Fnord wrote:
I say, "Let's have compulsory voting", and watch all of the slackers and traitors move to Australia or Brazil and we'll be rid of them, once and for all!
That wouldn't be a wise choice of places to move since both countries have compulsory voting.
Speaking of which, we need the PPR Australians to come to this thread to give local perspective. Narrator, DentArthurDent,Oldavid, what say you about compulsory voting?
I personally think it's a bad idea- agreeing with reasons already given in thread.
Cons:
against individual liberty
uneccesary criminalizes people
compulsory rather than voluntary votes are unlikely to add anything positive to the election since they will probably consist of jokes, angry write-ins and other protest votes, or people just voting for whoever has the loudest commercial because they want to get the annoyance over with and that's the only name that pops into their mind
Pros:
only one that I can think of, the one Obama gave in that it makes it impossible (or at least considerably harder) to affect outcomes by keeping some people away from the polls.
I personally don't think that's enough of a positive to come anywhere near outweighing the negatives.
He gave Australia as a positive example of where this works well so I am interested to hear from Australian posters.