Mandatory Voting. Thoughts? Opinions?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by CoinOKC, Mar 19, 2015.

  1. CoinOKC
    Yeehaw

    CoinOKC T R U M P 2 0 2 4

    Emperor Obama floated the idea of mandatory voting. For those among you who don't know what "mandatory voting" means, it means that the government would force you to vote. "Just ask Australia", Obama said. Australia has compulsory voting and subjects non-voters to punitive measures (usually fines or community service).

    Obama's argument in favor of mandatory voting is that it would "counteract money more than anything". Of course, he didn't have a problem with money during his presidential campaigns, but we won't go there.

    Obama said it would be "fun" to amend the Constitution to change the role that money plays in our electoral system.

    Obama seems to want to force a lot of things on Americans. I'm not sure many Obamunists were listening when he said he wanted to "fundamentally transform America".


    Obama floats making voting mandatory, calling it 'potentially transformative'

    March 19, 2015

    WASHINGTON – They say the only two things that are certain in life are death and taxes. President Barack Obama wants to add one more: voting.

    Obama floated the idea of mandatory voting in the U.S. while speaking to a civic group in Cleveland on Wednesday. Asked about the influence of money in U.S. elections, Obama digressed into the topic of voting rights and said the U.S. should be making it easier for people to vote.

    Just ask Australia, where citizens have no choice but to vote, the president said.

    "If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country," Obama said, calling it "potentially transformative." Not only that, Obama said, but universal voting would "counteract money more than anything."

    Disproportionately, Americans who skip the polls on Election Day are younger, lower-income and more likely to be immigrants or minorities, Obama said. "There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls," he said in a veiled reference to voter identification laws in a number of states.

    Less than 37 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2014 midterms, according to the United States Election Project. And a Pew Research Center study found that those avoiding the polls in 2014 tended to be younger, poorer, less educated and more racially diverse.

    At least two dozen countries have some form of compulsory voting, including Belgium, Brazil and Argentina. In many systems, absconders must provide a valid excuse or face a fine, although a few countries have laws on the books that allow for potential imprisonment.

    At issue, Obama said, is the sway that those with money can have on U.S. elections, where low overall turnout often gives an advantage to the party best able to turn out its base. Obama has opposed Citizens United and other court rulings that cleared the way for super PACs and unlimited campaign spending, but embraced such groups in his 2012 re-election campaign out of fear he'd be outspent.

    Obama said he thought it would be "fun" for the U.S. to consider amending the Constitution to change the role that money plays in the electoral system. But don't hold your breath.

    "Realistically, given the requirements of that process, that would be a long-term proposition," he said.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...datory-calling-it-potentially-transformative/
     
  2. rlm's cents
    Hot

    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    My first take on that is our freedom of speech would trump mandatory anything like that. Not only do you have the right to speak as you choose, but that should include the right not to speak.
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2015
  3. CoinOKC
    Yeehaw

    CoinOKC T R U M P 2 0 2 4

    But, Obama said it would be "fun" to amend the Constitution. If the Constitution were amended to make voting mandatory, the freedom that you're referencing would be taken away.

    What needs to be understood is that voting in the U.S. is a right. See the 26th Amendment. It is not a duty. Citizens have the ability to exercise that right if they choose, but they don't have a duty to do so. Obama would like to change the Constitution and make voting mandatory or, in other words, take away your right to vote and make it your duty to vote.
     
  4. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Republicans would never win another election if we had mandatory voting. I am unsurprising that you would be against such an idea. Republicans would rather return to the days of just allowing white male landowners voting rights.
    On another note, check out what Oregon just did on a similar issue. You are registered to vote unless you opt out but you don't have to vote. Would you favor this approach?

    Under new Oregon law, all eligible voters are registered unless they opt out
    MARIA L. LA GANGA

    When Brown signed House Bill 2177 into law, she was building on the Beaver State’s history as a ballot-box innovator, which has led to high voter participation. Oregon was the first state in the country to switch to all-mail voting when Ballot Measure 60 was passed in 1998 by a wide margin. Washington state and Colorado later followed suit.

    “In my role as secretary of state, I proposed a new way of registering to vote,” Brown said as she signed the bill. “We call it ‘new motor voter.’ It was my top priority, and I am absolutely thrilled to be signing this into law as the new governor. ... Virtually every Oregonian will be able to have their voice be heard.”

    Brown stepped down as secretary of state and was sworn in to Oregon’s highest elected office last month, after then-Gov. John Kitzhaber resigned amid scandal. As secretary of state — and even earlier, as a state legislator — she championed increasing access to the ballot box.

