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Should voting be required in America?
- Thread starter Temari
- Start date
Liquid Ocelot
dead + tired
So uh.
Voting in the US is literally a contest of who has the most money and avoids making themselves look like an ass, so.
I don't think it means a thing. I think it's just a thing people can do to make themselves feel like they're doing something while someone most likely buys their way into the office while doing PR stuff that makes the average American feel a certain way.
It's a money game. Money and politics, and if someone with a lot of power and money wanted a certain person in office, they can literally PAY for swaths of their publicity stuff, and so on and so forth.
I just can't buy it. I vote, but I look before I do, and I always look into third-party options as well. Granted, the party I like doesn't do very well, but eh.
Voting in the US is literally a contest of who has the most money and avoids making themselves look like an ass, so.
I don't think it means a thing. I think it's just a thing people can do to make themselves feel like they're doing something while someone most likely buys their way into the office while doing PR stuff that makes the average American feel a certain way.
It's a money game. Money and politics, and if someone with a lot of power and money wanted a certain person in office, they can literally PAY for swaths of their publicity stuff, and so on and so forth.
I just can't buy it. I vote, but I look before I do, and I always look into third-party options as well. Granted, the party I like doesn't do very well, but eh.
Dustmop
Senior Member
I came here to say these things as well.
If anything, I believe the voting age should be raised. 25-30 sounds better imo, preferably only people that have held a steady job or something, the people who care where their taxes go and whatnot. The leeches on welfare should not be allowed to weigh in; they don't contribute to anything. :v
Really though. How many 18-year-olds really understand government and politics? Or care to? The mass majority between 18-24 seem to just go in and vote for whichever guy on the TV promised to lower the costs of college and whatever other pipe dreams they have. That, or they have parents like mine that spend the morning before voting telling them who the "best" people are without much of a reason why.
For the record, I'm 21 and I didn't vote this go around because I don't think I'm well-enough informed to. One vote may not be the make/break point, no, but I don't want to weigh in on things that I don't fully understand. Doesn't seem right to me.
Brackets
Mon the Biff.
Some 18 year olds are VERY interested in politics. Also, it's not fair to take out a whole chunk of the population. While younger people may care less about taxes, they might care MORE about issues relevant to them, like education.
Just because you are uninformed about your local government doesn?t mean that we should limit which adults are allowed to weigh in. I?m eighteen years old and I go to college full time and I hold a job as well to pay for my expenses. I do so in a way that will benefit me in the form of tax returns later on. I registered to vote when I was sixteen, and I keep up with the news (both locally and internationally) and I try to get my opinion out there and encourage people to form opinions about their own government. Just because I?m eighteen doesn?t make me uninformed or unopinionated, and when I can be tried as an adult and do most anything other older adults can do, it?s ridiculous that my right to vote should be waived because I?m uninformed - when there are adults older than me that are less informed or less eager to be involved.
Where is your statistic coming from when you say ?the mass majority? seem to just go in and vote for whichever guy promised to lower the costs of college??? That seems to be more anecdotal than anything, which is an unreliable source of statistic or information. It?s more likely that young voters won?t vote at all than vote for someone random. In fact, in the United States this year 18-19 year olds only made up 13% of the electorate, and while you say that young people are more likely to have democratic ideals such as lowering college costs or taxes, the amount of democrat voters have decreased more than half, while independent and republican have both risen.
As it is, young voters don?t have a very high turnout because they believe themselves uneducated - and that?s fine! But if people who are holding jobs and are 18-24 are unable to vote, then we have no say in what happens to us or the jobs that we hold. We have no say in where our taxes go and we can only watch as taxes are raised/lowered on our incomes. As people who live under the law, forcing us to live under it without having a say in the matter is waiving our right to liberty as defined by John Locke.
Dustmop
Senior Member
I'm glad you took that as seriously as you did, holy****.
Also I'm rather amused that neither of you touched the bit on welfare leeches. Just young voters in general.
Especially on your first line since I never said that at all. You're twisting it.
I said that I, personally, am uninformed so I choose not to. I did not say that I think it should be raised solely because I'm uninformed. That doesn't even make sense.
But holy jeebus, dude, chill. I gave an opinion. Last time I checked, there's a constitutional right that allows me to do that.
