...that I also like Chocolate-Mint ice cream, and now I'm hungry.

Thanks...thanks a lot.

None of the others would...or do.

An apathetic person forced to vote will pretty much just vote randomly. And I prefer a physical paper ballot over all other options. If an election is 51% to 49% with online votes, who is validating them? Plus, not everyone has internet access.

It's a statement that a person doesn't think that an election will make enough of a difference to make it worth their time, and/or that they do not wish to confer legitimacy on a process that doesn't respond to their wishes. When you look at how little really changes when you go from Democrat to Republican and back again, it's hard to argue the issue.

Low participation rates is a failure of the system to engage the population, trying to make it mandatory will just piss people off more than they already are.

none of the above or a write-in vote.

The SSA does have an address for each person, but unless one updates them when one moves, it may not be accurate. Besides, the SSA believes that their info should not be used for any other purpose. The RWNJs would never tolerate a national ID, even though their SSNs are in fact, just that.

And if that's the purpose, it's passive aggressive. And useless. Why should those elected care?

It may be "passive-aggressive", but what's the alternative for someone who perceives the ballot box to be a farce? I myself have turned in blank ballots as a protest before - because I always vote, as a rule - but it is functionally no different than simply not showing up at all. Other than that, the only real way to deny consent to the process is open rebellion, a step that few would take lightly.

you can vote for the Green party or any third party or even a write in.

I used to write in my name or my Dad's name in my local district, because only the Republicans were running a candidate.

There is no excuse, and they have perfect legitimacy. They represent the voters, the only people they have to represent.

it says "we the people", which includes people who can't, don't, or won't vote

I think it's the maple syrup flavoured one.

For the stupid no.

...I also believe that two things should go in hand.

One should be able to choose the method, be that:

Vote online
Vote by mail
Vote at ballot box

Two, one should be able to vote for more than one person, or sign the ballot none of the above.

Or one of the similar options?

What is "STV" ?

STV is Single Transferable Vote. The way it works, if I understand correctly, is that you have the candidates and mark them in order of your first, second and third preference. After the votes are counted, the lowest polling candidate is dropped. If that was your first choice, your vote now goes to your second. And so on. So if the completed voting card looks like this:

Steve Rogers 1st
Victor Von Doom 3rd
Reed Richards
Tony Stark 2nd

Then let's say, after the votes are counted, Steve is the lowest polling. He's then dropped off teh list and your vote goes to Tony Stark instead. Then they re-count and if Tony is the lowest polling, he gets dropped and your vote goes to Victor instead.

It's a little complicated but, as I understand it, that's essentially how it works.

Actually, I was just thinking of being able to vote for as many candidates as one wants, and whoever simply had the most would win.

Though I see a problem with possible ties, which the system you suggested may prevent.

It's called a write in. You can write in an obvious none of the above candidate (Mickey Mouse). I've voted for several fictional characters when the GOP is running unopposed as write ins.

HELL yes!

Jury duty, car insurance, health insurance...voting is clearly more important.

let Fox News decide for us, that would solve the voting problem.

Second miss $1000.00
Now lets see who doesn't vote
Reagan got elected by 18% of the eligible voters.The scumbag of the universe...That just totally sucks.

Because I don't want to hurt the poor who didn't vote for one reason or another. Of course, if we include the option for judicial waiver, that goes away.

Being nice is a lot less effective than being definite.
Ya know,I am not really a draconian creep but the disdain these folks have for voting has a lot more to do with lousy government than they realize...
There needs to be a "real" penalty for not voting without cause.

People can not be compelled to assemble anyplace including the voting booth.

The First, from memory, says the right to assemble shall not be infringed but we're not infringing it, we're encouraging it.

The SC has ruled that free speech is both positive and negative - including the right not to speak.

Therefore I don't think such a measure would be found constitutional.

Give each voter a refundable tax credit for voting. It should be sufficient to at least defray the costs of getting to the polls.
There should be another one (perhaps allowable every 4 years or something) to defray the cost of getting a voter ID, since so many states are requiring them now, and the courts seem to be OK with that.

I've said this before but the onloy fair way to do voter ID is to do it for everyone. Working from the SS rolls, mail out a national ID card to every citizen when they come of age, free of charge (although there could be a small fee for replacing them if you lose one or need it altered).

Last edited Mon Dec 1, 2014, 02:55 AM - Edit history (1)

Option A: Compulsory voting is almost definitely unconstitutional, primarily as an infringement of the First Amendment. Besides, not voting is still making a choice, it's little different than an abstention that goes to the majority.

Option B: Major federalism problem and practical concerns. The states themselves set most of the voting rules for their citizens, and Congress both cannot, and will not, usurp such authority or even allocate the funds for the "free" cards. Moreover, the nature, type and extent of early voting is still controversial in many areas, and is best left to the states.

Option C: Online voting is a disaster waiting to happen. Despite you confidence, cyber-security is hardly foolproof, no less for something as important as elections. Our government is routinely hacked and there are still problems with the ACA website. Why would a government voting system be different from any other online activity, public or private?

I would also note that you should be very careful what you wish for. Just because you make voting mandatory, it does not necessarily follow that many more people will actually vote, particularly since fines or worse will likely be very unpopular (think about how the ACA penalty still polls miserably with all segments of society), and that's assuming you garner sufficient support to pass the law through Congress. More importantly, those new or once lazy voters are not guaranteed to vote the way you want. All you may accomplish is increasing the number of Republicans in Congress, at least in certain areas.

It says the right to assemble shall not be infringed and we wouldn't be doing so, we'd be commanding people to assemble.

I'm not going to read them right now because I'm currently doing about fifteen things and my tired PC is already complaining but I will read them later.

And a pint of Ben & Jerrys "Minter Wonderland" to every voter!

One of my favorite flavors, however, is B&J's Mint Chocolate Cookie. Yummmmm . . .

Read the links when you have some free time. The Huffington Post article is a very quick and easy read. The Harvard Law Review Note is much more dense and scholarly, but describes some of the more detailed legal problems with mandatory voting in the USA.

Was a let down and our system of voting desperately needs a rethinkk .

I think it's called "Minter Wonderland", mint ice cream with chunks of dark chocolate in it. OMG, it's so good!

willing to face the consequence of not voting. You cannot make people vote.

The votes for fictional characters get discarded and the money all goes to adminstering elections in future.

Not the American way. Just kidding. Those are good ideas actually.

It would give a lot more people the time to get out and vote.

In other countries it's just part of being a citizen.

You WILL tithe the Church...
You WILL swear fealty to his Lordship...
You WILL vote for the candidates the Politburo provides for you...

...or you WILL suffer the consequences.

Nothing sinister about it, not sure why people think there is.

In my world, every voter shows up at the polls and votes in person. Of course there are absentee ballots for those who are out of their precinct on election day or those who are unable to travel to the polling location.

You could point to all the people who didn't vote.

Make election day a national holiday.

If that isn't enough to motivate you to vote, then I see no reason to force someone to. Frankly, such a person probably doesn't like any of the candidates or possibly isn't even basically knowledgeable about the issues to care. No reason to force such people into a ballot box

What other social problems can the Democratic party solve by making some behavior mandatory?

Mandatory home purchase?

No need to make them double down.

they wouldn't let us do it.” ― Mark Twain

Option A might be the only one that could really be trustworthy, though.

Jury duty is the only other privilege we have, and that's compulsory if you are called, so I see no problem here.

The US should have mandatory voting classes to teach uninformed people about our system. If they understood both the official version of our system and how things really work in comparison, they would be more apt to vote. If that happened, we could have an actual left leaning liberal win elections at the national level and maybe some (more) state level elections too, maybe even some local elections, at the very least.

Most of the people who do not understand the system and do not vote are liberals, at least from what I have seen. I think learning about our system and learning the purpose of elections should be mandatory. You'd be surprised how many people are completely ignorant of the system. There are far too many uninformed and far too many apathetic people who do not really understand why not voting is causing the country to continue to...as politely as I can clean it up...go to hell in a hand basket.

politically illiterate and will just significantly increase the noise level in the voting system. That said, I'm all in favor of improving and standardizing the voting system across the nation to make it more equitable and easier for many people to vote who really want to vote. I've voted for years now by mail in ballots and it's encouraged.

Oregon has vote by mail and it has been successful. I really don't think you can mandate someone do their civic duty and vote.

only contributes to the Artificial exsistance being promoted .

Compulsory voting would not work in this country, but I'm not opposed to compulsory education of voters. When I was a senior in HS, the board of elections came to our government class. THey had voter registration forms with them (and registered all who turned 18 before Election day, including myself) and brought a voting machine with them. As they registered us to vote, they also showed us how the (now obsolete) machine worked and explained the importance of voting. They were not partisan at all. But the new voters they registered that day were informed of how elections and the voting machines worked. I'd like to see every high school senior have that as part of their civics education.

