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 ...
‘Isn’t that racist?’ Hey, Obama, if you want mandatory voting, won’t you need this?
Mandatory voting = mandatory voter ID.
Obama hates everything about a free country.
Will Obama put us in jail if we don’t vote? Or jail us if we don’t ‘vote his way’?
What is this - a North Korean hellhole with an insecure jerk running the place?
Democrat lowlife.
He's hoping for the ignorant gimme votes and illegal invader votes.
No one sees that these are the utterings of a wannabe dictator?!?!?
This is insanity!
I’m guessing that all the ballots have only one choice in the box to mark. And that one choice will always be for a Communist/Socialist.
Disgusting!
maybe, then, we can get mandatory recall.
The federal government can require you to vote.
You must mark it off on your tax form.
A tax penalty will be due if you did not vote.
We have precedent for this already.
Mexico has mandatory voting but their police being more respectfully of peoples right’s and their chosen state of ignorance on politics don’t enforce it.
The truth is most people don’t vote for the very rational reason that they don’t care enough to do the research required to vote intelligently. They have correctly concluded that we are better off without their effectively random input, and we almost certainly are. The random vote of an ignorant American is little more than a name recognition popularity contest having no positive effect on policy or issues about which the same voter has chosen to remain ignorant (Usually in favor of spending that time & attention on their own personal lives).
Thus if you care for ‘Democracy’ working in a meaningful way you will encorage people to exersize discretion in the process of voting. If they can’t be bothered to learn about anything on which to vote they probably shouldn’t vote.
Mandatory voting will not force people to become or remain informed it will only is not only a violation of people’s right to exercise their own free will, its aimed at forcing people to act without thinking or otherwise being prepared.
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.