    “This bill is about making government work better, treating citizens as customers and giving them access to the service they expect,” she said Monday. “When someone moves to Oregon, why should they have to fill out multiple forms for multiple agencies? They should be able to complete one form, one time.”

    Comments
    • @45degrees - Registering to vote is not speech. The 1st Amendment protects expressive words or conduct. Choosing not to vote because you don't like any of the candidates is speech, but there is no expressive conduct in registering or not registering to vote.
      EAGLEMB
      AT 3:46 PM MARCH 18, 2015
    Currently, there are about 2.2 million registered voters in Oregon, said Tony Green, spokesman for Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins, and an additional 800,000 are not registered but eligible. The new law is expected to bring nearly half of those onto the voter rolls.
    Myrna Perez, director of the Voting Rights and Elections Project at the Brennan Center for Justice, called Oregon’s new law “a groundbreaking innovation.”

    “Oregon takes it further than any other state by putting the burden on the government,” said Perez, whose organization is part of New York University School of Law. “Instead of asking voters, ‘Do you want to register to vote?’ they ask voters, ‘Do you not want to vote?’”

    Brown said the new law would modernize how the state Transportation Department’s Driver and Motor Vehicle services division and the secretary of state’s office function.

    Oregon already requires people seeking a driver’s license to show that they are citizens or legal residents, Green said, and the DMV distinguishes between the two. For any citizen seeking a license, that information will automatically be sent on to the secretary of state’s office.

    In addition, citizens who have sought a license, renewed a license or changed an address since 2013 will also have their information sent to the secretary of state’s election division, which will notify them that they are eligible to vote.

    At that point, Green said, “you can opt out, affiliate with a party, or do nothing and you are registered to vote.”

    For those who are already registered to vote, he said, “there will be no change. But if you move, your information will be automatically transferred. You don’t have to manually re-register. You only have to do one thing — change your driver's license address.”

    The change was not universally embraced. HB 2177 passed both chambers of the state Legislature without a single Republican vote in its favor. Some worried about privacy matters and others wondered why it was necessary to make registration even easier.

    Republican state Sen. Kim Thatcher said in a statement this month that she was “very disappointed” that the bill passed. She said she voted against it because it “will expose Oregon citizens’ private information” and put victims of sexual assault and stalking at risk.

    Supporters of the bill said the state already has safeguards for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and that the new law will not make their private information public.

    “During testimony on the bill, a legislator said to me, ‘It’s already so easy to register in Oregon, why would we make it easier?’” Brown recounted as she signed the measure. “My answer is that we have the tools to make voter registration more cost-effective, more secure and more convenient for Oregonians.

    “Why wouldn’t we?”
     
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  5. JoeNation
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    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Any chance you'll be exercising that right soon?
     
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  6. rlm's cents
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    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    Of course Mr. RBGUPI had to interject race.

    Reading between your lines, I believe you are saying that you are in favor of this approach. Yet when the Republicans proposed the key factor in this law, you violently opposed it. Would you care to explain why you favor it here?

    Personally, I don't have a problem with it in principal, but it would be so much more efficient and less likely to have their data breeched if the voters were responsible for their own registry.
     
  7. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    Yes, merely mentioning the indisputable fact that this country had a history of only letting white male landowners vote in elections is both interjecting race and makes me a race baiter. Sure it does.

    Maybe I'm a landowner baiter too? I could be a male baiter as well? Considering I am all of those demographics, what would be my angle?

    I didn't say that I was for or against it. I believe that the more people that are involved in the process, the better. Anything that draws more involvement by the voters makes this a more democratic country. Not exactly what Republicans are hoping for.
     
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  8. rlm's cents
    Hot

    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    OK! So the Democrats owned the slaves, wrote the Jim crow laws, practiced segregation and opposed the Civil Rights Act. I guess you can rant all you desire about the Democrats history.

    Again, without directly saying so, I read that as saying you are for the law. Is that correct?
     
  9. JLogan
    Cheerful

    JLogan Trump is my President!

    The only positive i can see coming out of this would be increased chances for third party candidates, because the people who don't want to vote would likely pick someone who is not a Republican or a Democrat. Other than that, this would take away our "right" to vote, because we would be forced to exercise it. (It would be kind of like saying we have the "right" to pay taxes). Thankfully, I doubt 35 states would ratify this amendment. Obama claims to be "pro-choice", yet he doesn't think we should be able to choose whether or not we vote, or whether we have health insurance, or what capacity of magazine we want on our assault rifles.
     
