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Obama: Maybe It's Time For Mandatory Voting In US
HughPickens.com writes CNN reports that when asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it's time to make voting a requirement. "Other countries have mandatory voting," said Obama "It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly. "The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups. There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls." At least 26 countries have compulsory voting, according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison. Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. That means about 144 million Americans — more than the population of Russia — skipped out. Critics of mandatory voting have questioned the practicality of passing and enforcing such a requirement; others say that freedom also means the freedom not to do something.
With voter turnout this epically low, we are at the point where all the eligible voters who don't vote could band together and elect a president and VP who aren't even on the ticket. Whether or not mandatory voting would help is unclear, but voter disenfranchisement doesn't help anyone and neither do all the various voter suppression methods that we see in each election cycle. Something should be done to push back.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Voter fraud is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent anyway.
That's a huge Democrat lie. It is rampant where I live, and I have a neighbor who is a local "election judge" who even jokes about it. Not just a problem here either. Chicago and Ohio are pretty famous for it, and I very much doubt if it stops there.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
"The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups" - How convenient. Sounds like it's smack dab in the middle of the Democrat demographic.
"Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison" - So we're going to punish lower income groups and minorities by fining them or throwing them in jail? Yeah...great plan.
"There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls" - Really? That's a pretty loaded statement. Typical wedge politics.
"Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections" - Yeah, you know why? Because people are fed up with the whole political process, both Democrat and Republican alike.
The last time I checked America was still a democracy. Choosing not to vote, while not a great choice, is our choice to make.
Exactly. While the two parties may differ on certain things, on this issue, they are completely united. Voting Democrat isn't going to help stop domestic spying, because they're just as in favor of it as the Republicans, as seen by how it's been handled by both the Obama and Bush administrations.
Amazing how quick people are to point the finger at Bush, remind me again who just extended it? expanded it?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Talk to the idiot Republicans in congress, that shit is a throw back to that retarded cowboy that came before Obama NOT Obama! It is amazing how quick the public forgets and blames everything on the current administration.
Uh.. You know democrats voted overwhelmingly for patriot and its renewals (under obama as well), right? Patriot was a 'reaching across the aisle' moment.
Based on the same lies regarding WMDs in Iraq by the previous administration. I'm not saying the Dems aren't at fault for not doing due diligence, but there was a lot of screaming from the previous administration's side that pushed a lot of unhealthy decisions for the country.
People keep dredging up that so-and-so voted in favour of the patriot act or some other covert operations bill and it is certainly true that giving the security services such extensive powers was a mistake. On the other hand, if you guys had been a congress critter in the days after 9/11, would you have had the brass balls to make the career ending move of not voting the patriot act? On the other hand it's been close to 15 years now and it says a lot about the US political class that they still haven't grown the spine to let the patriot act expire and repeal the parts of it that didn't have sunset provisions.
They maybe not voting of the facts now, but imagine making everyone vote, even the ones that can't even be bothered voting now.
My opinion you is they should be advertising, you don't know don't vote. Not the current attitude of its your democratic duty to vote. It is your democratic duty to make an INFORMED vote, if you can't be bothered being informed you should not vote.
Making everyone vote would only increase the uninformed vote.
Just to accidentally veer back on topic for a moment (it won't last, don't worry), mandatory voting, at least if it allows write-ins, might do something a bit unexpected, too. A lot of people don't vote because they think (know, actually) that voting for either of the mainstream political parties is voting for more of "the same", where "the same" is not a good thing by the vast majority of measures.
Force them to vote, they may go, "ok, fine, I'll vote, but you won't like it." And consider: With only 37% voting previously, those people could ALL be outvoted by the new influx. This could be a huge win for 3rd parties / candidates.
Such a result would amuse the hell out of me. And it could be really, really good for the country.
So bring it on, I say. Remains to be seen if the votes of those who simply aren't engaged (the ignorant by virtue of busy or poor education... the stupid are pretty much accounted for already) would tear us a new one. But hey, the new one isn't likely to be worse than the one we've got now.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I forgot to add, for those that feel strongly about not voting, require a form of contentious objector status against voting, requiring renewal every so often (like once per decade) to qualify to not vote.
Why not just a "None of the Above" option? If NotA wins, all candidates in the election are disqualified, and new candidates must be presented.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
A prime example for mandatory voting is Swizerland. But they have a 'direct democracy' (mostly) which means many laws are directly voted for by the population, not in the parliament.
America has a much bigger problem than lack of voters. First of all it is the more than archaic voting system from the late 1700s.
Secondly it is the abuse allowed in it: we have a district that voted mostly republicans and it is surrounded by mainly democrates? But last 4 year many 'democrates' moved into that district?
Lets just reshape the districts, so we are certain that we still have a republican majourity in said district.
In america before every election the 'ruling party' reshapes the voting destricts based on population data in the hope to 'manipulate' the outcome in their desire.
In every other nation that is considered 'voting fraud' or 'voting manipulation'. In the US it is business as usually.
Then comes the need to register for votes ... poor and underdogs, minorities etc. don't like to register.
Then you have the two party system (I really wonder why you laugh about China etc. with a one party system ...)
Then the 'electors' system ... it got changed at some point, but it is still retarded.
Then you had the Bush voting frauds ... come on, in every nation of the world, that is not a dictatorship, that election had been invalidated and Bush would be in jail and had haved no chance to even stay up for the 'Ersatzelection' ... but now 15 years later, who cares *shrugg*
Americans are really really strange regarding that ...
And from thst everything that is evil follows in the USA.
Who gets voted into office? Judges? Sheriffs? State Attorneys?
None of them is doing his job, they all only work to get reelected!!
Police cought one who has no aliby?
Sheriff: lets drop the hunt for the true culprit, lets focus on catching more idiots!
State atorney: How can we get him convicted? Hm, should be easy, he can not defend himself!
Judge: the harder I punish him, the more points I get for the next election!
How retarded is that? In germany the prime responsibility of a state atorney is to convict the right culprit, not a random 'victim'!
There are plenty of cases (in germany) where the state prosecutor in the end himself in the final speech plead 'non guilty' because it was obvious the guy charged was non guilty. Something like that can not even happen in the USA ... your law system is not much better than sharia, except cheating on your spouse is not punished (yet!)
Lets not even start with the idea that a jury in our days is the right thing to 'judge' a culprit.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The government can force you to pay taxes, serve in the military, and go to jail for a long list of inconsequential things, but forcing you to show up and put a piece of paper in a box once every four years is going too far?
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
So do you really want the uninformed/non interested making a vote.
The unspoken assumption behind this proposal is that yes, Obama does want the uninterested and uninformed to vote, because he assumes they will trend Democrat. Some of the Democrats' greatest strongholds are high-density urban centers where both education and income levels are low. So Obama extrapolates that out and decides that means that mandatory voting will be a big windfall for Democrats, and give them a one-party lock on government.
I suspect that the reality wouldn't be as rosy for them as they're hoping. I could see it being a boon for third parties, as people who have no interest in the two major parties are compelled to find a candidate they don't hate.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Now that's cute. It doesn't stop to amaze me what the average American can get worked up over when he perceives some imaginary "liberty" being taken away that would actually make some sense, but as soon as some bullshit patriotism, safety or thinkofthechildren is paraded in front of him, he accepts any and all freedoms being taken away "for the greater good".
Not that this is one of the better ideas that Obama ever had, but the reasoning for your rejection just doesn't make any sense.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.