Compulsory voting: yes or no?

[Exxosia]

One thing that immediately comes to mind is that voting legitimizes evil. These politician scum, who are often only able to reach the voting stage because of special interests pumping them full of money, can then say they have the consent of the governed by pointing to the vote. If you make everyone vote, you are forcing them to put a stamp of approval on evil and give politicians carte blanche to trample and destroy.

Now one way around this would be to have various options for "none of these candidates," "abolish this office," "defund this program entirely," et cetera so people can have a direct anti-establishment choice.

[Zottistan]

Anybody know what the Y axis on that graph represents? Because I've got a feeling it represents the percentage of each bracket that voted, in which case the poor's interests are represented fine (although not fairly). Anyway, if the poor have a problem with how things are run, they can start voting. It's as simple as that. "Don't care" is a valid opinion.

Secondly, pandering to special interest groups would still happen if there was mandatory voting, because it would still be an easy way to get votes.

[Gaiserin]

You shouldn't vote for anyone, simply for the sake of voting.

[Fanosolia]

I think it should be compulsory, it's just really hard to justify. Even if it was will everyone? No, stuff happens. Just long as we don't get thrown in jail for jerking our voting duty, fine.

[United States of Cascadia]

One thing that immediately comes to mind is that voting legitimizes evil. These politician scum, who are often only able to reach the voting stage because of special interests pumping them full of money, can then say they have the consent of the governed by pointing to the vote. If you make everyone vote, you are forcing them to put a stamp of approval on evil and give politicians carte blanche to trample and destroy.

Now one way around this would be to have various options for "none of these candidates," "abolish this office," "defund this program entirely," et cetera so people can have a direct anti-establishment choice.

Not voting is de-facto "none of these candidates."

[Yumyumsuppertime]

God, no. All those people who sneer at voting, or don't keep themselves informed enough to vote, or just don't think that it makes a difference? I don't want them casting votes.

[Vasatra]

I think voting day should be changed to the first Saturday of November.
I think that way alot more people would vote .

I just looked this up, and apparently your presidential elections are held on a Tuesday? What the hell is that? That's the middle of the week, everyone has to work!

I think it was because Jefferson wanted to make sure employees couldn't vote.

[Seleucas]

I'd only support compulsory voting if it could be made into a civil disobedience issue. Otherwise, voting serves no purpose for me, so I don't want to waste my time with it.

[Earth in Roughly 1000 Years]

I'd only support compulsory voting if it could be made into a civil disobedience issue. Otherwise, voting serves no purpose for me, so I don't want to waste my time with it.

Aren't you an anarchist?

[The Two Jerseys]

I just looked this up, and apparently your presidential elections are held on a Tuesday? What the hell is that? That's the middle of the week, everyone has to work!

I think it was because Jefferson wanted to make sure employees couldn't vote.

Come on, back then if you were allowed to vote you wouldn't even be working in the first place.

[Murkwood]

No! Why force someone to do their civic duty? The less people vote, the more my vote count.

[Seleucas]

I'd only support compulsory voting if it could be made into a civil disobedience issue. Otherwise, voting serves no purpose for me, so I don't want to waste my time with it.

Aren't you an anarchist?

Yes, I am. (Not sure how that relates to the quesiton at hand.)

But I don't vote because A.) My individual vote will have no impact, and B.) The iron law of oligarchy more or less makes it impossible to make the state abolish itself, since the organization to win an election, and to profit from it, would easily resist an electoral effort to abolish said system. Anything from saving a few dollars on taxes on up will make more of an impact than voting.

I also feel that the Republican and Democratic parties are so close together, that, given the inherent unpredictability of whether or not they will fulfill campaign promises, makes it exceedingly likely that there will be little difference in which one I choose.

[Grainne Ni Malley]

Does compulsory voting qualify as an oxymoron?

[Lalaki]

Voting should be optional. That said, people should vote.

If you don't, expect the people you disagree with to get into power.

Don't like the makeup of Congress? Less than 40 percent of Americans vote in the midterms. If you are a part of the 60 percent, you have contributed to the current makeup by not having your opinion heard. You could have gotten someone else in power. One vote multiplied by millions can make an extremely large difference.

George Carlin isn't always right.

[Maqo]

Does compulsory voting qualify as an oxymoron?

Why would it?
You could at a stretch call it 'overbearing', but there is nothing in the idea of voting that makes it voluntary. Many organisations have compulsory voting for members.

In my view it makes the government more legitimate - they did everything in their power to let your opinion be heard. In light of all the other obligations one has under the government, spending half an hour once every two years to attend a polling booth is pretty minor.