  10. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    I think when we have yet one more Republican zealot banging the drum of voter fraud and using it as a reason to disenfranchise thousands of voters and failing once more in proving any voter fraud worth considering even exists, mandatory registration at a minimum and mandatory voting as policy would change this country and give it back to the people. Anyone that doesnt think we currently live in an Oligarchy, doesn't know the meaning of the word Oligarchy. Let me clue you in, it doesn't mean Socialism.

    Obama's exact words were:

    “It would be transformative if everybody voted,” Mr. Obama said during a town-hall event in Cleveland. “That would counteract [campaign] money more than anything. If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country.”

    He mentioned Australia, which had mandatory voting and citizens can face a fine for not going to the polls, and said it was an example of the “creative ways” needed to counter money in politics.


    Ohio’s Huge Voter Fraud Investigation Turns Up Nearly Nothing
    BY KIRA LERNER[​IMG]
    "Ohio’s Huge Voter Fraud Investigation Turns Up Nearly Nothing"

    [​IMG]
    CREDIT: AP PHOTO/ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

    Forty-four non-citizens may have voted illegally in Ohio at some point since 2000.

    Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted has been on a mission to weed out purported voter fraud in the state since he took office in 2011. After launching an investigation into what he called an “expanding loophole” allowing non-citizens to vote in Ohio and potentially decide elections, he announced Thursday that 145 non-citizens were registered to vote illegally in 2014, amounting to just .0002 percent of the 7.7 million registered voters in the state.

    Husted’s office would not provide any information about the 27 people it referred to the Attorney General’s office for further review. But in 2013, his office sent 17 potential cases — .0003 percent of total ballots cast in the state — to the AG who eventually referred them to county prosecutors. Most reports of voting irregularities were dropped by the county prosecutors because the “voter fraud” problems were determined to have been caused by simple mistakes and confused senior citizens, according to a Cleveland Plain Dealer investigation.


    Voter fraud in Ohio is a fifth-degree felony and could carry up to a year in prison. But of the cases referred to prosecutors’ offices in 2013, most irregularities were caused by voter confusion or mistakes made by elections officials and not deliberate attempts to commit fraud, the investigation found. For example, Cuyahoga County looked into 15 cases referred from Husted’s office and chose not to pursue criminal charges against any of the individuals, concluding that the voters were confused about the “Golden Week” during which people can both register to vote and also cast their absentee ballot.

    In total, only four people were convicted of voting fraud as a result of the 2013 investigation, Eve Mueller, the deputy director of communications for the Office of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, told ThinkProgress. Mueller said the office could not comment on the ongoing investigations into the newly announced cases.

    “In all of the instances where potential voter fraud has been brought up, even outside of undocumented people who may be voting… the prosecutors have said, ‘this is not a person who was really trying to defraud the system. They made an innocent mistake and this is not what voter fraud really is,'” Ohio ACLU Senior Policy Director Mike Brickner told ThinkProgress. “I suspect that once a lot of these other cases that Secretary Husted has pointed out really come under scrutiny, most of them will not end up in convictions or prosecutions and again the number will be really small.”

    According to his announcement Thursday, Husted identified two non-citizens who registered to vote and then cast ballots in Hamilton County. In 2013, he referred 48 potential cases of voter fraud to the county prosecutor’s office and only six cases were pursued, Chief Assistant Prosecutor Julie Wilson said in 2014.

    “The non-citizen issue certainly was not the biggest problem with those cases, that’s for sure,” Wilson told ThinkProgress, adding that maybe one, if any, of the six cases concerned non-citizens voting, although she could not confirm that information.

    Husted also said in his announcement Thursday that his office would likely turn up more cases of voter fraud if the federal government would provide it with the social security numbers of non-citizens so it could cross-check the voter rolls. But the federal databaseHusted wants access to is often outdated and error-riddled, as GOP officials who used the database to purge the rolls of non-citizens in Florida, Colorado and Iowa discovered. Those efforts ultimately found almost no non-citizens.

    Last month, Husted wrote a letter to President Obama in which he claimed the executive action on immigration will lead to non-citizens registering to vote which would have “lasting implications for the integrity of our elections,” although he admitted at the timethat non-citizen voting “is not a huge problem.”

    “I am committed to my responsibility to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat, and with the cooperation of the federal government we can do this without any additional burden on the voters,” Husted said in a statement Thursday. “Without access to the information we need, this will continue to be an unresolved problem.”

    While Husted may say he intends to make it easier to vote, his actions suggest otherwise. In 2012, he made extensive efforts to cut early voting, going so far as to defy a court order requiring early voting hours to be restored. In 2014, Husted agreed to join anerror-riddled multi-state voter purge database which he claimed would prevent voters from casting ballots in multiple states during an election.

    cont'ed....
     
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  11. JoeNation
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    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    cont'ed...


