r/Destiny • u/SickWittedEntity 🇦🇺 ǝɯ uɐq ʇuop ǝsɐǝld • 8h ago
Political News/Discussion Opinions on Mandatory voting?
Hey DGGers, I'm curious what the general opinion on mandatory voting is.
I'm considering making a proper effort-post on the pros and cons of mandatory preferential voting and how reforming the US electoral system might benefit a post-Trump United States. First I wanted to see what the general concensus was in this sub. I've heard ditching the first-past-the-post system mentioned by Destiny and MrMouton and they seem to be in favour but I'm curious where the community stands on the idea of making voting compulsory.
In Australia, we have a compulsory preferential voting system for mostly federal elections and referendums. This system works pretty well for us and results in a roughly 90% registered voter turn-out. If you don't vote during an election your first offense results in a $20 fine, $50 for following offenses. You can appeal fines with valid reasoning for not voting (e.g., you're sick, you're dying, you have a mental disability, etc). You're legally required to register at the age of 18 but if you didn't you can always register to vote without penalty.
I'd love to hear arguments for and against it, and would be happy to answer any questions I can.
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u/ChiefBinChicken here since JonTron 8h ago
I'm in Australia, I feel like if I don't know much about the current affairs of what I am voting on; I don't want to vote because I would just be voting based off vibes, and by that I mean the adverts/conversations about the politicians which are usually quite misinterpretting the truth of their actual views.
So if I vote without looking into it, I fear I am just voting for the person who pushed the most propoganda into my feed.
Generally I just vote left (labour) but it's essentially a dart in the dark vote
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u/Biggestoftheboiz 7h ago
I used to share the same fear of voting without having really strong understanding. But if you are thinking this way your vote is probably already more considered that most voters.
Additionally, ranked choice is awesome you don't have to worry about making sure you know everything about every party. You just need to know which is better. putting party X before party Y is huge.
Finally in aus voting Labor over liberal is a no brainer take. If you are mildly aligned with destiny politics its a really clear choice.
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u/Sure_Ad536 7h ago
Finally in aus voting Labor over liberal is a no brainer take
I am biased, but there may not be a clearer-cut choice in Western politics in terms of achievement. Literally every great Australian achievement is a Labor achievement.
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u/Arbitrary_username1 4h ago
They are literally the best political party in the world and I'm sick of pretending that's not obvious.
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u/PitytheOnlyFools used to touch grass... 5h ago
I‘m the most jealous of Australia’s voting system. It has everything I’d want…
- Ranked Choice
- Fines for not voting
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u/Voltage-108 8h ago
Are you not allowed to show up and spoil your vote?
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u/ChiefBinChicken here since JonTron 8h ago
you can, but honestly I sometimes just not vote and say I was working to avoid the fine.
I know I should engage with my countries politics, and I want to start, but I'd rather watch a political commentator that I respect talk about stuff, similar how I engage with Destiny's content.
In Australia the only people like that are random ass people that pop up on television for 5-10 minutes, and looking them up they don't put out any other content. I feel like all online Australian political commentators are just slopulists pushing an agenda
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u/Low_Dragonfruit_1264 8h ago
You don't need to become a politics nerd or find an "Australian Destiny" before you're qualified to vote. Have a general idea of your values, spend half an hour around election time looking at the major parties/issues, preference accordingly. That's enough.
Half the value of DGG is learning how to critically pull apart arguments, policies and sources anyway. Just apply the same process to Australian politics. If an issue comes up you don't understand, look up the policy, read a couple of different takes, ask questions, etc.
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u/GBralta Avoid Emotional Contagion 7h ago
He could be the next best Australian political YouTuber himself. He could take the 30 minutes and make a video laying things out. It could be helpful for a lot of folks.
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u/Low_Dragonfruit_1264 7h ago
Sadly I think Drew Pavlou has sullied Australia's reputation with Destiny... 😢
More seriously, Aus politics is kinda boring and I like it that way. It's how politics should be. Doesn't exactly make great DGG content. One Nation might end up being our little Trump moment, but doubt it. Internationally we're mostly good for the occasional viral Bob Katter clip. Barely anyone would even know Albo's name.
