Voting ensures people that people learn about their position with respect to issues which are critically important for the national growth and development. In the 2012 US election, a mere 53.6 percent of Americans turned up to vote, and the picture is even bleaker when we look at the midterms: ever since the 1940s, turnout has sat at under 50 percent, effectively meaning that the majority of the population doesn’t have a say on who controls congress. Haydon Manning, associate professor at Flinders University in Australia, wrote that his country’s compulsory voting system requires politicians to use “banal sloganeering and crass misleading negative advertising” in order to woo disengaged citizens. With a turnout of 72.21 percent and a majority vote of 51.89 percent, the UK voted to leave. Using them as an example, the presenter rhetorically asked whether anyone would want people as stupid as these to exercise their vote. What is true for all is that each country that has adopted mandatory voting has its own cultural and historical precedent informing the decision: Belgium and Thailand, for example, adopted the system to bypass the possibility of buying votes, while its implementation across Latin America seems to be more rooted in tradition. Further still, the powers that be have spoken and there is to be no second referendum. Many of these countries enforce the law: Australia, perhaps, being the example best known to the western world, legally obliging its citizens to vote since 1929. The youth turnout, comparatively, was very low: 36 percent of young people didn’t turn up to vote. Perhaps we ought to remember that politicians are also (often notoriously) chameleon-like in their ability to adapt, and a different group of voters would effect a different set of political priorities. Compulsory criminal voting can therefore help habituate otherwise marginalised and excluded citizens to exercise their democratic rights. Of course, the problem is that in order to function effectively and represent the people’s will, democracy requires mass participation. This can lead to avoiding more beneficial and sophisticated legislation for the sake of simple answers to capture the swing votes. Support List Land! In Australia, voters who do not respond to the notices sent by mail or refuse to pay their assigned penalty could lose their driver’s license. So why should voting be? 3. They could purposely vote against certain proposals or candidates to be disruptive. In more direct democratic exercises such as referendums, mandatory voting would force people to engage with whatever question were posed – if not at a profound analytical level, then at least as superficially as reading it, briefly processing it and then voting on it. The point of making voting mandatory is to encourage those who are not, for whatever reason, to do so. People should be forced to vote because if they are forced to vote they may choose randomly because they probably just really don't care and … 9. For example, less than 37% of eligible voters voted in the 2014 American midterm elections. In 2013, 5.9% of votes that were cast in Australia’s election were informal, which was the highest rate since 1984. Here are 10 reasons why all democracies should enforce mandatory voting. In Australia, the experience is a community event and part of the culture. These ballots are not counted towards a candidate or issue. There is no question that many people are disengaged with politics, as reflected recently by some shockingly low turnout figures both on a local and national level. For those who refuse to pay an assigned penalty, the costs to enforce a revocation of a driver’s license and other penalties have a cost as well. taxation, compulsory education, or jury duty). In New Hampshire, it was $50 per voter. Mandatory voting is the best way to encourage politicians to focus their attention on all Americans, not just the middle and upper classes. This can only be hypothetical, of course: but if mandatory voting had been in effect it’s highly probable that swing voters would have cast their ballot and made the crucial difference, saving the country potentially years of future pain. In Australia, the election costs per voter, for each major election that is held, is about $15 per voter. By Waleed Aly. Jan. 19, 2017; Voters in Canberra, Australia, in July. The fallout from the referendum has been cross-party political meltdown, a currency crash, and a shock loss of market confidence that will most likely see the mass exodus of UK businesses to the mainland. Informal votes that were classified as deliberate went from 34% in 2001 to 49% in 2010. According to one surv… Clinton, for all her principles, embodies dynasticism (though, of course, this isn’t a historical first), while Trump – though he’s currently lagging behind in funding his campaign – symbolizes the prevalent role of wealth in modern democracy. A number of retorts are often given to this question, most of which, as Eric Liu argued, reflect nothing more than a pessimistic valuation of democracy. There are some governments that had made vote mandatory or else. Mandatory voting is already in place in 26 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Ecuador, Greece, Singapore, Switzerland and Uruguay. It turns out, however, that in this case their decision to abstain may have been very costly. essay voting should be mandatory for all citizens, pros and cons voting should be mandatory debate, reasons why voting should not be mandatory. That means the government is a better reflection of the population. In his spare time he enjoys spending time with his wife, mountain biking in Southern California, and running. Voting can be seen to be a duty of citizens just as jury service and the requirement to pay taxes are civic duties. They engage in debates and confront controversial ideas that may not work. 06 April 2020. It can reduce interest in local elections. It will also give people a voice because they will choose individuals who will best represent their values, Wants and needs. 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By voting, it allows our country to be run by a select individual who every one deems the most competent to … Political choices are, by nature, amongst the most subjective choices around, and anyone suggesting that compelling people to vote could prevent bad choices from being made must be ready to face a counter-assertion. Forcing them to vote is forcing them to simply toss a coin and pick someone. The Democratic Party interpreted these actions as voter suppression tactics. Mandatory voting, for all of the negative attention it generates, is actually a misnomer. If the voter chooses not to vote, then penalties can be imposed if a sufficient reason for not voting cannot be provided. That would reduce the need to take actions to ensure integrity which others see as voter suppression. Voting in the United States should be mandatory because the citizens of this country care for their freedom while other citizens are fighting for everyone else's freedom. On the other hand, you have those who censure the choice of those who consciously avoid performing their civic duty, exercising their franchise and having a say in the shape their government takes. Whether they buck the trend by exercising their right, therefore, will become clear only after November 8. At the very least, the introduction of compulsory voting would see if not the reduction then the end of that group of people who pride themselves on their political ignorance because it ‘does not affect them’ by involving them directly in the political process and making them active contributors rather than passive receptors. An important compulsory voting con is the consideration of certain religious groups and their religious freedoms. It is a vote that says the voter rejects all candidates, the structure of the government, or other personal reasons. Voters just need to show up and make sure their ballot is cast. And secondly, when it comes to the privilege of not having to vote, license should not be equated with laziness. So, should all citizens be required to vote? Arguments in Favor. The key to democracy is in the word’s etymology. Requiring all citizens to vote may result in politicians choosing to focus on marginal voters and swing voters instead of their trusted base in order to win the election. Far from banning prisoners from voting or making it difficult for them to vote, democratic governments should legally oblige felons to … Crucial in swinging the vote would be the youth vote – deemed most likely to vote remain, not least because of the more tangible benefits they had from membership of the EU: freedom of movement and work around the Eurozone being one of them. These people are generally young, lower income, and skewed more heavily toward immigrant groups and minorities. Writing in the Daily Signal, Spakovsky used the twenty-fourth amendment to argue that making voting mandatory would infringe upon one of an American citizen’s most cherished rights: the liberty be left alone by the government.