And I still don't care enough about politics to debate it with you. I just. Shared. An. Opinion.
Calm down.
HeyPatience
Senior Member
No, voting should not be required. People shouldn't have to make that decision if they don't want to.
Could the turnout be better? Of course. But I think our political system should be restructured to get people to actually want to vote. There are several states and districts where people don't vote because an incumbent is running pretty much unopposed, so there's no reason to vote.
We've actually discussed something similar to this in my AP Gov class before, and we read a book that had to do with reframing the Constitution to solve problems like this. If you're interested in politics and government, you may want to check it out.
We talked about this in my Government class a couple days ago, and this is exactly what we had talked about.
We also talked about how it can be off putting for a lot of people that the candidates now only seem to run ads that attack their competition rather than what their own viewpoints are. Not everyone has access to internet, and if they have access to TV they should be able to find out what the candidates views are on there, rather than be left in the dark.
Just because I wrote a few paragraphs containing my experiences and outlining why I disagree with you doesn't make me upset; I like debating and I was expressing a way we could debate and exchange opinions and expand our views on the subject on a thread that encourages discussion about politics. You are allowed to express your opinion - but I'm also allowed to express my opinion in regards to your opinion.
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Whymake people vote? They will clearly just randomly choose if they don't show up.
If they complain, tell them to vote next time.
If they complain, tell them to vote next time.
Temari
Senior Member
Yeah, I agree with a what a lot of people are saying. I don't think it should be required either. I do think that people should take more time to learn about the candidates and vote, though. Imo, it's pretty sad that only half of the people who are able to vote are voting, especially when there are people in other countries trying to fight for something like voting rights.
7Yrs
Hail, Companion!
I'm from Australia, where it's compulsory to vote for every eligible citizen or you'll get fined. In my experience the only thing that has happened by forcing everyone to vote, is making a large portion of people botch their votes.
Ever since I was young when voting time was around, I'd hear everyone go on and on about how there is no reason to vote, since the people we're voting for a no better than the other. How they'd have to try and work out who was the lesser of two evils, since they had to vote or get fined. And a lot of the time rather than choosing, I'd hear that come voting time people would just vote for 'bugs bunny' or ' blinky bill' or 'cross out all the names' so their vote would be invalid and not counted.
Now I don't know any statistics, or even if this is as widespread as I think it is. But I think that most people don't even make a proper vote, or if they do vote, they just follow the crowd. And neither of those options helps anyone, especially the latter. I mean if somehow everyone in Australia botched their vote, then maybe the government would take a hint and either make voting optional or better yet, get some better people going for prime minister. (I'm not going to even get started on how stuffed up our government is, that's a topic I don't want to waste my breath on.)
I don't think making people vote will accomplish much. I can understand that if more people voted then there might be a chance to get someone in power who wants to do their job right. But as it stands I feel most people would either make uneducated votes because they don't know much about politics, or don't care. Or botch their vote so it won't count anyway.
Basically if someone doesn't want to vote, then even making it compulsory won't change that. At least that's the idea I've gotten from my own experiences.
Ever since I was young when voting time was around, I'd hear everyone go on and on about how there is no reason to vote, since the people we're voting for a no better than the other. How they'd have to try and work out who was the lesser of two evils, since they had to vote or get fined. And a lot of the time rather than choosing, I'd hear that come voting time people would just vote for 'bugs bunny' or ' blinky bill' or 'cross out all the names' so their vote would be invalid and not counted.
Now I don't know any statistics, or even if this is as widespread as I think it is. But I think that most people don't even make a proper vote, or if they do vote, they just follow the crowd. And neither of those options helps anyone, especially the latter. I mean if somehow everyone in Australia botched their vote, then maybe the government would take a hint and either make voting optional or better yet, get some better people going for prime minister. (I'm not going to even get started on how stuffed up our government is, that's a topic I don't want to waste my breath on.)
I don't think making people vote will accomplish much. I can understand that if more people voted then there might be a chance to get someone in power who wants to do their job right. But as it stands I feel most people would either make uneducated votes because they don't know much about politics, or don't care. Or botch their vote so it won't count anyway.
Basically if someone doesn't want to vote, then even making it compulsory won't change that. At least that's the idea I've gotten from my own experiences.
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