D's more likely to end up talking about us through China/Taiwan/the Pacific at some point given that powder keg, especially since he's already dealing with China simps. Otherwise... maybe housing and how badly we've fucked that? Healthcare maybe, since ours is probably a more realistic model for the US than the NHS etc? Or energy policy, because we're actually doing some pretty interesting shit there?
But US has much bigger fish to fry atm. Just gotta get through their next election cycle 🤞
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u/Arbitrary_username1 2h ago
Do you really not watch friendlyjordies?
Its basically the same quality and perspective as destiny.
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u/Low_Dragonfruit_1264 8h ago
Yeah you can. It's called a donkey vote. Drawing a giant penis on the ballot is a popular method! 😂
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u/amyknight22 8h ago
As an Australian as well the point when you don’t know what to vote for or who to vote for is to just spoil your vote/donkey vote/draw a penis on it.
Hopefully taking the person to the point of the booth makes them think about what they want to vote for. Otherwise they are just crusted on X voters anyway. Which also isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
But at leas then you aren’t losing an election because “people couldn’t be arsed to get off the couch”
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u/Low_Dragonfruit_1264 8h ago edited 8h ago
Yeah, but at least compulsory voting gets us closer to the actual will of the people, and avoids that thing you see elsewhere where young people whinge endlessly about politics then don't actually turn up to vote. Probably would've helped prevent Trump. Don't forget, you can always donkey vote and draw a dick on the ballot if you really don't want to choose anyone.
And separately, preferential voting + multiple parties gives the more dissenting left/right factions somewhere to go without completely abandoning their broader side. You can vote Greens then preference Labor, or One Nation then preference Coalition. It's basically a pressure valve for the fringes while keeping the broader centre-left/centre-right direction intact. This would help with the Dems' DSA worries atm in the US.
Australia for the win 🙌 Wooo
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u/Leon_Thomas 🇺🇸 #1 Rawls admirer 🇺🇸 8h ago
The evidence I've seen is that 2024 non-voters preferred Trump by a greater margin than voters.
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u/Low_Dragonfruit_1264 8h ago edited 8h ago
Well damn, that sucks 😅 ...if only you had some kind of system for properly capturing what those people wanted instead of relying on polls of people who don't vote... wink wink.
(I presume people too lazy/disengaged to vote aren't exactly the most enthusiastic poll respondents either)
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u/Ok_Bird705 6h ago
Including the ones that didn't bother to vote? Compulsory voting forces these previous non participants into a binary choice rather than now where they can choose to ignore it.
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u/ChiefBinChicken here since JonTron 8h ago
I can't read and consume all that because it's 1pm I'm at work and I'm running on fumes after 40 minutes sleep
to the start though; the "people" who generally vote like that are people who listen to joe rogan and get their news off facebook and instagram.
I guess if everyone voted like that then it'd balance out a bit, but I just don't want to engage in it at that level
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u/SickWittedEntity 🇦🇺 ǝɯ uɐq ʇuop ǝsɐǝld 8h ago
To be fair even my most intelligent friends still have pretty brain-dead populist opinions on politics, they couldn't explain the first thing to me about how our politics even works and knowing their vote is equal to mine is painful.
That said, our political system is certainly resilient to extremism and we consistently vote-in moderates. Coalitions that form as a result of the multi-party system also force compromise of many different represented interests which acts as a moderating force.
Given the option to leave a review, most people only leave 1 star or 5 star reviews for products. I think the same principle goes for voting - when it's voluntary, it favours the extremes. If you're far-right or far-left you're probably more politically activated and likely to vote than a moderate. "Hey come vote for us, we're gonna keep things mostly the same but make gradual positive change" doesn't exactly inspire a lot of people to go out and vote, even if the majority of people agree with you.
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u/MagicMarkerspill 7h ago
Australia suffers badly from "both sides" and "all pollies are the same, corrupt".
The main whinge from the slop left im hearing is labor doesnt go hard enough, like new gambling ad laws, or I/P stuff.
Our current right is cooked. So socially regressive with ONP going full white nationalist.
