Americans Should NOT Be Required To Vote

Voting definitely matters, but how would you feel if you were penalized for not voting? In a democracy, voting keeps the government running, and in tact. People have the chance to choose who will make decisions for their country, and it shows that the government has the interest of the people. However, voter turnout has decreased drastically in the past couple of decades. Should voting for all Americans be mandatory? There are a few reasons why Americans should not be required to vote: voters might not put that much thought into their votes, although voter turnout in America is very low, we have one of the highest rates of voter satisfaction, and unaware voters are threats to the country’s future. The first reason Americans should not be required to vote, is that some voters might not care about what they put onto their ballots. In “Peru Trip Report,” Jimmy Carter states that in 2001, thirteen percent of the ballots casted in the election were blank or invalid. This occurred because some of the citizens didn’t want to vote for any of the candidates, or they ruined their ballots. This evidence helps explain why Americans should not be required to

In “Must You Vote?” Randy Cohen states that just telling someone to go and vote won’t help voter satisfaction, in fact, if you tell someone to simply vote for the candidate you want, you are threatening America by swaying the person you told to vote for the candidate of your choice. Randy Cohen also declared that telling an unaware voter is like, “You might as well urge the unpracticed to use power tools or Rollerblade.” This evidence supports the idea of anti-compulsory voting because urging an unaware resident to go vote for whoever they choose without being informed, is affecting the future of all of the citizens in America, and setting America’s government up for a