5 ms·

There's a very important reason to do this which no one has brought up. US elections have a lot of vote-suppression shenanigans; in some noteworthy cases (inclu

There's a very important reason to do this which no one has brought up. US elections have a lot of vote-suppression shenanigans; in some noteworthy cases (including the 2000 Presidential election), fraudulently removing voter registrations, understaffing and obstructing poll locations changed the outcome. This sort of thing becomes much more difficult to execute and much more difficult to get away with if there's an expectation of 100% turnout, as in countries which have mandatory voting; large asymmetric chunks of the population failing to reach the polls no longer look plausibly innocent. I think mandatory voting is worth having for that reason alone, in addition to the other reasons.

debracleaver 10y ago
Jim, shenanigans is the word that comes to mind for me as well. I've yet to meet this mythical "apathetic American" that people talk about, but I've met tons of people who were prevented from voting by administrative incompetence (at best) and what appeared to be deliberate attempts to prevent citizens from casting ballots. Here's an fun example: 7 out of 9 of the states that were prohibited from changing their voting laws under the VRA of 1965 immediately passed restrictive laws once the VRA was gutted.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  >I've yet to meet this mythical "apathetic American" that people talk about Well now you have.
- lotharbot 10y ago
  I've met plenty of people who don't vote for reasons of apathy. Especially in midterms. I also have one friend who always casts a blank ballot, as a matter o principle.
- jeremyt 10y ago
  You've never met an American apathetic about voting? Are you from a foreign country?
- hackuser 10y ago
  > 7 out of 9 of the states that were prohibited from changing their voting laws under the VRA of 1965 immediately passed restrictive laws once the VRA was gutted. Here's a question that I'm not sure you can answer publicly: Ideally, support for voting should be non-partisan, and everyone seems to want to operate on that principle (including Vote.org). But what if it is a partisan issue? What if the most important problem is that one party truly opposes voter turnout? Personally, I think that's the case, and I think our failure to address the real problem, for whatever idealistic reasons, is the primary reason we make so little progress.
sbuttgereit 10y ago
Put a gun to people's head to vote? I can think of few things more morally reprehensible than that. An individual should determine how, and if, they participate in civic life for themselves. The view that sees individuals as simply so much chattel labor existing for the benefit of whichever bureaucrats running the state at a given moment is simply unsupportable by any sort of real logic. To give you warm and fuzzies that vote-suppression did not occur is insufficient cause to demand that I participate in a system that, where I live, has no effective choices in any election cycle and frequently poses questions which simply should not be open to democratic opinion at the get go. Your view is also terribly naive. If you get your way, what prevents the "shenanigans" from simply moving to another part of the process, say before the vote? Also, I would simply turn in a blank or random ballot because playing along with the sham of legitimizing the outcomes of questions where there is no choice is not tenable: do we stop secret balloting to prevent my antics? Do we evaluate the votes I make to determine whether or not I'm being a good citizen? The big lie of much of "democracy" is, as a magician once put it, "When I cut the cards, I let you glimpse a few different faces. You conclude the deck contains 52 different cards (No. 1—Pattern recognition). You think you’ve made a choice, just as when you choose between two candidates preselected by entrenched political parties (No. 7—Choice is not freedom)." Your proposal simply puts the threat of force to those that would not otherwise play the charade.
- jimrandomh 10y ago
  The other parts of the process also have shenanigans, yes. Those are worth fighting against, too. I have no problem with people making protest votes and am genuinely confused by your implication that I would have a problem with people turning in blank or random ballots.
  - sbuttgereit 10y ago
    I'm confused that you think that you have the right to tell me what to do. You don't. Not even by proxy to some "authority".
    - cinquemb 10y ago

debracleaver 10y ago

Jim, shenanigans is the word that comes to mind for me as well. I've yet to meet this mythical "apathetic American" that people talk about, but I've met tons of people who were prevented from voting by administrative incompetence (at best) and what appeared to be deliberate attempts to prevent citizens from casting ballots. Here's an fun example: 7 out of 9 of the states that were prohibited from changing their voting laws under the VRA of 1965 immediately passed restrictive laws once the VRA was gutted.

nommm-nommm 10y ago
>I've yet to meet this mythical "apathetic American" that people talk about Well now you have.
lotharbot 10y ago
I've met plenty of people who don't vote for reasons of apathy. Especially in midterms. I also have one friend who always casts a blank ballot, as a matter o principle.
jeremyt 10y ago
You've never met an American apathetic about voting? Are you from a foreign country?
hackuser 10y ago
> 7 out of 9 of the states that were prohibited from changing their voting laws under the VRA of 1965 immediately passed restrictive laws once the VRA was gutted. Here's a question that I'm not sure you can answer publicly: Ideally, support for voting should be non-partisan, and everyone seems to want to operate on that principle (including Vote.org). But what if it is a partisan issue? What if the most important problem is that one party truly opposes voter turnout? Personally, I think that's the case, and I think our failure to address the real problem, for whatever idealistic reasons, is the primary reason we make so little progress.

sbuttgereit 10y ago

Put a gun to people's head to vote? I can think of few things more morally reprehensible than that. An individual should determine how, and if, they participate in civic life for themselves. The view that sees individuals as simply so much chattel labor existing for the benefit of whichever bureaucrats running the state at a given moment is simply unsupportable by any sort of real logic. To give you warm and fuzzies that vote-suppression did not occur is insufficient cause to demand that I participate in a system that, where I live, has no effective choices in any election cycle and frequently poses questions which simply should not be open to democratic opinion at the get go. Your view is also terribly naive. If you get your way, what prevents the "shenanigans" from simply moving to another part of the process, say before the vote? Also, I would simply turn in a blank or random ballot because playing along with the sham of legitimizing the outcomes of questions where there is no choice is not tenable: do we stop secret balloting to prevent my antics? Do we evaluate the votes I make to determine whether or not I'm being a good citizen? The big lie of much of "democracy" is, as a magician once put it, "When I cut the cards, I let you glimpse a few different faces. You conclude the deck contains 52 different cards (No. 1—Pattern recognition). You think you’ve made a choice, just as when you choose between two candidates preselected by entrenched political parties (No. 7—Choice is not freedom)." Your proposal simply puts the threat of force to those that would not otherwise play the charade.

jimrandomh 10y ago
The other parts of the process also have shenanigans, yes. Those are worth fighting against, too. I have no problem with people making protest votes and am genuinely confused by your implication that I would have a problem with people turning in blank or random ballots.
- sbuttgereit 10y ago
  I'm confused that you think that you have the right to tell me what to do. You don't. Not even by proxy to some "authority".
  - cinquemb 10y ago