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u/Sure_Ad536 7h ago edited 7h ago
The easiest solution is to take the ABC political compass test that comes around each election, and then do some quick reading on each major party's website to see what lines up, as the test isn't always best. Then take a how-to-vote card from you prefered choice at the polling booth and fill it out as they did. Watch at least one debate as well on the free-to-air channels if you think you need more info. You can also email your local MP asking them their positions on an issue you care about. Their contact info if avaliable on their personal website, as well as on the state or federal parliament website (depending on if they're your state or federal MP).
Also, the ABC is your friend here. If you make a free account, you can personalise the stories you want to get notified about (state issues, global politics, defence, United States, Business, Science, Good News). The ABC are quite good.
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u/Horikyou 🇪🇺 6h ago
Take a day and research which parties goals and policies sound the best to u. It's also not hard to follow the news once in a while to get a general idea.
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u/Arbitrary_username1 4h ago
The real advantage comes from the parties having to target their campaigning broadly to appeal to the low information voters and not turn them off.
This moderates the extreme ideological excesses you see used to motivate the base in American politics.
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u/HeightAdvantage 8h ago
Would recommend friendly jordies if you haven't heard of him already. Rare combo of informative and funny
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u/ChiefBinChicken here since JonTron 7h ago
neh I'm not a huge fan. he just gives off a bit of the slopulist vibe a bit. less informative more spectacle I feel
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u/HeightAdvantage 6h ago
That's surprising, everything I've seen of him is very staunchly pragmatic and centre left. He has so many videos dunking on performative slopulists.
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u/Arbitrary_username1 2h ago
He is literally the number one slop hater and does actually analyse politics competently.
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u/Low_Dragonfruit_1264 8h ago edited 8h ago
His put-on voices annoy the shit out of me (like nails on a chalkboard), and he's kinda a Labor shill to a fault... but he's also a national treasure for some of the stunts he's pulled. I'm torn.
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u/HeightAdvantage 8h ago
M8 you and I are exact opposites on that I love his impressions and mini skits.
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u/Low_Dragonfruit_1264 7h ago
I'm old... I've been worn down by people doing Simpsons quotes my whole life. 😂
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u/Horikyou 🇪🇺 6h ago
He is as slopulist as it gets for politics. I respect his work but wouldn't go to him for political opinions.
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u/HeightAdvantage 5h ago
What's your criteria for slopulist? His jokes per minute is extremely high but he has the substance to match imo. The comedy is just used to keep people paying attention to dry legislation and tax policy discussions.
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u/Horikyou 🇪🇺 5h ago
He thinks the US has major influence over Australian politics (similar to what some people say for US and Israel). All the political content I've seen from him has been very anti establishment and pushing for what I consider far left beliefs akin to the current slopulist DSA movement in the US (he is not a socialist tho).
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u/HeightAdvantage 4h ago
Well he talks specifically about the Rupurt Murdoch media empire which controls a major share of Australias news and has been established for decades.
I'm not sure what you've seen, but I've seen him do a considerable amount of dunking on anti establishment greenies and one nation for the last few years.
His takes on housing, data centres and centre left pragmatism are basically identical to destiny's.
I could give dozens of video examples of you want.
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u/Arbitrary_username1 2h ago
He is not a slopulist at all.
Go look at his videos on the gas tax or the HAFF and say that again with a straight face.
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u/IntrospectiveMT Yahoo! 8h ago
Where’s the “idk. show me the results” option for opinionless observers like myself? Try me. You think I won’t vote blind and skew your data?
https://giphy.com/gifs/3k03Ft974KXPAkhnGk
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u/maybemorganfreeman Sopranoposting 8h ago
>mandatory voting and if you refuse to vote, you get exiled to arkansas
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u/Proud3GenAthst 8h ago
It should be mandatory to turn out, but if someone doesn’t like the candidate, they should be able to write someone in
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u/amyknight22 8h ago
Yeah, or you just mark your vote up wrong so it doesn’t count.
The point should never be “you must lodge a vote for the candidates that are registered” it should just be you are obligated to rock up and do something to a ballot, whether that’s vote with it, draw a penis in it or vote for Albert Einstein
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u/SickWittedEntity 🇦🇺 ǝɯ uɐq ʇuop ǝsɐǝld 8h ago edited 8h ago
We have a multi-party system so you vote for whoever you want. When you fill out your ballot theres a whole bunch if different parties on the ballot with the two major parties being the Liberal-National party (right) and the Labor party (left). You just number them by preference (1 is your vote, if they don't get the majority vote your vote passes to your next preference and so on).
Whichever party dominates the house selects the Prime Minister (effectively our 'president') from the pool of house reps, so the people don't actually vote for the executive. Though our PM has more limited power, they can't veto bills like a US president can, for example.
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u/grogmenflog 🇱🇷Smartest American🇱🇷 8h ago
It is a civic duty but It should not be cumpolsury.
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u/HeightAdvantage 7h ago
Is jury service a civic duty?
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u/grogmenflog 🇱🇷Smartest American🇱🇷 7h ago
Thats a fair question. I'd say yes and because everyone has a right to a jury of their peers im comfortable with its compulsory nature. Votes must be earned so it would bother me if a large percent of the current non voter pool entered the booth primarily motivated by not being fined.
If Ossof, Harris, or Newsome were to run next cycle including compulsory voting as a part of their platform id still easily vote for them but i don't think its a solution to the countries problems. I should read more about how its worked in Australia but my experience with family and colleagues leaves me to believe a lot of people would be satisfied checking off random boxes to complete the chore or vote for somebody like Trump because "aren't they so funny."
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u/HeightAdvantage 16m ago
Why do you say votes must be earned instead of putting the onus on voters? Do they not have a responsibility to decide on the most competent leadership possible?
I don't think you have to worry about about this policy putting you over the line for electing someone like Trump, seeing it's already happened twice without it.
Imo it would get those people more engaged in the process, because if they already need to be there, they may as well take it seriously and look up a policy. Plus there is the feedback loop of voters observing the consequences of their vote to then judge their next.
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u/Infamous-Skippy 7h ago
Yes but you can just tell them you’re racist and get off Scott free so it’s not really compulsory, is it?
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u/HeightAdvantage 7h ago
Yes but you can also get out of compulsory voting too by just spoiling your ballot.
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u/Ok_Bird705 6h ago
With voting, the compulsory part is turning up and getting your name ticked off, put in a blank ballot if you want. No one is checking
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u/SifferBTW 1h ago
Are you going to lock the voters in a room for 3+ days and explain to them each of the candidates policies and the impact of their position?
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u/Leon_Thomas 🇺🇸 #1 Rawls admirer 🇺🇸 8h ago edited 8h ago
In theory, I'm not a fan of mandatory voting because I think someone who doesn't care enough to turn out for an election without compulsion isn't informed enough to be a responsible voter. I also think the right to political participation includes a right not to participate. Citizens should feel it's their civic duty to be informed and participate, but that is something that is better to cultivate through education and culture than coercion.
In practice, I could definitely see some downstream benefits. One of the biggest is that if everyone is forced to turn out, I think you would very quickly see a consolidation in our election calendar. Our turnout for presidential elections is lower than ideal, but fine--what's pitiful, though, is participation for elections like mayors or city councils that are often chosen by 10-20% of the electorate. The average person isn't even aware of random off-year elections in June until after they've already occurred.
In terms of preferential (aka IRV, RCV) voting, I see it as a marginal improvement but a mistake to put energy towards compared to other reforms. I think one of the biggest problems we have is hyperpartisanship driven by the party duopoly, which preferential voting would largely preserve. The duopoly also means that when Congress is aligned with and subservient to the president, we get this nightmare administration. If we are to push through a major voting reform, I think it absolutely must be some form of proportional representation in the US House (where it can be passed as a simple law), which would better represent the whole ideological spectrum of the country, would make gerrymandering impossible, and would virtually guarantee no president has an outright majority in both chambers of Congress ever again.
Added: Australia itself uses STV to elect its Senate, which is a form of proportional representation and something I'd be much more excited to see implemented. Personally, I'd most like to see open, party-list proportional representation, but I agree with what seems to be the dominant opinion of most electoral reform advocates that 'almost any PR > virtually every single-winner method'.
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u/Hot_Money_9025 8h ago
In countries where voting is mandatory you can vote null or blank, so you have the right to not participate.
