Compulsory voting in the USA: Yea, or nay?

[BazookaTrouper]

"civic duty"

Last year some Democrat politicians from Washington state (not D. C.) were enamored with Australia's compulsory attendance to voting booths on election days, and decided to take it upon themselves to try and make it illegal to not vote. This proposal died in committee last year, but apparently that wasn't enough to deter them from pushing for it a second time.

The Democrat's official reason for pushing for this is that it will "enable people to vote who currently cannot" and "make people more informed by giving them no choice but to vote". But knowing that a good chunk of Democrat voters often don't vote either out of laziness or out of protest, the more apparent motivation is that this bill is geared towards self-interest.

Representative Sam Hunt claims there will be no consequence for violating this law by not voting, but then why would you pass a law if there are no consequences for breaking it? What's going to happen if people break this law anyway? Fine them like in most countries where not voting at all is a crime? What's going to happen if someone gets fined and decided not to pay the fines? We already have people disobeying speed limits, but there are tangible consequences for that that range from fines to possibly imprisonment depending on how serious the infraction was (as well as the demeanor of the police involved).

A common argument that mandatory voting will lead to voters being more informed... this is just a dumb, baseless claim that has no merit to it whatsoever. Plenty of people who reliably vote already are dumb as a brick. I have been in electoral politics in the past, and holy shit have I run into people that make Patrick Star look like a genius without the brain coral. People who don't do basic research or are easily duped by ideologues, as well as people who blindly vote for candidates of a specific party regardless of what they will do once elected.

Is there anything I'm missing? Tell me in your replies below!

I support compulsory voting

I oppose compulsory voting

[RavVid]

I am an Australian who opposes compulsory voting

it is good for election integrity - much harder to stuff ballot boxes and you can't vote for people you think won't because about 95% do.

But it has the drawback of not needing to motivate voters to turn out. So it biggest plus is for politicians as I think you've noticed.

We also have preferential voting where if there are 5 candidates you have to number them 1 to 5. I think you guys might call it ranked voting. I won't go into details but if your #1 is at the bottom after all votes are counted, your vote goes to your #2 candidate. and so on till there is just the wining candidate left.

The net effect of compulsory and preferential voting is that it becomes compulsory to vote either Republican or Democrat (in your case). It is illegal not to. Nice for politicians huh?

Don't do it guys!

It is worth a lot to you that your politicans have to motivate you to get out to vote.

[BazookaTrouper]

Completely agree, though I'm not sure I follow what you were trying to say about election integrity and ballot stuffing.

Even though I'm American, I fervently support ranked choice voting. I have always despised the "winner takes all" and 2-party system. We're like a one party state, but with 2 tyrannical ruling parties instead of just one. Some people would point out we have other parties such as the Libertarian and Green parties, to which I would point out that not only do 1-party states often have other political parties, but just like those countries our institutions (SCOTUS and Big Media outlets that host debates) actively barricade third parties from winning elections. It frustrates me that on "democracy" and corruption indexes we aren't considered more corrupt and undemocratic than we are, but then I remember those organizations are often run by people who have shared interests with out powers that be.

[RavVid]

There are two forms of preferential (ranked) voting. Say there are five candidates.

In optional preferential you might vote 1-2-3 and leave out the two majors.

In full preferential, you would have to to vote 1-2-3-4-5 for a valid ballot. Note you can't leave out the two majors. Even though you don't want to vote for either major you have to put one of them second last in full preferential. If the non majors don't have a chance of winning then in your case you just voted Republican or Democrat whereas under first past the post you wouldn't have and You would have punished Republican/Democrats by depriving them of your vote.

Instead, in this hypothetical electorate the Republicans win by 50.5% to Democrat 49.5% and 100% of the voters voted for Republican or Democrat.

[RavVid]

It appears that voters have a lot of choice - there is the Greens party, the sex party, the marijuana party BUT the voting system channels votes to the majors at the end of the day. Australians have been voting preferentially since 1918 but most still don't realize putting a major second last is the same as putting them number one in most electorates.

There are a lot of nasty aspects to full preferential voting and toss in compulsory voting then it becomes compulsory to vote for the majors - in my terms the Liberals and Labor or Laberals as I like to call the duopoly.

Majors love compulsory full preferential because it becomes compulsory to vote for the duopoly.

Get this. A few elections ago we informally had optional preferential because whilst a vote should be 1-2-3-4-5 a 1-2-3 vote was still legal & counted. It was just illegal to tell people they could vote 1-2-3 and leave the majors out. One election a guy told voters they could vote 1-2-3 and omit 4 &5.

They chucked him in the clink At Her Majesty's Pleasure! That will be an unfamiliar term to you but it meant an indefinite term till they thought he had learnt his lesson and wouldn't damage the Laberals duopoly any more. There was of course a public outcry about this because it isn't very democratic but he still spent a couple of weeks in jail. Effectively for advocating not voting for the duopoloy. First legislation to be passed in the next parliament was to make it full preferential voting only.

The majors love the three card trick of compulsory full preferential voting. Don't fall for it. It is truly evil and corrupt.

[BazookaTrouper]

I find the formality of calling it "At Her Majesty's Pleasure", seeing as Elizabeth probably wouldn't have cared or possibly quietly opposed the decision in private. I always appreciated that Charles III is more vocal and acknowledged the British Empire committed atrocities, something his more popular predecessor didn't do.

The First optional preferential voting you mentioned would be the one I would prefer.

Also the last thing you mentioned; both the Democratic and Republican parties only care about their own self-interest. Any time they push for a law it's marketed as being to everyone's benefit, but just like my OP it's always just about consolidating their own power. I don't see any improvement to the American system without a successful revolution kicking them out, seeing as they only tighten their grip in the face of unrest.

[RavVid]

Sadly they make the voting laws. And corps get to lobby and if they get both majors on side then voters don't get a say on the issue. It is bipartisan which means like it or lump it.

QEII would not have approved I believe. The courts get sentence At Her Majesties Pleasure. Her Majesty doesn't get a say.

[normalice]

You have a lot speculative grievance in your question.