Should citizens be required by law to vote?

[cynatnite]

[tuvor]

1. Only if "None of the above" is one of the choices. n/t

[daveskilt]

2. not unless they can be required to think and be informed

otherwise Gary Coleman or britney spears becomes president

[tuvor]

4. Resisting...urge...to...reply.

Too...easy...

[smoochpooch]

9. I voted last Tuesday and left half the ballot empty

You should know who and what you're voting for.

[LiberalPartisan]

3. Nope....it's my vote and I can choose NOT to excercise it.

[Beelzebud]

5. I voted other. I think election day should be a national holiday.

Not mandatory, but give everyone the day off so there is no excuse!

[rucky]

6. Or else what?

voting prison? part of having a right is having the right to waive that right. If there is no choice, it's not really a right.

[LynzM]

8. I think in Australia, they are fined?

Some fine DUer please correct me if I'm wrong...

[sweetheart]

7. yes

but only if a true multiparty runoff electoral system
was instituted with proportional representation.
This way, it is not just forcing serfs to vote for the
communist party, but to be counted so we can share
voice in a democratic republic.

[brokensymmetry]

10. I voted NO.

If none of the available candidates represents my views or desires, why should I be compelled to vote?

If none of the available candidates offers a message sufficient to motivate me to vote, why must I cast a ballot?

And then there's the issue of the uninformed voter. Do we really need more votes from the ignorant and uninformed?

[johnnie]

11. No

The right to vote is one of the fundamental ideas that this country was founded on. To force a person to vote would be the opposite of what we are about as a nation. We have the right to speak up and the right to shut our traps too.

[cynatnite]

12. Someone at DU believes if a person doesn't vote...

they have no right to complain about the state of our country. I disagree with this notion.

[tuvor]

13. I never understood that line of "reasoning".

I still think a person should vote regardless, but that's as far as that goes.

[johnnie]

16. I've heard that line of reasoning many times

I disagree with it. I feel that as long as you live here and pay taxes, you have the right to bitch about the people you employ.

[GoneOffShore]

18. Count me with that opinion.

If you don't participate in the process, you have done your fellow citizens and yourself a disservice. And I would opine that if you don't vote you don't understand the concept of citizenship.

The idea of 'civic duty' seems to have been lost in this country. And with that loss comes a class of people who would control the rest of us because of the dereliction of that civic duty.

[saltpoint]

14. No, but perhaps electoral college vote clout should be determined

by a given region's actual percentage of eligible voters who voted.

If a higher percentage of eligibles voted in Mississippii than in Oregon, then they are owed greater representation.

If more elibigles vote in Boston than in Topeka, then that region scores the higher percentage of eligibles.

If our government is as Lincoln said it was -- of, for and by the people -- let's not reward the ones who sit on their butts and make sure the ones who do vote and participate have appropriate representation.

We could like, you know, start with the District of Columbia.

[daveskilt]

20. In that case you might as well lose the electoral college

If the percentage of voters showing up rather than the population alters the number of electoral college votes then the popular vote would be the electoral college vote. If more people show up to vote in wyoming than california for example then wyoming would have more say than california in who is president.

Im not saying this is a bad thing (apart from the wyoming part) but why bother with the electoral college at all?

[saltpoint]

21. Isn't the electoral college currently based on population density per

state?

So Wyoming has only a few and California has a lot, etc.?

What I'm wondering is whether electoral college totals could be decided by percentage of eligibles rather than population density. So it would be incumbent upon New York to turn out enough of a percentage of its eligible voters to earn its electoral clout over rural Alabama.

I would imagine a system like that would have to be per capita, but since we have that now, it's possible for Gore to have won the popular vote but Bush to have won/cheated to get the electoral college win.

My thought was to provide an incentive for people to show up and for volunteers to get their party registrants to the polls.

[daveskilt]

26. the problem becomes who decides on eleigble voters

florida 2000 would be nothing compared to this scam. If a states electoral votes are decided by eligible voters, then a controlling party could easily purge voter rolls (as was done in florida) and never be caught if they purge those who are least likely to vote. So for example the number of ineligible voters (felons etc) may suddenly rise in a democratic leaning state and it then loses electoral votes.

The electoral college is an archaic system with little relevance. Its intent was to insulate an uninformed electorate with regional biases. The assumption that voters would vote for candidates only from their own state led to the notion that in order to have a national election in a large country a small informed group needed to vote on behalf of the people. In a day of mass communication the problem of the electorate not knowing who a candidate is is absurd. The electoral college was meant to make sense of the large number of candidates the founders expected to see grow into the future. Rather than increased population leading to increased candidates. Mass communication has led to consolidation - a best chance to beat the other guy strategy that results in 2 parties with 2 centrist (or pretend centrist) candidates. While some may argue this is a good thing the lack of proportional representation often leads to people voting the lesser of two evils - hardly the expansive vision of the framers of the constitution. The US system leaves no room for a multiplicity of opinion, and no voice for other opinions to inform or advise the winner in a winner takes all society.

[0007]

15. That could be a dangerous thing!

[GoneOffShore]

17. Had this discussion in December

with some folks who live in Belgium.

Unless you have a doctors note or are religiously opposed to voting, you must vote if you live there. Otherwise you are fined. ( I may be wrong, as we had drunk a lot of Champagne that night.)

This seems to me to be a good thing.
http://www.idea.int/vt/compulsory_voting.cfm

Here's an interesting link with both sides of the debate stated.

[AndyTiedye]

19. Hell No!

At the rate things are going, we might be forced to vote for either Frist or Brownback. :puke::puke:

[blindpig]

22. Yes, with a NOTA option.

A plurality of NOTA votes would require a new round of voting. It might be a hassle but would truly reflect the will of the people, unlike the current situation.

[bigwillq]

23. It shouldn't be required.

Just because I don't like when the government imposes laws onto people just for the sake of imposing a law.

More people should vote, that's a no-brainer but more people need to become more informed in order to make the best possible decision as to who to vote for.

[Minnesota Libra]

24. I think voting should be required for getting..........

...a drivers license, car tags, or even tax return check. It will never happen but I still think it should be required.

[Xenotime]

25. yes. elections would be more truthful...

not just those who want to steal political posistions

[paparush]

27. Yes..and Election Day should be NATIONAL HOLIDAY!!!!

[nonconformist]

28. No. How would you enforce it?

Plus, it goes against freedom. I wish all people would vote, but you can't force people to do anything they don't want to do.

[Finder]

29. In some countries you are fined if you don't vote. n/t

[The2ndWheel]

30. What if nobody voted?

Just for the sake of argument, everyone just gets so damn sick of all of them, that nobody does anything on election day. I know it would never happen, because someone with ambition wants that power that the vote gives them, but just a fun question.

But no, nobody should be required to vote. If you truly feel that nobody represents you, you have no reason to feed the system that isn't representing you.

We see where this political system has gotten us; we're down to voting for the least worst wealthy white male.

[TahitiNut]

32. People would stop running for office before they'd stop voting.

One couldn't happen without the other. :shrug:

[Dinger]

31. I Chose "Other" . . .

Because I have three suggestions . . .

1) Let any adult U.S. citizen vote.

2) Have a national holiday, or give more time, say, a 3-day weekend to vote.

3) Some kind of incentive to vote, instead of a punishment.