Should voting be mandatory?

If voting had any meaning, I would say it would be a good thing. Unfortunately, this isn't exactly a Democracy...

 

Voting is a joke.... Should comedy be mandatory?

 

Yes, Comedy should be mandatory.

 

Hmmm ... well, here in America Ron Paul is the only serious and honest candidate on the playing field right now. Past elections, America didn't even have people like him. And if they did, they were minor third party candidates who had no chance of getting through our corrupt system.

I feel bad for all the Australians. Seriously, voting is mandatory!? That's sad. I used to hate politics, and I definitely wouldn't be voting at all if it wasn't for Ron Paul. That sucks to have to be forced into it.

Yeah if you don't care and don't even bother looking into all the issues, what's the point of voting? Mandatory voting sounds dictatorial, honestly. It's like, hey you voted for this guy. No, you FORCED me to choose between one evil or the other!

 

Not voting is/can/should be counted as a vote for some candidate not on the ballot.

 

Always/by definition? Or just in the current situation?

 

I think so. They make it so easy with mail in ballots now. I would hope making it so would actually increase voter education.

 

No I really dont think voting should be manditory.. Its bad enough people are voting now who have no knowledge of the candidates or the issues. If it was manditory people would just vote on people for no reason or just bassed on the rediculous attack adds on tv...

 

Actually only attendance at a polling station is compulsory. Some people will spoil their voting paper.

 

Voting should be mandatory only of the electoral college is done away with first...Votes should be cast and counted one by one....

 

actually the other way around! those who vote are stupid and heavily ignorant! look what has happened to the US! bush jr. twice! give me a break!

 

mandatory voting seems a bit like mandatory capital punishment for attempted suicide.
not voting, is after all, a vote against all of the above, though it isn't counted as such,
and i don't know if people realize it isn't.

to abstain from voting does seem like a necessary option though.
especially if there's someone with a gun telling or implying how you should vote.

and that would be another problem with eliminating the option of abstaining.

 

Yes It Certainly Should Be...........Either......VOTE......Or Forever Hold Your Peace.......



Cheers Glen.

 

Voting should be mandatory BUT you should also have the option to vote NO SUITABLE CANDIDATE.
That would keep all the elections real.

 

You're assuming the votes are counted and reported correctly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

 

Wasn't it the late Mayor Daley of Chicago who said :"It's not the votes that count, its how the votes are counted?" Wasn't it Trump who questioned ballot counting in Colorado? http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/us/politics/donald-trump-ballots-colorado.html?_r=0

 

Americans have the best justice that money can buy and it just doesn't matter whether you vote or not with the entire system being heavily gerrymandered and people tending to almost always vote for whoever advertises the most. The only study I've even heard of second hand on the subject went out and asked how or even if people would vote and then went back after the election to check the results. They discovered that the apathetic voters were right and their vote never could have made any difference whatsoever even if everyone had voted. Lao Tzu said, "Ritual is the end of honesty and compassion, the beginning of total confusion!" People are so conditioned to think of a democracy as merely fighting for what you believe in that in ten years of my asking nobody has been able to tell me the simple distinction between a democracy and a lynch mob, while the republican party has been running on the promise of creating a new government for over half a century and merely selling out to the highest bidder at every opportunity.

 

i like peace. i say if you want to vote. you take partial responsibility for whatever happens under their elected person in office. will it work or fail? only those who partake in that way of life would know. anything else remains opinion until proven otherwise. and those who take a stab at voicing what they think, believe, feel of what really is thats on them.

 

Mandatory voting is a terrible idea. We have enough problems with angry, disgruntled voters. Making them vote increases the prospects for spit voting, which is the last thing we need.