1) If we aren't "weeding out" voters now, why would it be different? People currently vote for Mickey Mouse all the time. 2) Not possible to "handle it?" or to "enforce it?" I think both should get easier as voting technology catches up to real world technology. As for enforcing it, we do a pretty good job with enforcing Tax Day. Basically, as Americans, what are some things we are not "free" to abstain from: 1) Males and the Selective Service 2) Pay taxes 3) Jury duty 4) School until age 16 (18?) 5) Register for Social Security (?) 6) Provide for dependents I'd just like to add voting to that list. The fine is totally arbitrary. The IRS could just handle it as an extra tax: the "non voting tax." Maybe just reversing it as an "incentive" would be better: The "Voter" Tax Deduction.
You know what compulsory voting would make elections look like? Think Albania during the 70s. The voter turnout would be 99.998% and all those people would've voted for Enver Hoxha. That way, it's clear that everyone loves the great, wise, benevolent Enver Hoxha. Why not a 100% turnout, you ask? Well, gotta have some scapegoats when things start going badly or you feel like cracking down and opressing your people a bit harder.
Vote for fascism? Isn't that a bit strong? People don't vote for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the belief that their one vote doesn't matter much. We are saturated with opinion polls to death nowadays, and they are for the most part deadly accurate. (The only reason why the exit polls in '00 in Florida were wrong was because of voter, not pollster, error.) The other reason why people don't vote is inconvenience. When Oregon gave people the right to vote by mail, participation shot up. After a long day at work (we're one of the few places where Election Day is midweek and not a holiday), the last thing most people want to do is stand in line at a polling place. I don't chalk it up to ignorance or acceptance of the status quo as much as it's the media beating people down with the tacit idea that their vote really doesn't matter much. You want to define fascism? Fascism is forcing people to participate in a government-sanctioned process that does not improve the individual or collective good. And that defines most elections nowadays.
But isn't that pretty much the truth? Here in DC Al Gore won by something like 93%. What's the incentive to vote? If you're a Democrat, hey, you're set, no reason to vote. If you're a Republican you're screwed, no real reason to vote. And if you vote for a third party candidate, well then you're really screwed. Let's be honest, in the vast majority of circumstances you're vote doesn't matter. Take the elections this November, out of 435 House seats, only around 35 are estimated to even be competitive. Why should anyone in the other 400 races bother showing up to vote? I guess that after voting that they feel good for participating in democracy, but in reality, their vote doesn't matter at all with the outcome a foregone conclusion. Given the choice between getting a head start on dinner or voting in an election that isn't projected to be even close, it's not surprising that many people would choose the former. If someone wants to vote, good for them. But I'm not going to hold it against those who don't because from an objective standpoint it's really hard to fault them when the vast majority of the time their vote won't matter.
I agree with you, though it's worth pointing out that this works both ways. Imagine being, say, a Democrat in Utah. There is a way to resolve this: proportional representation by state in the House. Europe does this all the time. For example, New Jersey has something like 11 districts. So, for every 9% of the vote that each party earns in an election, they get one more vote. If the Democrats get 45% of the vote, they get 5 seats. If the GOP get 54%, they get 6 seats. If a third party is able to muster 9% of the state vote (much more likely than a majority of the vote in any one district) it gets one seat. The political parties then get to choose who gets those seats, and the delegation has to work together to represent the entire state, not just their district. Would increase the likelihood of people voting, cut down on pork projects and kill what Colin correctly explains as a single-party system that has sprung up in many areas.
Sure. Well, that's a whole different ball of wax. But what I'm saying is that now, as the system currently exists, it is very easy to argue that voting makes little sense. It isn't just something cooked up by the media, in most instances it's the truth.
This would be fantastic, and we've got lots of concrete examples of how it works in industrialized socieities, so it wouldn't be a blind leap. Admit it though, it's not as "fun" as forcing people to vote.
Because of constitutional considerations. The Constitution guarantees right to trial by a jury of your peers, therefore it's constitutional to compel peers to serve in the jury. The right to vote is implicit in the Constitution (I believe), but not the right to be voted for. Therefore, you cannot legally compel somebody to vote.
Humor. Actually, Scalia agrees with me on that. You do have a right to vote. You just don't have the right for your vote to count according to Benit..,er, I mean Antonin.
All Scalia did was agree that Florida Law ought not to be ignored by Florida courts, and that "seven days" means "seven days" not "as long as it takes to make the guy we want win". It was really very simple. All the rest of this crap you guys have managed to make up yourselves. Believe what Al Gore says, or find out the truth for yourself. Makes no difference to me. Beyond that, I have just one question: Why is it that people who don't care about politics, or who are completely satisfied with the status quo, or are too stupid to know that it's election day, should be forced by punitive measures to vote for candidates they probably know nothing about and decide issues they pobably don't understand? I just don't get it. The freedom to vote for the government of our own choosing is not diluted when some people decide to not bother. In Cuba or Iraq, when they hold their periodic "vote for our beloved dictator" elections and 99.9% of the people vote becuase they're afraid of what the secret police will do to them if they don't, does that make it a better election? I have always thought we were probably all better off not having elections decided by people who really don't give a shit.
