Should the U.S adopt compulsory voting?

[ScatmansWorld]

Currently there are 21 countries in the world with compulsory voting laws, with some of them including Australia, Brazil, and Turkey. Most of them have a higher voting turnout than the U.S, which has the potential benefit of making citizens more politically informed, as well as further encouraging politicians to meet their citizen's wants and needs. (Although, it's also worth noting some of these countries like Australia use a Single Transferable Vote system instead of the U.S's winner take all system.) Would a compulsory vote generally improve the lives of Americans? For the sake of argument, let's say this adopted system allows you to cast a blank ballot if you don't want to vote for anyone.

 

[Mr. Popo chan]

I would rather have some required way for people to prove they even know who or what they are voting for .
"I always vote democrat/republican so that is what i do" is trash votes as for all you know, the candidate you are voting for could have huge gaps in what you think is important vs what they think. US needs more valid has a chance to win options, and more people voting on the issues and ideas of the person and not just based on some monolithc "party"

Forcing the uninformed to vote doesnt make it a better election, it just makes more idiots get power based on buzz words and who bought the most air time... like we dont pretty much already have that now

 

[Poop Shoot]

God no

 

[Flea Man Marbles]

Not only is this unconstitutional, it's a bad idea. The apathetic voters will just randomly pick somebody or vote for a weird 4th party candidate. This is how you get a Pastafarian in office (not that that wouldn't be an improvement)

 

[Johan Schmidt]

If you cannot refuse to engage in the democratic process, then it's not a democratic process.

 

[SuperShibuyaFighter]

Kys for this thread.

Imagine actually wanting mandated forced voting by the government

 

[Stan]

Only if theres an "abstain" option for every race on the ballot. Some people come to the polls just to vote on one race or referendum, don't know and don't care about the rest.

 

[Blacklight]

Fuck no, we already have issues with retarded and uninformed voters going and screwing things up for people. I want voting to be harder to do, not easier.

 

[Dysnomia]

Hell no. Totally retarded idea. In most cases it's a choice between a douche or a turd anyway. But damn if you are gonna take away our rights to choose neither.

 

[Grotesquependulum]

We aren't 21 countries we're the one and only U S of A and the only compulsory part of our elections is hearing about it.

 

[Duke Nukem]

Fuck no, it's bad enough we have only two parties that aren't much different from one another that have any realistic chance of winning. If anything you'll see more joke votes for cartoon characters or something as a middle finger to all this garbage.

 

[Asian tech support]

Years ago I'd have argued that it was your civic duty to vote but now all I see is loads of people who have no business voting or engaging in civil discourse at all voting for retards they don't really know anything about besides said retards wear the right colored socks.

 

[Jewthulhu]

I unironically think no one should vote.

 

[Colloid]

No. Not voting is an alternative to supporting either side of the political spectrum with its own implications.

 

[Back me up!]

Nahhh.

The only rules should be that you need id and have to vote in person. None of this mail in shit, if you want a say in the country you have to physically show up and vote.

 

[Magicicada_septendecula]

Not only do I think it should not be compulsory, I think there should be more restrictions on who can.

 

[I (Don't) Have A Gun]

Can America even do this? To enforce this the government needs a list of all citizens and a means of tracking who has and hasn't voted. America can't even get national voter IDs going or stop all the illegals and the literal dead from voting.

 

[NerdShamer]

Can America even do this? To enforce this the government needs a list of all citizens and a means of tracking who has and hasn't voted. America can't even get national voter IDs going or stop all the illegals and the literal dead from voting.

Technically, we could. But it would mainly be driven by fines or the threat of an short stint in jail.

Realistically, it would probably result in some random politician whining about voter fraud because everyone voted for the other party out of spite.

 

[Spiny Rumples]

I would rather have some required way for people to prove they even know who or what they are voting for .
"I always vote democrat/republican so that is what i do" is trash votes as for all you know, the candidate you are voting for could have huge gaps in what you think is important vs what they think. US needs more valid has a chance to win options, and more people voting on the issues and ideas of the person and not just based on some monolithc "party"

How about we just remove the party markings from ballots? Right now they're in separate columns, so a person can just go from top to bottom for their party.

 

[BikeLock]

We need to shrink the voting franchise, not expand it.