Posted on 03/19/2015 8:00:05 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The president whose major policy achievement is mandatory health insurance thinks maybe voting should be mandatory, too.
Asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it's time to make voting a requirement.
"Other countries have mandatory voting," Obama said Wednesday in Cleveland, where he spoke about the importance of middle class economics, and was asked about the issue during a town hall.
"It would be transformative if everybody voted -- that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly.
The clout of millionaires and billionaires in campaign funding has been enormous, and many claim the uber wealthy have undue leverage in politics.
"The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups," Obama said. "There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls."
At least 26 countries have compulsory voting, according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison.
Aside from campaign finance issues, the United States also grapples with one of the lowest voter turnout rates among developed countries.
Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. That means about 144 million Americans -- more than the population of Russia -- skipped out.
But mandatory voting could bring its own set of problems. Haydon Manning, associate professor at Flinders University in Australia, said that country's rules can backfire.
(Excerpt) Read more at edition.cnn.com ...
Why stop there? Just go all the way & fill the ballot out for us, a**hole.
OMG, what an idiot.
“Transformative” = run like the wind!
Wouldn’t being able to prove you voted be virtually the same as having a national ID?
In practice, with everyone from phone companies and cable providers to medical insurers using SSN as an identifier, we’re pretty close to a national ID for everything EXCEPT voting!
And then taxpayer funded get out the vote drives.
This is the communist tactic of seizing control of state apparatus to cement their position.
Over 100% turnout in some precincts wasn’t enough for this ahole.
There’s a bunch of people who would vote “PRESENT” ... or ... “NONE OF THE ABOVE” ... :-) ...
My thoughts, too!
Voter id is “racist”
How bout a simple civics test before voting..
like “Do you think it is ok for government to take money from one person and give it to another?”
If they answer YES they have failed and must leave the polling station.
If they answer NO. They are allowed to vote.
its interesting that most totalitarian countries have mandatory voting.
Socialism: Ideas so good that they have to be mandatory.
He explained that those “votes” were an effort to signal that he was “open for dialogue”..
We know what that means, don’t we?
Not enough dead people were ‘voting’.
I want to get the backhoe contract before the next election.
They will just take to doing what Clinton stated with the census, ESTIMATING the uncounted and adding them to the columns.
What is not required is prohibited.
Since he also believes in “card check” Can presume that the mandatory voting he wants would also be recorded as to how we vote as well ?
Probably how the a**hole got elected in the first place.
But mandatory voting could bring its own set of problems.
Imagine the POTUS said the sun revolves around the earth and the story says, “But some scientists dispute his claims.”
That is the wrong response. The correct response is, “This POTUS is batsh** crazy. We gotta get rid of this guy.
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