Voting by mail-- In my state (NJ), you don't need a reason to vote by mail. The first year this was in effect was 2009. But because it's a (fairly) new law, very few people are aware of it (maybe if this were 2008 it would have been different). It's super easy, but campaigns and county clerks (a partisan position) have to do a better job of informing people of the option. Other states I've worked in (as a campaign staffer) have much stricter absentee voting laws. I'm in favor of lifting strict absentee voting laws and expanding early voting (which my governor vetoed on the basis of it being too expensive then scheduled a special election in October).

Online voting--- First of all not all states require your SSN when registering to vote (which is a good thing, I don't want to give mine out if I don't have to). And if states that don't already do so start requiring it for voting, you will (rightfully) get an outrage. I'm on the voting rolls in two states (I haven't voted in NY since 2006, my sister hasn't voted there since 2004 and we're both still on the rolls) and it shows that NY does not communicate with other states when it comes to cleaning their voter rolls (others are different). I don't have a common name, but for a state without a SSN on the form, a John Smith could be screwed over by an error. I'm all for being able to do things online but there has to be a better way of doing it that does not involve a SSN.

Perhaps if the state assigned everyone a voter ID #, then you could vote online. The technology is there, as evidenced by online banking (then again the companies that make voting machines without a receipt are the same ones that make ATMs that give receipts so I'm skeptical there). But I don't see it happening anytime soon.

You miss the point if you think otherwise.

I.e. cannot harass or discipline an employee who is late on election day, or who needs to leave early, if employee shows a receipt showing that they voted. Baseline minimum allowance 2 hours. If long wait times are widely reported, than whatever is the wait time should be the allowance; or at least increase to 4 hours.


I would try something like that before mandatory voting.

In the end, I might be persuaded to mandatory voting, but only if all else fails.

Another option is to make Election Day a federal holiday. If we did that and people still didn't vote in reasonable numbers (at least 80%), then consider making it mandatory. (Of course, if convenience stores, gas stations, etc are still open, what about those employees? Back to mandating employers allow time. This will force employers to plan their workforce on election day accordingly.)

B and C are also good ideas.

Just as it protects the right not to speak.

I don't want a numb nuts who can't name the POTUS picking any old box to check because he's forced to. It's bad enough half the voters are too stupid to know they're hurting themselves with their votes.

Didn't see it in the poll, but it's the answer, really.

Oregon has vote by mail. Guess what our turnout rates were for the midterm elections. Go on, guess. Or google it, i'll wait.

...

70%

Problem solved. Get vote-by-mail for the whole country, and watch the turn-out rise by 20 points for the mid-term elections.

It's not that people don't want to vote, it's that they don't have time to vote. Look at some of those lines at the polling places, especially those where the GOP-dominated state leg decided that the major metropolitan areas deserve about 1/3 the voting apparatus of the rural counties. You want to vote there, you set aside half a day, most of which is spent standing in line. Outside. In November. On a Tuesday.

Which brings me to my next point. People work, many at jobs where they don't get time off for voting. People often feel like they have better things to do than stand around waiting for an opportunity to cast a vote which may never happen in which case they have to cast a provisional ballot which probably won't get counted for candidates who all-to-often fail to inspire the slightest bit of interest. And that last bit is key, too: important as that local bond measure may be, you can't count on it to generate a lot of turnout. That takes high-quality candidates.

OR vote-by-mail. You want turnout? Go with that, no need to punish people for not doing something expensive, annoying, and difficult.

Know what else you get with vote-by-mail? An informed electorate. By sending out ballots and election information booklets describing candidates and ballot measures, you ensure that people have time to read about what they're voting for before they mark the page. People get to take their time, sit down, and think it over, without being rushed to get out of the tiny booth to make room for the next citizen. Nice, huh?

Another thing you get: instant paper trail. People differ on how reliable paper-free touch screen voting is, but vote-by-mail ends the debate because it's all on paper. No more wondering if the overpriced touch screen machine mis-read your vote by accident or by design, no more fretting over how to do a recount. With vote-by-mail you can shift your suspicion upstairs to the central tabulators where it belongs.

Anyway, that's my take: establish vote-by-mail nationwide, and watch the problem of midterm turnout evaporate.

'None of the Above', and if that option wins in any race, that race has to be run again, with different potential candidates, and none of those who ran for it before are allowed to re-run for that office, either in the new race OR the next election cycle.

but if people really don't believe their vote makes a difference,

then offer the option "none of the above". The problem with

that are the sheep, who go by (D) or (R) only. Unfortunately

the other parties don't get enough exposure.

I like it!

I like the idea but I don't think the US could afford a thousand on every voter. Still, that's quibbling over sums rather than the basic premise.