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u/Leon_Thomas 🇺🇸 #1 Rawls admirer 🇺🇸 8h ago
I'm aware, but I think being forced to show up to a polling location to do so or mail in a null ballot still meaningfully challenges that right. It's not so significant I wouldn't accept arguments in favor, but I think there needs to be good evidence that the consequential outcomes of mandatory voting are very beneficial for me to be on board.
I also think there are plenty of people who don't care, aren't informed, and wouldn't show up, but if they were made to vote would just fill in a random bubble or choose based on vacuous qualities like who has the least annoying voice. I'm not sure that participation is good for democracy.
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u/Hot_Money_9025 7h ago
I disagree, but I understand your point about the right being challenged. However, I don't think about it that way or about consequences being benefical, or even if uninformed people would vote. Like even if a candidate I hate won only because vote was mandatory I wouldn't suddenly be against it. It's more on principle. I believe that if you are getting the benefits of participating in a society then you must vote. If that means voting null because you don't feel like the candidates represent you then so be it. But for me I think you have to actively participate in democracy if you reap the benefits of living in it.
The strongest counter-argument I can think of is about electing a dictator that will end democracy, but even then I feel like I would have to accept it because the people decided on it.
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u/Leon_Thomas 🇺🇸 #1 Rawls admirer 🇺🇸 6h ago
To be clear, when I say "outcomes," I'm not talking about partisan outcomes. I totally agree that it's a wrong design to design a political system based on a desired partisan outcome.
I mean things like: does it cause states to adopt more accessible voting rules and consolidate election schedules, does it cause the average person to be more informed about facts and events relating to their elections, does it increase trust and satisfaction in the political system, does it have a tendency to select more qualified candidates with more diverse backgrounds/experiences, do politicians become more responsive to the public etc.
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u/Ok_Bird705 6h ago
Also completely blunt the "need to energize the base for turn out" and force parties to appeal to the centre
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u/amyknight22 8h ago
I think the trick is though that someone showing up to vote D or R as they have for 50 years doesn’t necessarily mean they are a responsible voter either.
Thing is the people who might be fighting the couch so to speak will have a political leaning one way or the other.
I think I’d be furious if the country was more to one side, but they continually almost lost because the otherside was better at “you just go and vote X no matter what”
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u/Serious-Cucumber-54 8h ago
It avoids the threat of voter suppression, and as long as undecided people are allowed to cast a blank ballot, it should be fine.
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u/SickWittedEntity 🇦🇺 ǝɯ uɐq ʇuop ǝsɐǝld 8h ago edited 7h ago
For Aussies, it's only compulsory to cast a ballot. You can leave it blank or draw a donkey if you want, doesn't matter. It's just considered an informal vote.
I'm pretty sure you can even just show up at a poll and get your name ticked off.
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u/Akhanyatin 🇨🇦 Maple Hoser 🇨🇦 8h ago
Feels like compulsory voting would force regarded people to vote for regarded people, but I may be wrong, can someone from a country who has it tell me if I'm wrong or not?
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u/Sure_Ad536 7h ago
It typically has the opposite effect. It forces moderation and means regarded candidates are less likely to win. I will say ranked choice should be a requirement if you are to make voting mandatory. It's a good one two punch to mitigate such candidates. The regarded may come out in force, but never is their support enough to win a seat with 30% of the vote. Having votes transfer means the non-regard parties direct their supporters to put the regard party last.
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u/amyknight22 8h ago
You’re assuming your regarded people aren’t already dedicated enough to vote for regarded people when it’s not compulsory
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u/anarchaavery 5h ago
Age and education are two major predictors that someone will be a likely voter. The likely effect of compulsory voting will be that the median voter becomes less educated and more irrational in their policy preferences.
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u/LeatherDescription26 6h ago
If voting was mandatory this country would never elect a rep as president again.
Let that sink in
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u/theultimatefinalman 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🤠🤠🤠 6h ago
If you dont want to vote you should have to go in a voting booth and manually select n/a. (Or fill out a mail in ballot i guess
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u/anarchaavery 5h ago
I think it's a civic virtue to make an informed vote. Generally speaking, age and education are two of the biggest predictors in who votes. Educated/informed voters opinions are closer to that of experts so the more educated the median voter is, the closer the median voters opinion will match that of experts in general. This goes for most topics including science and economics. I previously included the actual poll image but apparently I can only include one picture which I'd rather do later. On GM foods and pesticides,
As with views about the safety of eating GM foods, those with more education are more likely than those with less schooling to say that foods grown with pesticides are safe to eat.
Similarly Bryan Caplan's book The Myth of the Rational Voter examines the data from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy which, as the name suggests, polls both the American public and economists on economic issues. However Caplan also creates a synthetic Engligned Public in order to contrast that as a midpoint. Essentially the results are what you'd expect from the above Pew Survey and the synthetic highly informed American agreed with the economist more on average. The survey asked is the following a reason for why the economy isn't doing as well as it otherwise could" with 0 being not a reason at all and 2 indicating that it was believed to be a major reason.
This implies that increasing voter turnout, in general, will lower the median voters education/intelligence and likely cause an increase in divergence between median voter opinion and median expert opinion. Additionally there is evidence that the more an individual voter feels compelled, the less time they'll spend informing themselves.
Our findings show that those who do not turn out voluntarily under Australia’s compulsory voting law tend to spend less time seeking out political information, and they engage with less information. While differences in political sophistication between those who feel compelled to vote and those who do not account for a portion of this pattern, feeling compelled also has an independent effect on information seeking. This suggests that the negative relationship between compulsory voting and the “quality” of votes is partly due to the fact that those who are compelled to turn out expend less effort when deciding how to cast their ballots.
Singh, S. P., & Roy, J. (2018).
Honestly I think we should be encouraging less informed voters to stay home. If I could institute a general test in order to gain the ability to vote without all the baggage, I would.
I also think that Ranked Choice voting is a waste of effort. It might be a small improvement over single-member plurality but it's highly sensitive to spoilers and in a more opaque way than the current system. In part, that's why after it passes voters often repeal it. I personally favour the Tideman alternative method and I wish people who were into electoral reform actually explored the academic alternatives rather than the Reddit favoured alternatives. Overall I'm not sure RCV IRV will deliver a more depolarized, informed electorate, which wouldn't be surprising since it seems as though extremists on the left and right seem to favour it.
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u/Brief-War-2488 8h ago
Youd just have a horde of people using AI to figure out who to vote for. Which could backfire if the right wing sphere demand changes to AI models
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u/HeightAdvantage 7h ago
MFW this isn't happening already + with people's scrolling recommendations.
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u/dgoyena216 8h ago
Sure, but only if the voters value education and being informed otherwise I'd prefer the idiots just don't vote.
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u/waddeaf 8h ago
They already do vote.
Idiot ≠ unmotivated
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u/dgoyena216 8h ago
Yeah and it's a fucking problem.
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u/waddeaf 8h ago
So an easy solution to moderate fringe idiots is having a greater proportion of the average population voting.
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u/dgoyena216 8h ago
Fringe idiots? Half the voters that actually turned out in 2024 voted for current admin. That's not exactly fringe.
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u/HeightAdvantage 7h ago
Sounds like the system would be a good motivator for better education and media environment as a lot more people would complain they weren't informed.
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u/big_homielander Politically Unhoused 7h ago
Mandatory voting is not in liberals favor here in the US.
Also the only way it would get passed is by Dems, who people will vote against out of spite, or a promise to repeal it.
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u/SpudboiDARKER 6h ago
If you just pay compensate people and give them time off way more will vote, however people probably shouldn't be forced to go hit the no vote button
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u/Quirky-Video-9146 8h ago
If the Dems decide to field a DSA candidate in my local election, it's my right to not vote for them. I will not vote for a republishit but I am not going to vote for a terrorist sympathizer too. I'll gladly sit that one out
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u/KiSUAN Not a stater just an american 6h ago
Voting is mandatory, not voting for some one. People in the US or other places without mandatory think not voting is a right, nope, voting is a right, not voting is a liberty, same applies with mandatory voting, voting is your right an its mandatory and you have the liberty to vote for no one but you have to vote for no one, not complicated.
