Compulsory Voting Dbq

Voting has been a core part of our government since the very beginning, however, many citizens chose not to take part in this essential participation. To prevent any one person from gaining too much power voting was put in place as well as checks and balances in the system by the founding fathers. While not everything is decided by voting because our government is a Constitutional Republic, voting is by far the most important way a citizen can participate in the government. Therefore, it’s baffling that people chose not to vote. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.” While we can all agree that voting is important there is a debate on whether it should be mandatory. Voting should be an optional but important way to participate in the government.

Voting was not always fair, especially for colored people. People who were white could vote without problems. Not only did blacks have rights, but Indians couldn't vote. Soon after almost 100 years Native Americans could finally vote.Today everyone has the right to vote no matter what race they are.

When people’s rights are suppressed, they have to stand together for themselves in order to win those rights back. In the 1960s, African-Americans marched together in a series of peaceful demonstrations in order to demand the right to vote which was a right that had been long suppressed. The Civil Rights Movements led to the Voting Rights Act which was a great achievement for African-Americans on their way to attaining equal rights because this act protected African-Americans’ right to vote from being suppressed by state governments.

Woman didn’t have the right to vote but they had many opportunities to get that right to vote! One action women used to get their right to vote is picketing at the White House. They stood in front of the White House wearing graduation dresses and chanted for women’s rights to vote. They stood their everyday all day 24/7 just to convince the president. They had many different women stand out there and some of them got arrested for picketing because riots started with the woman. They attacked them because they didn’t like the woman and they had treated the women like property.Another way women got their rights to vote was hunger strike. Woman like Alice Paul would not eat because she didn’t want all the woman in the world to not have rights

hen women wanted the right to vote, they used many tacticts to gain their right.

One of the most valid arguments for compulsory voting is that compulsory voting reduces the power of interest groups. When less people vote it is easier for these select groups to sway the end result of elections in their favor. Interest groups play a pivotal role in the election and campaigning of candidates. During the 2012 election,super pacs and nonprofits spent nearly $850 million.(Care2.com, The Election Cost How Much?)

Voter turnouts in the U.S. are spectacularly low compared to most other democracies. Turnout has not reached over 70% in the last century while other developing nations and quite a few third world nations have registered higher turnouts. During the 2016 presidential election, only about 55.7% of the population cast their votes according to newly released Census Bureau figures. The U.S. trails far below compared to the other developed nations hovering over 80% which were, Belgium (87.2%), Sweden (82.6%) and Denmark (80.3%). How could this be? Is the U.S. political system built in a way where many people believe that their votes don’t matter or should compulsory voting be enforced? There are many factors that go into the results of voter turnouts in the U.S.

Rights and reponsibilities often go hand in hand. Voting is a right, yet many of us froget that it is also a big responsibility. We take it for granted, not realizing how many people in other nations are still fighting for it! Mandatory voting will affect the eligible voting citizens because it will give them a sense of duty that they have towards their nation. Compulsary voting will result in more democratic results which will also affect which political party comes into power, thus making Canada a truly democratic country.

The issue of restrictions on voter rights, via registration restrains, or restrains is not a new issue when looking back at the history of the United States of America. There have been a number of Supreme Court cases that have dealt with laws that have attempted to hamper the ability of minority groups to have their voices be heard at an equal volume. One example is the case, Baker V. Carr (1962). This was about how the county lines, and therefor Congressional representation, was greatly skewed and had not been update for many years, giving the rural voter greater representation over that of the urban voter, who could be shown more likely to be a minority. While there is very little new about the issue itself, there seems to have been what appears to progress, but the case could be made that the issue is still very much alive and well, just masquerading around the ball in a different mask. What originally brought my gaze to this topic, was actually a segment on the topic during an episode of “Last Week Tonight, With John Oliver.” The thing that stuck out the most to during this particular segment was the legislation that Oliver brought up, and a quote that went along with it, calling the North Carolina laws being struck down “the most restrictive voting law North Carolina has seen since the era of Jim Crowe,” and that the laws provisions, “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” While this example specifically speaks towards regulations that are aimed

If not a single citizen were to participate in a democracy, that democracy would cease to exist. The very idea of a democracy is the notion that the people are in power and, therefore, will participate. Nevertheless, the trends of American voters in recent years have revealed that turnout is at a low point. According to Thomas Cavanagh, since the peek of electoral participation in post war 1960, voter-turnout has continually been on the decline (53). In other words, people just aren’t participating in the voting process as they used to. Moreover, this trend of low turnout doesn’t seem to occur only in less exposed congressional elections. Today, even in the highly publicized, closely contested, and salient presidential elections, only about 60% of the eligible voters participate—which is relatively low compared to the functioning democracies of Europe, where turnout consistently averages around 80% (The Case 591). The question for political scientists then becomes whether or not this trend of low voter turnout in American elections affects the government’s representation of its constituents (Teixeira 152). Put differently, do the results of a low turnout election actually represent the will of the people? Some political scientists assert that it does not, and believe that compulsory voting would be the quickest and most effective way to end this hindrance on representative democracy. Others, however, see it differently, and believe there is a set of traits that

If the state of Texas was to pass a policy or law that required every citizen of this state to vote, it would not improve how the people knowledge over the political candidates, or the issues concerning the elections. The reason behind this, is because the people will just vote, because they are being force too, meaning they just doing it because they have too, because there’s a law making them do it, leading to not having knowledge of nothing. If people want to know more about the candidates themselves, all about the issues that should be fix in the upcoming presidency, the individuals should volunteer on there own, because if they are force to vote, they would just vote for either candidate because they have vote. By making someone vote, it won’t make him or her more likely

The idea of compulsory voting has been discussed for almost every democratic nation in the world. It has been shown to work for some nations but, would compulsory voting benefit the United States? Many have posited that if all were forced to vote, many would vote at random or on a whim, randomizing our democratic process. This would undermine our political system and put into office whoever happens to be randomly selected. Many who push for compulsory voting say that it will even the playing field, forcing those underprivileged parties that did not vote before to vote. I see this as a movement in the wrong direction. The people that should be voting are those who have an opinion on the election, or want one of the candidates over the others, but that is not always who is voting. Many either can not because it is too hard, or do not because they believe it is too hard. The effort should be spent on making voting accessible to every American citizen. In the end compulsory voting is not the solution to the problem of low voter turnout, as it raises many more problems in itself.

This research essay argues that compulsory voting does not violate international law of human rights (ILHR). In arguing so, we explore the perspectives of different commentators regarding the pros and cons of compulsory voting, and interpret how the relevant ILHR documents address the issue of compulsory voting.

Government’s only role is to protect the rights of its people. The government was never founded to impose rules that jeopardizes the freedom of individuals. Government shouldn’t make voting mandatory because doing so oversteps their line of jurisdiction as stated in the Constitution. By instituting mandatory voting, the government imposes too much on citizens’ liberty and supplants the government with too much power.

Voting is an act of expression that holds the United States together as a whole. President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated, “Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting." Our government may not infringe on the people's right to vote, however the people themselves may neglect those rights by not exercising their right to vote. Americans live with the protections and rights that are documented in our Constitution and amendments. Freedom in a democracy is what empowers citizens to voice their opinions. The right to vote that activists fought and died for has given every day citizens the power to directly impact an election and the laws that govern us. Voting should not be mandatory because, it would take-away the history behind activist fighting for the right to vote, and will further diminish voters choice to not exercise their voting right.