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Friday, March 20, 2015 - 9:52amSanction this postReply
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President Obama floated the idea of mandatory voting, citing Australia as one country that does it, and arguing that it would reduce the influence of money on politics. I'm not sure how much it would reduce the influence of money. It might even increase it, because with more people voting, the candidates would see it as even more important to campaign for everyone's vote.

 

Besides, there is a sense in which not voting is itself a vote: namely, none of the above. So what difference does it make whether one enters a booth and refuses to endorse a candidate or stays home and refuses to endorse one, enters a booth and refuses to support a petition or stays home and refuses to support one? The result is the same.

 

Moreover, if people don’t care enough to bother voting on their own, why would they care enough to think through the issues and make an informed choice? Do we really want this type of voter weighing in on public policy?

 

Finally, mandatory voting would negate the principle of choice in the very act of forcing people to exercise it. Our President loves making things mandatory: Initially, it was mandatory health insurance; now it's mandatory voting. What's next: mandating which candidates you can choose between? He could cite China's control on Hong Kong's elections as an example of that.



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Saturday, March 21, 2015 - 5:12amSanction this postReply
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting



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Wednesday, May 6, 2015 - 6:24pmSanction this postReply
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It would increase the influence of money on politics.  People would be forced to vote using deceptions and inadequate info upon decisions they were making because only the interests of money can get information to the public.

 

Media and information used to create informed opinion must serve the voters decision making.

 

Aside from that campaign finance creates unequal info to the public regarding candidates.



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Thursday, May 7, 2015 - 8:33pmSanction this postReply
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Obama often pursues policies that work on many levels:

 

1.  In the current environment it would increase the votes of the least informed and least motivated which would tilt the vote towards the progressives more than the any other candidate.  

 

2.  This will be a red-meat distraction from what is already going on with the almost uncountable number of scandals.

 

3.  If it were ever passed, it would help to increase government control over individual action (the core theme is that everyone must do what is politically correct, as if that was religion incarnate, and don't worry, the elites will let you know what is politically correct.)  Note the stages: First lock up freedom from a third party by regulations, then lock up the ability to become a viable candidate in either major party by stacking those decks,  then make voting manditory, and finally remove all candidates but the ones chosen in advance by the established elites.  (They get to keep a facade of democracy but would have removed absolutely everything but that naked facade with nothing behind it - a kind of hollow 'sanction of the victim' but only in the eyes of those that are willing to believe that forced vote for the establishment chosen non-representative is really democratic)

 

4.  It works like a giant lie - a giant, purposeful confusion - Protect our freedom by forcing people to vote? - Choosing a candidate is mandatory?  An epistemological  fuzziness between what is freedom and what mandatory means in that context is not a confusion that will aid in protecting man's rights.



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