http://www.fairvote.org/pr/index.html While good for the House, that's useless for one-seat (or even two) elections. I'd suggest Instant Runoff Voting for the Presidency, for example. High Voter Turnout is a GoodThing(tm), but addressing the root causes of low turnout ("my vote doesn't matter") will have better end results than some tax incentive. {edit: damn no-HTML settings...}
As I mentioned above, I was only "sort-of" serious when I started this thread. But Foosinho's link to the PR site made me think to check to see if there was anything out there on Mandatory Voting. Well, here we go: http://www.tcnj.edu/~psm/mvp/abstracts.htm It seems Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Holland, and Switzerland all have some form of Compulsory Voting laws. Pretty fascinating. The page is based on a Poly Sci conference from '97, and there are abstracts available for each paper, though only 2 have full texts in Adobe format. I skimmed the one on Absenteeism in Beligum and seems pretty useful. (Spends a lot of time on "invalid votes" a la hanging chads) Anyway, I still agree that PR and addressing underlying causes of political apathy would be a better way to go, but it's interesting and encouraging to note that some of the world's democracies have tried crazy ideas to make government of/by/for the people work...a difficult task in the best of situations.
"Those who study Italian politics would agree with the following generalization on voting participation in that country: although it is today somewhat lower than it used to be, it is still quite high, especially when compared to the abysmally low voting participation levels in the United States. Several factors are usually mentioned to explain the high Italian turnout: the fact that Italy unlike the US uses a system of automatic registration that puts the burden on the government, rather than on each citizen; the existence of strong left parties, such as the Communist party (now Democratic Party of the Left), and the Socialist Party (now almost defunct), who mobilize people of low socio-economic status, and the supposed existence of compulsory voting in Italy." From this part of the guy's abstract, it seems the Compulsory Voting system in Italy may be more an "unenforced" law. What do you think about having the government worry about registering us all?
The full text of this one is available... "This paper assesses the consequences of compulsory voting in Brazil, a practice which various academics and policymakers have both championed and maligned. The author posits that mandatory voting has a significant equalizing effect on the demographic and political composition of the voting electorate. This is particularly meaningful in the Brazilian context where extensive socio-economic inequality threatens the consolidation of democracy. The hypothesis is tested with the use of recent survey data from Brazil. The data allow the author to estimate the extent of inequality in political participation in a hypothetical voluntary setting across various social and political dimensions. The results provide not only a calculation of the effect of mandatory voting on equality, but also an understanding of patterns of political behavior within selected demographic groups. The author concludes that -- as far as equality is concerned -- compulsory voting laws are a useful means for instilling civic habits and building a participatory culture in nations where democracy is not yet well-established."
Here are some questions: If the government forces you to vote, how far is it really to the goverment forces you how to vote? If I believe the political system is corrupt and should be replaced, why should I be forced to participate in it? Has anyone noticed that since the unelected Supreme Court decided to rule on the constitutionality of state laws, that the voter participation numbers started to take a nose dive? Anyone think this is a coincidence? If the voters continue to pick my pockets by raising taxes I don't support, how does this produce faith in the civic good of the country? And, why should I be forced to submit to it?
I agree, Instant Runnoff is way to complex. The best voting system is Approval Voting - to vote for whomever you like no matter how many people you like. So in a presidential election, you can vote for both Gore and Bush and not vote for Nader or Buchanan to make sure that no radicals are elected. It is soooo simple. Just remember that there is no such thing as a perfect voting system - it is mathematically proven. http://bcn.boulder.co.us/government/approvalvote/goodsoc.html
The beef I have with proportional representation is that I don't really have a say in who represents me. I'm not voting for a person, I'm voting for a broad set of values/ideas/opinions that are somewhat similar to mine. Many people don't vote along party lines but rather depending on the person running. I mean, what if I live in a very liberal district in, say Michigan, where 70% of people end up voting for Democrats and then after the elections, those Democrats end up selecting a blind monkey from rural Oregon with views that make Joey Stalin look like Ghandi to represent my riding? Oh, and as for the instant runoff, I think too many people would think it's some sort of a gambling thing where you predict the outcome of the election.
The other big problem with parliaments, aside from party lists, is that small fringe parties often hold power way out of proportion to their numbers. The two biggest parties are so keen to form coalitions with smaller parties that the smaller parties can make huge demands for their participation, knowing that if their terms are not met that the larger party won't be able to govern. Perhaps the best example of this is in Israel.
The idea would be that each party would have a slate of candidates, and you'd vote for the slate. The slate would be ranked, so that the first seat the party earns would go to the first person, the second seat earned to the second, etc. You'd know who you're voting for in advance. It can be an issue abroad, I don't see this as much of a problem in a proportinally-representative US House. The only thing where coalitions would need to be determined is for speaker, since we don't have a PM and the Cabinet is an Executive Branch issue. If the Greens or the Libertarians or whoever can tip the scales toward one candidate or another, why shouldn't they use that power to further their agenda? Where multi-party issues become a problem for the US is in committee assignments, since that's primarily a two-party decision now. But that's not enough for me to go against the idea.
I think we perceive the demands as "huge" went in fact they are just, "demands." It's called democracy, and even minority views deserve some limited respect. The major parties in Israel and Italy and so on do "sway" to include the fringe agendas, but they still set the major thrust. This is how it should be. Here, our various alternative parties are totally frozen out.
Yeah, lets give KKK their own variety show on NBC so the voice of this opressed minority could be heard.
How would that be worse thandreck like the Anna Nicole Smith Show? Hey, if anyone wants access to KKK nonsense they can go to a KKK or related website. And since when is a KKK member or sympathizer barred from running for public office as it is now? Or from voting?