Mandatory Voting, really?

[benveniste]

Today we have yet another politician proposing a law which would try to legislate "good" behavior by U.S. citizens, criminalize personal choices, and have a disporporationate impact on the poor, minorties, and the disabled.  Only this time, it's President Obama who is "floating" the idea.

I refer to the suggestion President Obama made in Cleveland

Comments

[smofbabe]

I think this proposal would only work if it is combined with your other point, which is enabling the young and poor to vote more easily by switching election day to a weekend or making it a public holiday, increasing the ability to vote by mail or having an extended voting period, and so on.

In answer to your question about what President Obama was trying to accomplish with this idea, right now, only the most motivated people vote, as witness the embarrassingly low percentage of voter turnout. It's a lot easier to motivate your base to turn out to vote using fear and divisiveness. If voting is mandatory, parties have to change their messages to appeal to more centrist voters.

Note: Australia has mandatory voting with an extended early-vote period and the election is held on a Saturday.

You might be interested in a fascinating alternate history novel dealing a lot with this issue written immediately post-WWII by Nevil Shute, called In the Wet. (Bob Devney probably has a copy :-> )

[kevin_standlee]

I oppose mandatory voting. It leads to thinks like "donkey voting" (marking the first choice, or in an IRV ballot, numbering choices 1--2-3-etc. regardless of who the candidates are in the order they're listed). The right to abstain should always be included in the right to vote. And I want a meaningful None of the Above as well, not something like what happened in the Nevada Democratic primary last time around, where NOTA had the most votes, so the nomination went to the person who finished second.