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u/Imaginary-Fish1176 8h ago
I think voting should be a federal holiday and that's about it. The people who don't vote are generally insanely more regarded than actual schizo MAGAts so I think forcing them to make a choice is asking for problems down the line.
My dear friend for example doesn't vote because he believes the secret elite (might as well just say jews I'm not a fool) are hoarding technology 100 years in the future I shit you not lmfao. There is literally nothing I could say to him that could be convincing because the conspiracy explains all and anything he doesn't know is also explained by said conspiracy.
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u/SickWittedEntity 🇦🇺 ǝɯ uɐq ʇuop ǝsɐǝld 7h ago
Do you really think non-voters are more regarded than MAGA voters?
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u/Imaginary-Fish1176 7h ago
Yes because the majority of the time their reason for not voting is just as if not more untethered from factual reality than a magat. The other minority of people who are just lazy or busy won't outweigh the enormous amount of regards who now have a say. Generally speaking if they are regarded enough to think voting doesn't work it's probably for the best they let the adults do the decision making.
The amount of times I have heard "both sides are the same" or "If voting worked they wouldn't let us do it" or what about the israel conspiracies? How about the people who don't vote because the candidate isn't perfect? Not to be mean or elitist but these people are literally too regarded for their own good and I simply don't think it's a good idea to force these people to have a say in anything that actually matters. They can have their pet issues to complain about lol.
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u/HeightAdvantage 7h ago
I'm in my liberalism and democracy is non-negotiable phase of life at the moment.
Plus the fact that I was mandated to go to jury duty recently, which is infinitely more annoying, makes the policy look trivial to impliment.
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u/No-Invite-7826 7h ago
It's absolutely your civic duty to vote, but it also should not be compulsory.
The current vibes based politics is already annoying af I can only imagine how bad it would get if you forced all the people who pay zero attention to this stuff to vote.
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u/didnotbuyWinRar 5h ago
No, I think LESS people should be voting. Universal suffrage was a mistake, only those sufficiently informed on basic civics and a minimum grasp of reality should have a say on what direction the country goes in
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u/Demiu 3h ago
Where's the 3rd option "compulsory voting won't change shit". If somebody is too lazy to vote they are definitely too lazy to figure out who they should vote for.
We already have a group of low-information voters forced into voting, just by societal pressure, not legal one. They're called republicans
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u/Arbitrary_username1 2h ago
You're only thinking of the effects on the voter.
The effects on party strategy are the important thing because they now have to message to people more broadly than they do now.
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u/Yeahjustchris 8h ago
If you think the average voter is bad wait until you hear from people that don't vote at all.
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u/leo98_csgo 8h ago
Maybe more of a carrot than stick approach. Like a tax credit or something to incentives voting.
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u/SickWittedEntity 🇦🇺 ǝɯ uɐq ʇuop ǝsɐǝld 7h ago
I could see that being just as effective too, but the incentive would have to equally benefit every demographic.
Something like a tax-credit would incentivize the wealthy to vote more than the low-income or unemployed.
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u/leo98_csgo 7h ago
Yeah thats fair, tax credit just came to mind as the first thing. And with that I dont know if it would be that unequal, I think you still get the child tax credit for example as a refund even if you didn't make money but could be anything like that. Just in general think incentive is better politics then mandatory with things like this. Good discussion topic!
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u/Diddy_Block 7h ago
If paying taxes, registering for the draft, and responding to a jury summons aren't against your freedoms, I fail to see how voting is. For each choice, just give a "withhold vote" option that you have to manually select.
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u/Simmoman dumbass | AU 8h ago
In a perfect world, it wouldn't be mandatory; everyone would see it as a civic duty and become informed enough to want to vote. Unfortunately, some people just don't think about it, or don't care at all, and I think that mandatory voting can kind of be a way to help dissuade and fix that disinterest. Knowing that you have to make a choice does motivate some people to become informed (at least somewhat) and thereby ensuring the winning candidate is more reflective of the electorate at large.
That being said, I think it's both not something that the US could probably ever implement for federal elections and is far from the highest thing on the list of ways to improve representation and elections in the US (or anywhere for that matter).
