Posted on 07/13/2010 7:44:53 AM PDT by SmartInsight
Or at least a “None of the Above” option, which, if it got the most votes, meant a new election with the candidates from the previous ballot banned from running.
Frankly, I think its time to limit voting “rights”. To be able to vote a citizen should 1) provide documentary proof of citizenship, 2) pass a written exam on the governmental organization and operation in the US (Civics), and 3) own property with proof of taxes paid prior to the current election.
If you are a welfare dependent, you should not have a right to vote since you are a “ward of the state”.
http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring07/elections.cfm
Property requirements were widespread. Some colonies required a voter to own a certain amount of land or land of a specified value. Others required personal property of a certain value, or payment of a certain amount of taxes. Examples from 1763 show the variety of these requirements. Delaware expected voters to own fifty acres of land or property worth £40. Rhode Island set the limit at land valued at £40 or worth an annual rent of £2. Connecticut required land worth an annual rent of £2 or livestock worth £40.
Ben Franklin lampooned these requirements for property ownership thusly....
“Today a man owns a jackass worth 50 dollars and he is entitled to vote; but before the next election the jackass dies. The man in the mean time has become more experienced, his knowledge of the principles of government, and his acquaintance with mankind, are more extensive, and he is therefore better qualified to make a proper selection of rulers—but the jackass is dead and the man cannot vote. Now gentlemen, pray inform me, in whom is the right of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?”
Now we all know plenty of jackasses out there voting! But really? ;)
Actually the Dem plan is that everyone is forced to vote and all are counted as Dem votes.
Come on now. Forcing people to vote in a free democratic election is self-contradictory and just plain nonsense.
Of course it might get a little embarrassing when the nightly news opens with, “results of the election today revealed that for the twenty third time in a row, ‘none of the above’ garnered a majority of the votes.”
Of course on the other side of the coin, with nobody in office they couldn't do as much damage!
Liberals' client constituencies don't vote heavily enough, so he wants to herd them to the polls with cattle prods.
Gotta earn your way on the Democratic Plantation, boy.
Only those who are net contributors to the government should be allowed to vote. And, even among the net contributors, those who have not studied the issues and the candidates should be encouraged to skip it.
If everybody votes, we’ll be more free, and the government will be more legitimate. Win win!
Time to bring back the poll tax. The uninterested and uninformed should be discouraged from voting.
Thanks. I went looking for the specifics in the Constitution about land-owners being authorized to vote. Couldn’t find it.
Now I know why.
The Constitution originally left it up to the States as to who could vote and who could not, although later Amendments would spell out (and expand to) a near universal adult enjoyment of the voting franchise; making adult suffrage the Constitutional (but not entirely originalist) position.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
~~ http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html
Then only government could vote. Stop paying your taxes and see if you really own your land.
Well, it is restricted but I see your point now, verification at the polling booth. Agreed.
Did you know that a legal resident alien can vote?.............
The Democracy of Athens had rather limited exercise of the voting franchise.
And a Constitutional Republic like ours can have universal adult suffrage.
But yes, once 51% or more of the voting public is dependent upon government largess; the overwhelming tendency will be to vote for “bread and circuses”. In a Democracy there would be no check upon this impulse, hopefully a Republic under actual leadership can and will.
Full support.
Heck, I’d chip in some money. Here’s 5 bucks, go buy yourself a Big Mac.
Thanks for taking away my voting rights, jackass.
Add paying ‘car tax’ to the list, and then you might have something to say. Some of us just starting out haven’t bought property yet.
The lazy and uniformed would not know how to vote.
Most people who choose not to vote are doing their fellow citizens a favor by not having their ignorance dilute the votes of the informed. Compulsory voting sounds like what communists and third-world despots enact because they know they need the illusion of popular support to continue their anti-human campaigns as “the will of the people”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.