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I can't see how compulsory voting is a good thing. Voluntary voting, I feel, has the effect of filtering out those that can't be bothered to vote and would ther

I can't see how compulsory voting is a good thing. Voluntary voting, I feel, has the effect of filtering out those that can't be bothered to vote and would therefore vote poorly (that is, based on whims and more susceptible to misinformation) if made to. I don't know that people who do choose to vote in a voluntary system have done their diligence on the people and issues they are voting for, but they at least meet a certain level of caring enough to go to the polls or mail out their ballot. Then again, it'd be nice to think compulsory voting would increase levels of civic engagement and make people interested in how government works and effects them.

edmundsauto 8y ago
One possible fallacy here is that people who vote have done their due diligence. I don't think that's a given, especially with how many 1-topic voters there are in the US.
Jedd 8y ago
I suppose like many things it comes down to what you grew up with. Very few people in Australia think we should move to a voluntary voting approach, and I don't see much inclination in the US or UK to move to a compulsory voting approach. This despite the absence of a clearly favourable outcome in any of those nation states -- which makes me think it might not really matter, other than perhaps hopefully requiring more effort and money to manipulate a larger number of voters. But again, no evidence of that either. Whether compulsory voting leads to a more informed population, as you suggest may happen, I'm not sure if it's true, or how you'd test for that.