    Also during the 2014 election, more than 10,000 absentee ballots were rejected in Ohio, according to State Rep. Kathleen Clyde (D) who told the Plain Dealer that Husted’s time should be dedicated to eliminating cases of voter suppression.

    “I would like to see the Secretary of State focus on the real problems in our elections instead of playing to his base with these distractions,” Clyde said in a statement. “Ohioans deserve answers on why their votes are being thrown out.”

    Conservatives have long tried to tie immigration reform to potential voter fraud. Those like Husted who claim undocumented immigrants could influence elections continue to cite a study suggesting that non-citizen voting could have determined the 2014 election. But the research has largely been debunked, and the study’s authors acknowledged thelimitations of their findings.

    According to a recently released report by Nonprofit VOTE, voting in Ohio dropped by 22 percent from 2012 to 2014 and the state ranked 34th in overall turnout in 2014, a year which saw the lowest national turnout since World War II.

    “We don’t have enough people coming out and voting, and a lot of that is due to the constant barrage of voter restrictions we have in the state,” Brickner said. “For a decade now, we have been constantly having restrictions coming from our General Assembly, from our Secretary of State and from our governor’s office all designed to make it harder for people to vote. That’s really the problem with our election system, not that there are scores of people out there trying to register and defraud the system who aren’t supposed to be voting.”
     
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  12. rlm's cents
    Hot

    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    Third time, are you for it or against it?
     
  13. IQless1
    Blah

    IQless1 trump supporters are scum

     
    Last edited: Mar 20, 2015
  14. IQless1
    Blah

    IQless1 trump supporters are scum

     
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  15. IQless1
    Blah

    IQless1 trump supporters are scum

     
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  16. CoinOKC
    Yeehaw

    CoinOKC T R U M P 2 0 2 4

    You know, let's consider for a moment how Obama came up with this opinion. He was either told by someone about mandatory voting or else he read/heard it somewhere. Now, what happened next is key. The leader of the free (remember that word: "free") world had to think to himself, "Hmmmm... FORCING Americans to vote isn't such a bad idea". "If we make voting a duty instead of a right, we can force them to vote. If they don't vote, we can punish them via a fine, community service or imprisonment".

    Yes, folks, the leader of the land of liberty must have had similar thoughts on the subject. Otherwise, upon first hearing of mandatory voting, he would have completely dismissed the idea as abhorrent to a free people.

    There is absolutely no possible way that mandatory (forced) voting could be implemented without taking away the right of the people to vote.

    This episode is just one little insight into how the mind of Obama works. This is the president of the United States talking about how it might be a good idea to force people to vote!

    Why would anyone support this guy after hearing that he thinks it would be "fun" to amend the Constitution in order to take away your right to vote?
     
  17. JoeNation
    No Mood

    JoeNation The ReichWing Abuser

    I don't understand the hyperbole and push back when there are clearly benefits to compulsory voting. I mean the devil is in the implementation but I seriously doubt anyone would be jailed or fined for not voting. That is just crazy talk. Mandatory participation in the voting process could be accomplished through making voting a national holiday, online voting, mandatory registration, a "None of the above" option on every ballot, and certainly would mitigate the effects of large special interest campaign contributions that have corrupted the process. You know when someone has to make the "personal freedom" argument, they have little real rationale to support their position. A democracy only works as long as people believe in and participate in the process. It isn't hard to imagine why the Republican Party hates this idea and it is for the same reason you never see a Republican voter registration drive. They don't want everyone to vote not by a long shot. I don't see the obligation to vote any differently than any other service to the country from military commitments to education professionals. Service to one's country can take many forms the least of which should be participation in the election process.
     
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  18. c jay
    Amused

    c jay Well-Known Member

    Sure, and while we're at it lets throw in mandatory military or civil service. Or we could take the Robert A Heinlein "Star Ship Troopers" where you have to earn the right. The book had a lot to say about the failure of democracy which ring true today. A lazy, complacent citizenry and a constant bickering over the issues by people who have no stake in the game.
    Personally, I just as soon keep it as is. Many people simply wish to live their lives, and don't care about politics as long as they are left alone.
     
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  19. rlm's cents
    Hot

    rlm's cents Well-Known Member

    And just why would I want these people voting? If they have no idea what the politicians stand for, they would simply vote for the last thing they heard. i.e. money has a bigger influence on them.

    Has anyone watched Watter's World? He is interviewing college students who can't name the first president of the US, can't name Obama's party, can't name who won the civil war or even the revolutionary war. They are pathetic. I really do not think I want to force these people to vote.
     
  20. CoinOKC
    Yeehaw

    CoinOKC T R U M P 2 0 2 4

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