Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Should the U.S. Adopt Compulsory Voting?
Rasmussen Reports ^ | July 13, 2010 | Debra J. Saunders

Posted on 07/13/2010 7:44:53 AM PDT by SmartInsight

In Australia, it's against the law for citizens age 18 or older not to vote.

Brookings Institution Senior Fellow William Galston has proposed that America adopt the same system to increase voter participation. In the 2008 presidential election, 61.7 percent of eligible Americans voted, according to George Mason University.

I object.

For one thing, Washington should not coerce citizens by making them vote. In a free country, those who do not wish to vote should be free to abstain.

And while there is no proving that higher turnout means more left-leaning votes, political scientists of both stripes tend to believe that mandatory voting delivers more votes to the left than to the right. Again, quantity does not mean quality.

(Excerpt) Read more at rasmussenreports.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: elections; government; voting
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-70 next last
To: I cannot think of a name

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.


41 posted on 07/13/2010 8:43:29 AM PDT by Ellendra (I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who say it's a crisis, ACT like it's a crisis!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: SmartInsight

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”.


42 posted on 07/13/2010 8:50:31 AM PDT by texson66 (Congress does not draw to its halls those who love liberty. It draws those who love power .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Responsibility2nd
Nowhere is the requirement of land ownership for the voting franchise spelled out in the Constitution, and by 1850 those requirements were eliminated. There were specific colonial and later state requirements for voting; but they were NOT based upon the Constitution.

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? ;)

43 posted on 07/13/2010 8:51:47 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: SmartInsight

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.


44 posted on 07/13/2010 8:52:34 AM PDT by Truth is a Weapon (If I weren't afraid of the feds, I would refer to Obama as our "undocumented POTUS")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ellendra
“Or at least a “None of the Above” option”

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!

45 posted on 07/13/2010 8:54:33 AM PDT by I cannot think of a name
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: SmartInsight; BenLurkin
Brookings Institution Senior Fellow William Galston has proposed .....

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.

46 posted on 07/13/2010 8:57:10 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SmartInsight

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.


47 posted on 07/13/2010 8:58:46 AM PDT by cynwoody
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SmartInsight

If everybody votes, we’ll be more free, and the government will be more legitimate. Win win!


48 posted on 07/13/2010 9:01:55 AM PDT by Cboldt
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SmartInsight

Time to bring back the poll tax. The uninterested and uninformed should be discouraged from voting.


49 posted on 07/13/2010 9:12:39 AM PDT by RightOnTheBorder
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: allmendream

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.


50 posted on 07/13/2010 9:39:15 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (PALIN/MCCAIN IN 2012 - barf alert? sarc tag? -- can't decide)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Responsibility2nd
Franklin was opposed to the idea of property ownership as a requirement for suffrage in principle, and made a rather humorous joke out of it; the “jackass principle”.

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.

51 posted on 07/13/2010 9:45:52 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: allmendream

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


52 posted on 07/13/2010 9:55:45 AM PDT by Responsibility2nd (PALIN/MCCAIN IN 2012 - barf alert? sarc tag? -- can't decide)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: Responsibility2nd
But we should return to the Constitution when it allowed only land-owners to vote.

Then only government could vote. Stop paying your taxes and see if you really own your land.

53 posted on 07/13/2010 9:59:40 AM PDT by Malsua
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Red Badger

Well, it is restricted but I see your point now, verification at the polling booth. Agreed.


54 posted on 07/13/2010 10:00:24 AM PDT by Bob J (Will all my comments be censored?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Bob J

Did you know that a legal resident alien can vote?.............


55 posted on 07/13/2010 10:03:54 AM PDT by Red Badger (No, Obama's not the Antichrist. He's just some guy in the neighborhood.............)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: Responsibility2nd
Universal suffrage is not any more or less indicative of either Republic or Democratic governance.

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.

56 posted on 07/13/2010 10:05:07 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: coloradan

Full support.

Heck, I’d chip in some money. Here’s 5 bucks, go buy yourself a Big Mac.


57 posted on 07/13/2010 10:14:10 AM PDT by BenKenobi (I want to hear more about Sam! Samwise the stouthearted!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: texson66

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.


58 posted on 07/13/2010 10:16:38 AM PDT by BenKenobi (I want to hear more about Sam! Samwise the stouthearted!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: SmartInsight

The lazy and uniformed would not know how to vote.


59 posted on 07/13/2010 10:19:07 AM PDT by ThomasThomas (Isn't enough always enough?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SmartInsight

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”.


60 posted on 07/13/2010 10:25:05 AM PDT by OrangeHoof (Washington, we Texans want a divorce!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-70 next last

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.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson