informed on the issues and candidates and be able get yourself to the polls on time. Obviously I can see Obama's strategy (simply requiring everyone to vote or making it super-easy, like internet or mail, would tend towards a LCD election and also make it even easier for voter fraud.)

[136 or 142]

I like it.  Don't vote?  Felony conviction and fine.  Second violation?  2nd Felony. Harvest a kidney and cornea.  And so on.

In Australia there is a small fine which half the time is never even collected.  People are required to show up at the polls but they can refuse their ballot, not mark it or cross a line through it.

[albrecht]

In Australia there is a small fine which half the time is never even collected.  People are required to show up at the polls but they can refuse their ballot, not mark it or cross a line through it.

I'm curious on a couple things:
1) have Australian Courts addressed the issue (anyone fight it?)
2) are there options for the elderly (etc who can't travel) to vote by mail or by other means?
3) is this requirement for EVERY election or just national elections (or are they all held on same day?) Provincial, local, bond issues, referendums, school boards, etc etc? (I don't know your political system but here in the US we have all kinds of elections from local school board, local bonds, judges, justices of the peace, sheriffs, HOA, city, county, state, Federal and sometimes "special" elections (run-offs, when someone dies, etc) that aren't necessarily held on the same day. It might be a little much to say one must vote in ALL of these.)

[136 or 142]

I'm curious on a couple things:
1) have Australian Courts addressed the issue (anyone fight it?)
2) are there options for the elderly (etc who can't travel) to vote by mail or by other means?
3) is this requirement for EVERY election or just national elections (or are they all held on same day?) Provincial, local, bond issues, referendums, school boards, etc etc? (I don't know your political system but here in the US we have all kinds of elections from local school board, local bonds, judges, justices of the peace, sheriffs, HOA, city, county, state, Federal and sometimes "special" elections (run-offs, when someone dies, etc) that aren't necessarily held on the same day. It might be a little much to say one must vote in ALL of these.)

1.I live in British Columbia, Canada. I'm familiar with this because we've had a number of politicians and professors here suggest mandatory voting.  The province's dean of political journalism, Vaughn Palmer, wrote an article a few years ago favorably outlining a variety of positives from mandatory voting, not that he necessarily endorsed it, which I unfortunately can't find.

In regards to your questions:
1.According to wiki, it has been challenged and the courts have upheld it.

2.I'd assume there are polling stations at senior citizen's homes. For seniors in private residences who can't vote, there are a number of excuses allowed which waves the fine, including that. However, usually political parties will offer to drive seniors to the polling stations.

3.I don't know if municipal elections in Australia are compulsory.  State and Federal Elections are held at different times.  The New South Wales election is later this month, and a couple months ago in Queensland, the Labor Party won a narrow majority government (minority Labor backed by the independent members) around 2 months ago after being reduced to 7 of 89 seats in the previous election.  In around half the states, voting is mandatory, in around half it isn't.

According to Wiki, there are around 25 countries that make voting compulsory but only half of them actually enforce it.  They count Australia as one of the countries that enforce it, but even there, in the last state election in Tasmania according to wiki 6,000 people didn't vote, but only 2,000 of them actually paid the $26(AU) fine.

The main arguments in favor of mandatory voting are:
1.It's a civic responsibility
2.More importantly, mandatory voting significantly reduces the use by political parties of negative campaigns.  The primary purpose of negative campaigns are to reduce the turnout of the other side, and, if everybody has to cast a ballot (though as I said above, not necessarily for any party) there is no purpose in trying to do this. Negative campaigning is hardly ever used to actually get people to switch their votes, as much as candidates and party ad people may claim it is.

[paladin1991]

Not voting in certain elections might be a valid choice, depending on the choice of candidates and the election.

Also, considering the education-level, the new immigrants with no knowledge of our history, political system, or culture, and many people simply voting for "stuff" or on "looks" I have no problem with people not voting if they wish. If it is worth doing than you should be motivated to be informed on the issues and candidates and be able get yourself to the polls on time. Obviously I can see Obama's strategy (simply requiring everyone to vote or making it super-easy, like internet or mail, would tend towards a LCD election and also make it even easier for voter fraud.)

