T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
The only solution is to make voting mandatory. If people weren't legally bound to stop at red lights and stop signs they wouldn't.
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How do you improve voter turnout?
- Thread starter Blahface
- Start date
Mandatory voting seems undemocratic. The most basic freedom is the freedom to be left alone.
Derec
Contributor
Why would we want to necessarily increase turnout? Do we really want people who are uninterested in politics and/or too lazy to bother voting deciding who will govern us?
I'd go in the opposite direction and institute some sort of test in order to be able to vote using basic questions like the ones from the US citizenship test.
If you don't know who the president/VP, your Congressman/Senator are or basic facts about US political system then i am not sure you deserve to vote.
I'd go in the opposite direction and institute some sort of test in order to be able to vote using basic questions like the ones from the US citizenship test.
If you don't know who the president/VP, your Congressman/Senator are or basic facts about US political system then i am not sure you deserve to vote.
I suspect that the people who advocate this assume that an increase in voters would result in their political position winning more at the poles.
Jason Harvestdancer
Contributor
Making people take eligibility tests is a tricky matter because of the temptation for corruption. Would the conservoprogressives on this board like it if I (or some other fairly radical libertarian) were to write the test?
The problem is two-fold. First, there is little cost to vote, really nothing more than time. Second, there is little return on a vote, really nothing more than a tiny fraction of a percentage difference. If you want to make voting more appealing, you have to give it more value.
I propose that voters get a large tax break, 25% off their state and federal taxes if they vote in the general election alone, and 50% off if they vote in all the elections that year.
The problem is two-fold. First, there is little cost to vote, really nothing more than time. Second, there is little return on a vote, really nothing more than a tiny fraction of a percentage difference. If you want to make voting more appealing, you have to give it more value.
I propose that voters get a large tax break, 25% off their state and federal taxes if they vote in the general election alone, and 50% off if they vote in all the elections that year.
Which is a good point. If people don't know what the election is about or who is running on what platform, having them participate is somewhat counterproductive. Odds are that they're just going to check off a name which is somewhat familiar, and that's going to be the incumbent more often than not. The goal should be to get people involved in the political process as a whole, not simply in the voting part of it.
I agree that uninformed people shouldn't vote and trying to increase voter turn out in itself shouldn't be the goal. What I would like is for more people to be engaged in politics as a whole. I want people to have some idea of what the issues are, what the arguments are for those issues, what the candidates positions are, and what the office can do to address those issues.
What I don't want though is a very low voter turnout in which an energized minority gets to decided the election. Also, if there are going to be uninformed voters showing up, I'd like it to be proportional so it balances out. I don't want one side's uniformed voters showing up while the other side's stays home.
I agree that having to be tested in order to vote can be abused and shouldn't be attempted. I also agree that we should use tax incentives in order get people to engage in politics. Perhaps everyone should have an addition 5% ignorance tax. You can exempt yourself from that tax by passing a test that shows you know something about civics and the political process. You'd also be limited in the amount of public assistance you may receive until you pass this test. All the material needed to pass this test should be freely available online.
laughing dog
Contributor
That suspicion reveals more about your mindset than those people. Increasing turnout helps to make the election outcome appear more valid - regardless of the outcome. It gives the winner - regardless who it is - a stronger mandate. This is well-recognized effect around the world.
But does it? If you win with only 20% of the people voting or you win with 90% of the people voting, you're still the government for the next X number of years and you still have just as much power and authority. Your opponents may whine and complain about how you don't have a strong mandate, but you still enact the exact same plans in the exact same way.
If they pass a law mandating voting I'm going to join a party whose sole platform is to eliminate mandatory voting.
Evidence suggests we can get up to 90% in some of these off-cycle elections.
http://ivn.us/2012/11/05/why-we-vote-on-tuesday/
Saturday would be better.
Saturday would be better.
I live in Ontario, and I'm not voting. I don't feel the slightest bit interested in doing so. I don't see any real potent difference between the candidates and don't really care who wins. Issues that really matter to me won't be addressed by any of the candidates all that differently, and I don't see any of them (not even Hudak) as all that threatening to my values. On the federal level I care a little more (don't like Harper) but even there I'm not really all that concerned.
In the Western world voting is not difficult. In my state of Washington we vote by mail and get our ballets two weeks before the election day - yet voter turnout for the last election was 36%. My mindset is that a person's decision not to vote is just a valid as the decision of a person to vote. If people choose not to vote, that is a valid demonstration that these people are disenchanted with the politicians or party. Why is a politician or party owed a mandate? Giant Douche or Turd Sandwich?
My polling station is back in my home-town and I'm not sure if I'm even able to vote in the city I'm in or not, but didn't concern myself enough to find out (if I was registered here I might have given it more thought). For reasons already mentioned in this thread I don't care too much about the physical act of voting, but I am politically active on the internet over different forms of media so at this point I'm sure I've affected far more than 1 vote.
The thing that bothers me is all of the people out there parroting the same tired, meaningless, political memes in everyone else' face. You'd think having lots of perspective about things like this would make you wiser and calmer, but really its just annoying.
Nice Squirrel
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Q: How do you improve voter turnout?
A: Free beer.
A: Free beer.
With nothing else considered it would be better. If , however, you made election day a federal holiday and had early voting, you'd have more opportunity to vote by keeping it on Tuesday.
What if you had more competitive elections and a voting system that allowed people to vote for their favorite without being penalized for it?
Let's say you had a two round election. The first round would use approval voting ( you are allowed to vote or multiple candidates). The top two with the most approval would face off in the general. If you had that system with many candidates and a few of those candidates supported issues that are important to you, would you at least vote in the first round?
+or-1
Member
Here's an idea. Why don't we try running candidates who are in touch with the citizenry, who are relevant, who are more interested in the state of the nation than in the state of their personal finances.
