The citizens of America are no longer as involved with the government as they used to be. Since World War II the voter turnout in America is continuously decreasing and has yet to stray above 65%. Shouldn’t America, land of the free, have one of the highest voter turnouts? This brings up the question; should Americans be required to vote? The United States should have compulsory voting, the reasons being that more persons will become educated in voting, other countries have successful compulsory voting systems, and that America has always required things of it’s citizens.…
In a democracy, voting is important. Not every eligible voter does vote. Voting is often taken for granted, many Americans do not realise just how important their vote is. Voter turnout is at an alltime low for recent elections; the more votes there are means more of a fair and legitimate election. Americans should be required to vote because it informs people of what people are voting on and it improves government legitimacy.…
Do you agree with the concept that every American should be required to cast a ballot? Why or why not? I both agree and disagree. I agree because I am sick of hearing the complaints of how this President or that representative has ruined the country. If everyone were required to vote then they would be responsible for the person they elected into office and for the outcome of that person’s time spent in office. I disagree because this country was founded on the basis of a free society. Moreover, to require people to vote takes away a freedom, however small it may be.…
Today, with the advent of the modern media, political interests, and politics are a non-stop entity that will never go away. Ironically, voter turnout is at its lowest since the turn of the Twentieth Century. Two reasons for the low turnout can be found in inadequacies which occur in the United States and are unheard of in many member states of the European Union, and other Industrialized democracies. The first problem is that there is no consequence for not voting, the other being the difficulty of voter registration. These problems have both great affects on the government’s legitimacy, and might as well cause mis-representation of the United States abroad by electing a reprentative (the President) which could possibly represent the “American-Ideal” incorrectly causing problems with potential allies.…
Voting and Turnout. The U.S. has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among modern democratic political systems. One study ranks the U.S. 120th on a list of 169 nations compared on voter turnout (Pintor, Gratschew, & Sullivan, 2002). While during the last decade many initiatives have been undertaken to increase voter participation, concerns about the possibility of election fraud have also increased. Additionally, some political interests feel threatened by the increase in turnout among some traditionally low-turnout ethnic minorities.…
Mandatory voting has a possibility of leading to random votes. Mandatory voting has a possibility of leading to random votes because many citizens are either uneducated about politics or they are apolitical, meaning that they don’t care about politics. If there was mandatory voting then people would have to vote even though they don’t want to. In fact, this is because people who are apolitical just don’t care about voting and many other people don’t usually know about any other candidates, so they don’t vote. Stated in document 2, lines 24 and 25, Maria Gretschew wrote, “It has been proved that forcing the population to vote results in an increased number of invalid and blank votes”. This means that if citizens were forced to vote there would…
Non-voters are often generalized as lazy or selfish, but it viable that it is in their own self-interest not to vote. Forcing someone to betray their own self-interest it strictly undemocratic. A non-vote can mean apathy, but it can also mean disagreement or contentment with all candidates. Even if a compulsory system could be considered constitutional, how would the finer point be determined? To what extend will the United States go to enforce it? Furthermore, to what degree of punishment does the citizen have to pay if they neglect the “democratic duty” to cast a vote? Even further, how many strikes does that citizen get? Will the punishments continue to get worse as they continue to abstain from placing their vote? These are all crucial questions that would take…
As the nation stands, only about 30-50 percent of the United States has voted for a presidential candidate since 2000. A disappointment it is to only have at most about half of the US vote being that it has the third largest population in the world. However, to resolve this dilemma, the idea of mandatory voting could be used to help get the voice of the whole nation out. The need of mandatory is immense for it will better represent the population of America, level the playing field of candidate parties, and it will give the incentive for more informed voting causing the better quality of voters.…
The idea of mandatory voting during U.S. elections is a much-debated topic in the United States. Making voting mandatory for all citizens, is debated to be something that could be either positive or negative. Both sides of the issue have their reasons why mandatory-voting laws should or should not be passed.…
Compulsory voting is when the government forces their citizens to vote in every election. If people are forced to vote they will become aware of issues around them and will try their hardest to learn about what they are voting for. Americans should be required to vote because it will cause more people to understand the issues that are around them and will increase the rate of voters per election, making more civic opinions heard throughout government.…
Voter turnout can increase if the United States makes it compulsory like the other democratic nations who turnout is 90% and up. The US is one of the few democracies that require its citizens to register to vote. In most other democratic nations this is not a separate step. The government provides the polling location to each citizen as they comprised a listing of each citizen with the person’s name, age and address. The person just has to show up to the poll to vote, show identification and then are checked against that location’s list. The US leaves the registration to each citizen. A significant number of voters never take the initial step of bothering to register. And then those that take this step may show up to vote to find out there…
Most do not vote for they feel they do not have the knowledge needed to make the right choice. Now the Canadian government does enforce a Careers and Civics course that must be taken in grade 10, however the course effectiveness cannot be well evaluated, for the provinces control education, and the content, the teachers that teach the course, and the way it is graded varies . Than two years later you turn 18 and you can vote, but what does that really mean, what are you voting for, who are you voting for and the most important question of them all is, what are you getting in…
"Education has a powerful effect on trust and associational membership as well as many other forms of social and political participation."(Putnam, 667) In the past, American elections have had barriers put in place to actually prevent citizens from voting. Literacy tests, poll taxes and lengthy residency requirements have all been abolished for some time yet the declining trend in voter turnout continues. Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward authored a book entitled Why Americans Don't Vote. They point the finger at one particular aspect of voter…
Every citizen has the right to vote, yet so many people don’t vote, "with the turnout at just 64% for the 2008 presidential election, and voter turnout rates decreasing steadily in most established democracies." My parents just can't do it because they're too busy and sometimes they just don't want to vote. It would be fun to vote because of the freedom we have on voting for which president we want to have, but some people just don't think that way. As a consequence, voter turnouts during presidential elections has been traditionally low. There are a number of reasons why people may not vote such as a lack of understanding of politics, people being busier, a lack of trust in the government, laziness; which is disrespectful, and not caring or even contentment with how things are. But when people…
A large reason compulsory voting is a possibility for some American citizens is that citizens would truly have there voice heard. According to Marion Just, in the article Same-Day Registration, “recent research shows a vicious cycle in which nonvoters do not believe government will…