Well thank you Albrecht, for making me look like the hardliner.  I like to think of myself as a....dreamer.*

*anybody see what I did there?

[136 or 142]

The main practical argument against mandatory voting is that it forces uninformed people to vote.  However, the evidence shows:
1.A whole bunch of uninformed people already vote.
2.Many (but far from all) of those who wouldn't have voted previously tend to become more engaged in the political process and become informed.

[paladin1991]

Have had numerous discussions over the years about the 'right to vote.'  It's not a right unless you exercise it.  If you don't exercise it, it becomes a privilige.
And we all know what happens when you misbehave or piss somebody off, your priviliges are revoked.

[FightTheFuture]

There is no Constitutional right to vote.

[Gd5150]

Also, considering the education-level, the new immigrants college grads, college dropouts, high school grads, high school drop outs, with no knowledge of our history, political system, or culture, and many people simply voting for "stuff" or on "looks" I have no problem with people not voting if they wish....

Small adjustment made.  Legal immigrants know more than 99% of the above. Voting on looks? What are you saying? Appearance had nothing to do with Obama being elected, he was elected for his extensive gravitas and experience. 

Obviously I can see Obama's strategy (simply requiring everyone to vote or making it super-easy, like internet or mail, would tend towards a LCD election and also make it even easier for voter fraud.)

The left has been pushing for easier ways to rig elections make everyone vote for decades. Voting by phone was their thing in the 80's. Has to be one of the stupidest ideas ever conceived. Then the internet. Another brilliant left wing conception. Then while you get your drivers license that cannot be asked for to prove you are allowed to vote.

These ideas as stupid as they are always start somewhere. Obamacare was once Hillarycare, and was laughed out of Washington. Now we're stuck with this disaster and the decades of work it'll take to clean up.

[VtaGeezer]

Mandatory voting is a nice sentiment, but we're already up to our asses in way too many layers of elected petty officials, resulting too often in govt by incompetent insiders and more recently, ideologue zealots. Local elections are a joke. Frankly, I often think we'd get better govt by random lottery.

[albrecht]

It's a nice sentiment, but we're already up to our asses in way too many layers of elected officials resulting too often in govt by incompetent insiders and more recently, ideologue zealots.  Frankly, I often think we'd get better govt by random lottery.

I actually would like to give this a try. At least on some governmental level. Maybe pick a State or a City, not necessarily nuclear football yet, and see how it works.

Think about this. We allow jurors to ability to kill someone, bankrupt a person or business, or send someone to prison to be- often to be raped and abused. But serving on a jury is a random lottery (at least until voir dire) and unless you are criminal, crazy, etc you are able to serve. And, some cases aside, they often make good decisions (though as society in general get less quality education and the demographic changes this might be on the decrease.)

Let's try it out and see what happens. It can't make things much worse than career politicians and cronyism.

[Juan]

The main problem with mandatory voting is that it is tyranny.  Dictators such as Saddam loved it because it allowed them to claim massive support.

[albrecht]

The main problem with mandatory voting is that it is tyranny.  Dictators such as Saddam loved it because it allowed them to claim massive support.

As in the great Richard Dreyfus vehicle "Moon Over Parador" (which is a hilarious movie.)

Free and Fair Elections: The Illusion of Choice

[136 or 142]

Mandatory voting is a nice sentiment, but we're already up to our asses in way too many layers of elected petty officials, resulting too often in govt by incompetent insiders and more recently, ideologue zealots. Local elections are a joke. Frankly, I often think we'd get better govt by random lottery.

Didn't Ancient Greece do that for awhile?

[albrecht]

Didn't Ancient Greece do that for awhile?

It, in one form or another, has been used in various places. (Sortition) Usually not quite as simply as a "lottery" but usually a little more complex but the gist and the spirit was same- once determining the people allowed to be drawn (therein, of course, can raise concerns.) Basis of our jury system but no longer used in politics (maybe somewhere though. I could see a small Swiss canton or somewhere like that using something like this.)