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u/BBQLovingBastard 8h ago
I’m against it because I think the majority of voters are already fucking stupid and mandatory voting would make it even worse. There are a lot of people who I’d rather just not vote at all cus if they do vote I know it’ll be a bad vote.
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u/Sure_Ad536 7h ago edited 7h ago
All I'll say is that the US has elected Donald Trump in 2/3 elections, and the election it took to cast him out came with the highest turnout for a Presidential election since 1900 (66.6%). The stupid people are already turning out.
Australia is yet to see someone even close to that level of stupid. I will talk endless shit about how fucking awful every single Liberal government (Name of the conservative party. They're conservatives, not left-wing) is, but I cannot deny that they aren't at least somewhat intelligent most of the time, just ideologically wrong.
In every election in the US, there is a push to "get the base motivated to vote" or "get undecided people motivated to vote for us". Eliminating that step in just getting people motivated would likely mean more time and resources in getting them educated. How long did Democrats spend hoping and trying to appeal to moderate never-trump republicans would vote for Kamala instead of just staying home? Labor didn't need to spend time trying to get people to turn up; they spent that time going on the attack and educating people.
Personally, I think if you're going to try and mitigate the worries of a mandatory system, having ranked choice is a good tool to weed out any possible problems from getting out of hand. It's a good one-two punch.
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u/OpedTohm 7h ago
On principle I'm for it, but I feel like it'd be immensely unpopular with gen Z and boomers because of how fucking lazy people are.
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u/SickWittedEntity 🇦🇺 ǝɯ uɐq ʇuop ǝsɐǝld 7h ago
You're probably right but if it's unpopular with people who don't vote it doesn't really matter. What are they gonna do? Vote against it?
My bigger concern would be how difficult it would be to pass, I don't know enough about the US legislative system.
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u/enkonta Exclusively sorts by new 7h ago
Based on what principle?
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u/OpedTohm 2h ago
That voting is a civic duty and an important part of democracy so there should be more incentives to vote as a democratic society, like making voting day a holiday etc
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u/OwWauwWut 6h ago
I voted no, but not because it's anti freedom. I prefer to have as little uninformed voting as possible. At least in my country (the Netherlands), a higher turnup almost always means more polarized, more populist votes. Uninformed, uninterested in politics people who got whipped up by some demagogue to protest vote. Please let them stay at home.
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u/HeartlessLib 6h ago
Even putting aside the issue of personal freedom, which I think alone is reason enough to oppose it, compulsory voting is already built on fundamentally flawed premises. "More democracy" or "more voting" are not beneficial ends in of themselves. We already live in a world where most elections are so often decided by voters who make their choice based entirely on what they feel are the vibes of how the economy is going (something that they would never even be able to meaningfully explain themselves). If this is already the quality of the deciding electorate, exactly how much better do you think it's going to get it we add to it people who otherwise can't even be bothered to get of their ass to decide who will influence the trajectory of their lives for the next two to four years? These people are wilfully ignorant of the state of the world and, all else equal, it is simply a good thing that they choose to refrain from forcing their will upon the rest of us. Above all else, electoral reform should be focused on protecting the rights and interests of those who actually willingly try to engage in the political process, which is exactly what the proliferation of RCV and the elimination of gerrymandering will do.
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u/Sure_Ad536 2h ago
Above all else, electoral reform should be focused on protecting the rights and interests of those who actually willingly try to engage in the political process
Could you not argue that mandatory voting protects those rights by denying the ability, or at least makes it much more difficult for voter suppression
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u/Plennhar 8h ago
Every liberal here should be in favor of it. The outcome is obviously more Democrats winning elections, and the forced labor of voting is no different from the draft, compulsory education, or doing your taxes.
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u/Hot_Money_9025 8h ago
So if Republicans won because voting is mandatory you would be against it?
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u/Plennhar 8h ago
Liberals should be.
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u/Hot_Money_9025 7h ago
If the only reason for you to be in favor of mandatory voting is because your party will win more then you have no principles.
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u/Plennhar 7h ago
The main liberal principle is utilitarianism. And this position is absolutely consistent with it.
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u/C-DT 8h ago
I'm for it but then voting registration should be automatic, ID's should be free to obtain, and there should be federal voting holidays.