The Need to Implement Mandetory Voting in the United States Essay

In America, many citizens choose not to vote every year. Although, The United States of America is a democracy, Americans should be required to vote. Whether the voting is for local places or for the government, citizens should be required to vote. This will give everyone a chance to speak their minds and learn more about politics. Compulsory voting is important because everyone should have a chance to vote for what they believe in.

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.

A very controversial topic in the United States is whether or not Americans should be required to vote. Voting is a very essential piece to democracy, but many Americans today are not attending their voting location and supporting the candidate they feel is best. In recent elections, just 60% of registered voters casted their vote for a candidate. This is an issue that many people are not happy about, but whether or not there is reason to fix it is the other side to the case. Voter participation is an issue that has been going on for years, and no laws are in place currently to bring it up. Americans have been proud to live in a “free country”, and a law forcing citizens to vote may be against America’s principles. Compulsory voting should

Americans should not be required to vote, the amount of votes will go up. But since they are not aware of who they are voting for would cause chaos. If they have a problem and want to have their say in the elections they should be able to without be required to with an influence of something. They would still need more ways to higher the voting percentage. But they could do that with several ads convincing them so they have the mindset of voting. Now the odds of the least liked candidate to be voted in to win is fifty fifty.

What is more American than voting? This right has been fought for by many groups and people throughout the life of our country. From the people in our history books to the everyday person fighting for their rights, voting has been yearned for by many. However, even with voting being such a big deal, voter turnout is low for America and still there are some Americans who can’t vote. With so much being done throughout the years to get the vote to Americans, we’d expect high voter turnout and everyone being able to vote, but that isn’t true and it needs to change. We should make voting required as turnout will rise, more people would get involved in the government, and more people will be able to vote.

One reason that Americans shouldn’t be required to vote is because not very many people vote due to their education level or because of their age. People who have an education level less than a highschool diploma are less likely to vote than a person that has gone to college and is a postgraduate (Doc. B). People who are 60 and older have 70-75% voter turnout as to where people who are

Several countries have mandatory voting for its citizens. Is it something the United States should pursue? Mandatory voting would definitely increase the percentage of votes cast. It would make voting a duty and no longer a right. With most people who vote straight party this would be an advantage to the party who has appeased the most voters as they would come in and cast the quickest vote by straight line voting. It could be possible that knowing you had to vote, one may take more interest in learning more about candidates or constitutional amendments that are on the ballots. However, I am in favor of the opposing view. I think it is a right and privilege and should not be forced upon a person. If you force people to do something they don’t want to do then the you will reap the results. You will have uniformed voters become the majority and making decisions for the country. The politicians base will no longer be the main concern as they now will have to make a push for the politically uneducated voter which will be more about what they can give them than policy issues. This also makes what the

Voting has not always been as easy as it is today. It is interesting to examine how far America has progressed in its process of allowing different types of people to be able to vote. Voting was once aimed at a particular group of people, which were white males that owned their own property. Today, most people over the age of eighteen can vote, except for the mentally incompetent or people who have been convicted of major felonies in some states. The decline of voter participation has always been a debate in the public arena. According to McDonald and Popkin, it is “the most important, most familiar, most analyzed, and most conjectured trend in recent American political history (2001, 963)” The question is, how important is voter

Since the turn of the twenty first century, in Canada voter turnout has made a significant and consecutive decline. In the last five federal elections on average only sixty-one per cent of eligible voters voted. If each eligible citizen voted in an election the government would be on par with the primary interests of the people. The easiest way to achieve this objective is by implementing a compulsory voting system. Mandatory voting systems are appealing because all citizens are affected by decisions made by the government, so it makes sense to have all those affected apart of the election process. As a result, the voting results would be more representative of the country and that would lead to an increase of stability and legitimacy.

In our system of government we are privileged with the option to take part in the political process that runs the country. It is our right to vote that lets the people influence change in policy and set the guidelines that politicians must follow to be elected representatives. This precious ability, which is most coveted in most non-democratic countries, is taken for granted in our own.

In recent years, due to non compulsory voting, our national affairs and international affairs have been affected. America should have compulsory voting because of increased voter turnout rates, the questionability of the legitimacy of our government and the education of politics for the people.

Since the United States of America established itself as its own self-governing country, one of the things that caused it to be salient and stand out from other countries is its relentless insistence on functioning as a democracy. Wars and protests have occurred so that every type of people, whether it was women or African Americans, may be granted the right to vote. Having a say in the American government is an honor and a privilege bestowed upon American citizens when they reach the age of eighteen. However, in recent years, statistics have shown that voter turnout and participation in recent elections has been rapidly and steadily declining, causing the United States to have the lowest voter participation in the world (“Is the System

At a City Hall meeting in Cleveland, Ohio when asked about the topic of mandatory voting laws (Jackson 2015), President Obama stated, “If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country.” (Stephanopoulos 2015 p5) (Evidence: Testimony) He is right, if everyone voted the political map in the country would be completely different---and not for the better. Compulsory voting can potentially cause the nation 's true political viewpoints to be misrepresented, thus hindering political progression, by making voters feel obligated to choose candidates that may not represent their ideas and forcing the politically disengaged to select random ballots.

Government is hypocritical when they say they trust the will of their citizens when they vote under compulsory terms, however they don’t trust citizens when it comes deciding whether or not to vote. The government takes advantage of the people’s liberty when they do this (Carpenter). By ignoring the people’s freedoms, the people may become more detached and distant from the government. Instead of promoting civic virtues, the government promotes resentment for taking away the people’s liberty. The concept of civic virtue is to choose to help the community on one’s own personal decision. By taking away the decision, it does not promote individuals’ civic virtue, but forces them to be pawns of the government. The government has no right to take away citizens’ decision to vote. This unethical act slightly turns the government into a tyranny. The founding fathers wanted to remain far away from the Human Predicament cycle, however when the government unethically revokes people’s rights it brings the nation closer to the nasty pattern. The government should respect the personal decisions of its citizens instead of forcing them to do something they don’t want to do. By doing this, the relationship between both are more peaceful and more efficient when it comes to working together in the future

One of the bases of this political system is individual freedom. This freedom extends to the process of voting. If people are required to vote, they will no longer feel they have freedom. Then, you will have people boycotting on voting because they will feel they are no longer living in a free country. They will no longer feel as if the have individual freedom in our country.