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Compulsory voting essay
Compulsory voting essay
Compulsory voting essay
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American citizens over the age of 18 have had the opportunity to vote since 1790, but not everyone has gone and voted for a new leader to be. Right after WWII the percentage of voters decreased. So the people of America should have compulsory voting, because of proper punishment, voter turnout, and it is the citizens civic duty.
Voting should be compulsory, countries that influence punishment such as Peru have a higher turnout. Peru’s voting turnout is 96% compared to the U.S.A’s voter turnout which is 57.7% (Doc B). To reflect, the country with punishments such as fines and limitations of rights have a higher voter turnout then a country with no punishments at all ( Doc B). Associated with voting is in debate of a civic duty, if civic duties such as jury duty and signing up for the draft into the military are mandatory why can't voting be (Doc C). If you don't do those two out of many civic duties are not executed you are punished. Put Differently, one reason that the United States of America citizens should have a penalty inflicted.
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Voter turnouts decrease and decrease year after year, the percentage drops as much as the Cleveland Browns have a chance at a Super Bowl.
According to (Doc B) not even 50% of the new population of voters in between the ages of 18-29 don’t Vote. If I am understanding this correctly the future of are country is not voting for a leader! Since 1952-2012 the voter turnout has decreased by 10% (Doc BE). Indications of voter turnout is decreasing are defined by statistics that prove that not very many people are not voting. Frequently associated with the people that vote the most have higher education than others. Citizens with a postgraduate education 84.2% of them vote, compared to a less than high school diploma of 39.5% (Doc B). Voting turnout is widely acknowledged as very low and exhibits that are population does not vote no more then approximately 57% of the registered voting
population. Voting should be considered a civic duty. The definition of civic duty is the responsibility you have to your state, town, or country (Vocabulary.com). This includes jury duty, being in the draft, paying taxes, and attending school (Doc C). If United States Citizens can do all of these for are state, town, and country America Should switch to compulsory voting and make it a civic duty! Countries such as Belgium, Brazil, and Peru make voting a civic duty that included punishments (Doc A). Indicators of punishment lead into civic duties such as jury duty and attending school! If I am understanding this correctly the U.S. government would rather prefer to punish people for not attending school and jury duty instead of making the vote. I widley disagree with people not voting. Voting should become a civic duty, along with jury duty and attending school. In a democracy people should be compelled to vote if they are registered. Whether it is tomorrow, today, or in the future compulsory voting will be the way of a democracy no matter where you life you should VOTE!
Recently, only 60% of registered voters have actually voted in presidential elections. This brings up the question: should Americans be required to vote? This question receives very mixed answers. Many Americans believe that they should have the choice and the freedom to vote or not; many Americans also believe that mandatory, or required, voting is simply a civic duty. Currently, American citizens are not required to vote. Citizens seem to like this system, but because voting is not mandatory, the amount of citizens that vote in elections is rather low. Americans should not be required to vote because it forces people to vote that are uninterested, makes citizens unhappy, and damages other people’s votes.
From 1754-1763, Britain fought the French and Indian war. Although Britain had won the war, they still had a lot of war debts to pay off. Britain turned to the colonies to pay off their debts by taxing them. The taxes angered the colonists because they believed it violated their rights. Benjamin Franklin had initially proposed the Albany plan of Union to unite the colonies, however this law was rejected by all of the colonial governments. It wasn't until after all of the British laws and taxes that the colonies would unite and write the Declaration of Independence.
During the 1700’s the Britain Colonist decided to declare war against Great Britain. The war began due to friction between the British colonists over the King's policies. The colonist eventually lost their patience and started a revolution. High taxes, and no religious freedom led the colonist to fight for self government.
In document C, John W. Dean who was legal council the the U.S. President Richard M. Nixon said, “While compulsion of any kind is a restriction, so is the compulsion to drive only on the right side of the road. Requiring citizens to vote is no more restrictive than requiring them to register for the draft. And it is far less restrictive than requiring us, for example, to attend school; to serve on juries, possibly for weeks or months at a time; to pay taxes; or to serve in the military when drafted”(Dean). That shows the multitude of laws or requirements in America that are less important than voting, but are required. Voting is for the good of the country, yet people won't vote, but won't bat an eye when they are forced into jury duty.
The most critiqued argument is that mandating voting is just un-American. The con side argues that forcing people to vote violates our freedom of speech. But they don’t feel that the requirement to pay taxes and serve as a jure are unjust. This seems contradictory. The second argument is that requiring all citizens to vote would result in many uninformed and carelessly voters. They continue this argument by stating many people would cast “donkey votes” which are votes for a random candidate because they are required to vote by law. There are many arguments for and against compulsory voting but it comes down to what makes something
Without mandatory voting, some people chose not to vote because they do not care, or are uninformed. Forcing these people to vote could lead to random choices when voters do not take responsibility to study the candidate's position on specific topics. "It may increase the number of informal votes, ballot papers which are not marked according to the rules for voting," _ Matt Rosenberg_. Compulsory voting may lead many people to not truly vote, but to put their name on a ballot and turn it in. While this is possible, a greater number of potentially interested people would also vote. If people are required to vote, the country will obtain every eligible voters’ opinions. Some of the citizens may not care who is elected, but they still can have a say if they want to. Without mandatory voting, the people who do not want to vote, do not and went about with their life. "Because a majority of the voters are turning out to cast ballots, the formation of the government can be a more accurate reflection of what the population of any nation wants," _Asia-Pacific Economics_. In a government with two different parties, the majority of the citizens decide how they want the government to be formed till the next election.
