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 ...
Right. Because it’s always best to have the least motivated and least informed make the most momentous decisions of a nation.
DemocRat Candidate
Republican Candidate
MALDEF - La Raza Endorsed Candidate
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eGOP Candidate
Maybe it's time for affirmative action dipstick presidents to STFU.
Okay - I’ll go along with it when the gov’t issues photo ID’s to vote.
I’d like just one rule for voting (other than being of age and being a citizen): You can vote only if you paid more in taxes than you received in any benefits. E.g. you are a “net” tax PAYER.
If you vote against the racist Jew-hating Sunni-In-Chief, you're a racist.
Do people even notice the creeping tyranny, in every aspect of life? I don’t think most people even realise that we are frogs in a pot of water being brought slowly to a boil. The fact that after all the effort to kick prayer out of school and taxpayer-funded life, we are now being forced to either pay obeisance or remain silent, to the sodomite agenda, and have our children indoctrinated in it, at the same taxpayer expense, is astounding when you think about it.
Maybe it’s time for Odildo to shut up.
Obama: Maybe it’s time for mandatory voting
Why say this now ?
The problem, unfortunately, will not be faced by most of the current crop of political "leaders," for obvious reasons.
Must be jealous of the 72% turnout in Israel.
Another Victory of 99.87% for the Socialist Unity Party!
The remaining 0.13 remains in loyal opposition.
Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt Euch!
Maybe it’s time you shut up.
So....what would be the penalty for not voting? Should we build prisons? Should we grant automatic citizenship to a random illegal alien and revoke it from a native-born citizen should the NBC not vote?
Honestly...the ideas that come from the shrunken brain of this idiot are so twisted.
You have to give him credit, he never tires of thinking up ways to attain greater and greater control over your life, does he?
This man is the same kind of dirtbag as the people who voted for him.
It would be transformative if everybody voted
You don’t have to go vote the Democrats will vote for you ?
He believes in mandatory everything.
As usual, never look at the idea. Look at what is behind it.
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