I would like to see some entity try it out. One of the great things, at least formally, of the United States is that it allowed experimentation by State, and even lower entities: in best ways to govern, manage finances, etc. So we had variety of systems: Common-Wealths, States, elected judges, non-elected judges, Town Meeting style, more 'corporate' style, Justice of Peace, Sheriffs, more direct democracies vs representative democracies, even areas (at some time) that used parochial law, somewhat different legal systems (Louisiana comes to mind), etc etc etc.

Not only does this "experiment" allow systems to be tried out, and maybe adopted by others or abandoned,  but also allows more local control and people can move if they don't like one. The top-down management style of the recent administrations (and I guess throughout history the nature of an organization, especially government or corporate to aggrandize itself) is bad thing. Where is the "diversity" or chance to change anything if everything is mandated and dictated by Washington (or later the UN etc?)

[paladin1991]

There is no Constitutional right to vote.

Kinda the point I try to make.  If 'they' claim that it is their right, then exercise it dammit.  Don't whine about it.  Or don't use it.  Let me and those who will vote decide what you are 'entitled' to. :

[paladin1991]

Mandatory voting is a nice sentiment, but we're already up to our asses in way too many layers of elected petty officials, resulting too often in govt by incompetent insiders and more recently, ideologue zealots. Local elections are a joke. Frankly, I often think we'd get better govt by random lottery.

Holy Shit Geezer!  I've often argued the random lottery idea and ppl have thought that I am batshit crazy.  Welcome to crazy, bubba.

[NowhereInTime]

The main problem with mandatory voting is that it is tyranny.  Dictators such as Saddam loved it because it allowed them to claim massive support.

Tyranny?  To force people to get off their self-important asses and utilize the freedom for which so many have died?  Hardly.

Too many people do not register and/or vote because they are dodging jury duty, warrants, or aren't involved in their own lives enough to do it.  It should be a crime to waste the blood of all those from the founding of our country through today by punting on your most important right.  To hell with that!

You presume this would be directed voting, like the Soviet Union and Saddam's Iraq.  If people wanted to "choose" not to vote, they could write in a non-candidate or there could be a "declined" line on the ballot, though the very notion seems silly.  This very exercise would prevent the seepage of tyranny into our national soul we've been witnessing the last thirty years.

Election Day should be a Federal/State holiday so: 1) people have plenty of time to get to the polls and 2) public transportation, normally clogged with work bound commuters, could be utilized by elderly and other people .

Absentee ballots are already the norm, they could be used, as could a voting by mail method similar to Oregon and Washington, though I would still like to see actual polling places available.

[albrecht]

Tyranny?  To force people to get off their self-important asses and utilize the freedom for which so many have died?  Hardly.

Too many people do not register and/or vote because they are dodging jury duty, warrants, or aren't involved in their own lives enough to do it.  It should be a crime to waste the blood of all those from the founding of our country through today by punting on your most important right.  To hell with that!

You presume this would be directed voting, like the Soviet Union and Saddam's Iraq.  If people wanted to "choose" not to vote, they could write in a non-candidate or there could be a "declined" line on the ballot, though the very notion seems silly.  This very exercise would prevent the seepage of tyranny into our national soul we've been witnessing the last thirty years.

Election Day should be a Federal/State holiday so: 1) people have plenty of time to get to the polls and 2) public transportation, normally clogged with work bound commuters, could be utilized by elderly and other people .

Absentee ballots are already the norm, they could be used, as could a voting by mail method similar to Oregon and Washington, though I would still like to see actual polling places available.

When we finally arrive to your socialist utopia will the "mandatory voting" be for all elections or just national ones? Are there any limits to the mandate, in other words? Local school board, municipal bond issues, referendums, State offices, judge-ships, justice of the peace, sheriff, dog-catcher (if that is an elected position in some city,) special elections, run-offs, etc? Will it also be mandated to vote in the party primaries (assuming that there will be at least two parties in the utopia?) Is everything voted upon to be done in one day (that could be one very, very long ballot if you consolidated national, state, country, and local elections on one day.)