There is a way that is already put in use to increase voter turnout in Australia is to make voting mandatory. People in Australia are forced to vote or they will be fined, or even jailed if they do not vote repeatedly. It is very effective in term of improving voter turnout; however, there is still some argument against it. One of them being people would only vote because they have to, so they are ignorantly voting for the candidates just to be done with it. I completely agree with this idea. The voter turnout can be really high, but it would be meaningless if the people just vote to escape from the punishments. Yale Law School Professor Stephen Carter also suggested that, instead of punishing people do not vote, we should reward people who vote. It is the same with the mandatory voting. I think it will only be effective in increasing the voter turnout, but the results will not. People should vote voluntarily for the best and fair outcome. To have more people voting, I believe we should take a look at why people do not vote. We must assure people that if everybody thinks their vote does not count, then no one would vote. We should be able to change their attitude about their own votes. If people cannot vote because they are busy with work or schools, we should have a national day off on the election day. By doing so, much more people will be able to participate in voting. There should also be
As an American citizen do you think the government should enforce compulsory voting? A country usually needs three things to have a successful compulsory voting system, a national voter registration database, rewards to encourage voters, and punishing non-voters. Should americans be required to vote? There are three reasons why Americans should be required to vote, first, so citizens have interests and political knowledge, second, to increase amount of younger voters and finally, requiring people to vote is the least a citizen can do.
Only then will America’s ability to find answers to voting turnout increase. It’s very unsettling to know that there was a six percent decrease in young voters (ages 18-29) in the 2012 election compared to 2008 (Circle Youth data). In 2007, the National Conference of State Legislatures publicly released a report and data set on voter turnout in democratic countries. This is a quote from that report titled Getting out the Vote, “It should be noted that in 1972, 18-year-olds were added to the eligible voting population, thus decreasing the percentages. Nonetheless, voter turnout in the United States is lower than that of every democracy in the world other than Switzerland and Poland” (33.3)....
To enforce voting to be mandatory , this will prompt more Americans to pay attention to the choices for their representatives. Mandating would stimulate the demand side, motivating voters to understand and acknowledge who they are voting for. Therefore , voting is to be a responsibility than a option.
In fact, according to Elections Canada, during the 2011 federal elections, only 61.1% of Canadians exerted their duty as citizen. Hence, some think compulsory voting can remediate the situation. However, mandatory voting is what really could hurt democracy. By forcing every eligible voter to go to the polls, misinformed voters will randomly cast their ballot. Sceptics may believe that by fining individuals who refuse to go to the polls, there will be less ignorant voters. For example, in Australia, where voting is compulsory, Australians who do not cast their ballots have to “pay a 20$ penalty” (Australian Electoral Commission). However, by financially penalising citizens who do not exert their duty, many will be so dissatisfied by the incumbent government that they will simply vote for a party that would not make voting an obligation. These people would ignore the party’s other policies instead of being informed on all the challenges that the country faces and how each party plans on solving them. Nonetheless, the elections are an occasion to elect a leader whose ideologies on many aspects, from immigration to the environment, matches the voter’s most. As a responsible voter, one has to know the policies of each party and has to try to obtain enough “social-scientific knowledge to [assess] these positions” (Brennan 11), which takes a lot of time. Therefore, compulsory voting would make voters more informed, but only on a narrow aspect while ignoring the other issues that should be taken into consideration when choosing the party they will vote for. All in all, mandatory voting would hurt democracy despite the higher participation
Voting is not the same as it used to be. Today we have clear political parties, every citizen can vote, and corruption has gone down to a minimum. Between the years of 1815 and 1840 the rise of voting turnout began. Because of increase of voters, the common mans involvement, and media influences the voting participation and campaign changed.
This is a low number since there is 22 percent of voting age population who did not register to ballots. People who already reach the voting age but decided not to register themselves can be affected by low education level. People who have low education level lack of information about voting and how their vote could give huge impact and big change in their daily life related with government. Moreover, not only uneducated people who will not vote, poor people also tend not to give their right to vote. Poor people will consider how much time they will spent to come to the polls and give their vote to people that they think will not give much impact on their life.
Compulsory voting, do you think its fair? Voting is important to democracy because it includes the people of America to be apart of choosing who will lead the country and and what America will do and not do. The people of America can suggest improvements for the country to make. Should the citizens of American be forced to vote? There are three reasons why Americans should not be required to vote.
The action of voting is such important role in how our country is going to be developed, especially effects on the economy, foreign relationships, society, etc. People are becoming much involved in politics, which is extraordinary because it means that the people are understanding how important their vote is and how it brings change to the issues that truly bother them. Many citizens don’t vote because they are either lazy or too busy, they either have jobs, classes, families, or other responsibilities take care of, but voting is a responsibility that should be attended. Voting could be the thing to prevent awful political leader’s to be put in office who are not focusing on what’s truly important, which is the people, which means that