[=Schlyder=]

People should then also have to pass a mandatory civics exam... before they cast their mandatory ballot.   

[136 or 142]

People should then also have to pass a mandatory civics exam... before they cast their mandatory ballot.   

There would be no Republic Party voters then.

[NowhereInTime]

When we finally arrive to your socialist utopia will the "mandatory voting" be for all elections or just national ones? Are there any limits to the mandate, in other words? Local school board, municipal bond issues, referendums, State offices, judge-ships, justice of the peace, sheriff, dog-catcher (if that is an elected position in some city,) special elections, run-offs, etc? Will it also be mandated to vote in the party primaries (assuming that there will be at least two parties in the utopia?) Is everything voted upon to be done in one day (that could be one very, very long ballot if you consolidated national, state, country, and local elections on one day.)

When we finally arrive to a day where people aren't wasting the blood and treasure spilled to protect this most sacred right then, yes, it should be part of every American's civic duty to vote.  Period.

Why is this such a difficult concept to accept?  It's okay to send off armies to die for our "interests" but not to require, as a function of citizenship, people actually exercising their franchise?

Figures you cons are crapping yourselves silly.  Your day would finally be done.

[136 or 142]

When we finally arrive to a day where people aren't wasting the blood and treasure spilled to protect this most sacred right then, yes, it should be part of every American's civic duty to vote.  Period.

Why is this such a difficult concept to accept?  It's okay to send off armies to die for our "interests" but not to require, as a function of citizenship, people actually exercising their franchise?

Figures you cons are crapping yourselves silly.  Your day would finally be done.

1.It can also easily be argued that soldiers died so that citizens could exercise their right to not vote.

2.ALthough it is certainly true that non voters fit the profile of Democratic voters more closely, I've not seen any evidence that non voters would lean Democratic if they voted.  In fact, there is evidence from Canadian pollster Michael Adams (Environics is his firm I believe) that non voters actually more fit the profile of being George Noory/Alex Jones loons.

[NowhereInTime]

1.It can also easily be argued that soldiers died so that citizens could exercise their right to not vote.

I don't know if I accept "easily".  I would be surprised if many veterans (especially a majority) would be okay with people not bothering to vote.

2.ALthough it is certainly true that non voters fit the profile of Democratic voters more closely, I've not seen any evidence that non voters would lean Democratic if they voted.  In fact, there is evidence from Canadian pollster Michael Adams (Environics is his firm I believe) that non voters actually more fit the profile of being George Noory/Alex Jones loons.

This leaves out the heavy voter suppression activity (taking the Voting Rights act to court, poll taxes, voter id requirements, police presence at polling stations, lack of voting equipment in poorer areas) undertaken by the right wing elite for decades.

If they that fought hard against people exercising their rights, and have their knickers in a twist about this idea, it screams volumes about how they would view a future where all people voted.

[albrecht]

When we finally arrive to a day where people aren't wasting the blood and treasure spilled to protect this most sacred right then, yes, it should be part of every American's civic duty to vote.  Period.

Why is this such a difficult concept to accept?  It's okay to send off armies to die for our "interests" but not to require, as a function of citizenship, people actually exercising their franchise?

Figures you cons are crapping yourselves silly.  Your day would finally be done.

I vote. It is quite easy to do (I would argue too easy.) But you ignored my question. In your utopia which elections would be mandatory? Every election? At all levels?

[136 or 142]

This leaves out the heavy voter suppression activity (taking the Voting Rights act to court, poll taxes, voter id requirements, police presence at polling stations, lack of voting equipment in poorer areas) undertaken by the right wing elite for decades.

If they that fought hard against people exercising their rights, and have their knickers in a twist about this idea, it screams volumes about how they would view a future where all people voted.

I don't see how mandatory voting would prevent any of those things.  All it would do is significantly decrease negative campaigning, which is a major positive for me that tends to make me lean in favour of mandatory voting.