President Obama thinks that mandatory voting would be game-changing.
“It would be transformative if everybody voted,” Obama said during the event. “That would counteract [campaign] money more than anything. If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country.”
He goes on:
“The people who tend not to vote are young, they’re lower income, they’re skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups,” Obama, who had never publicly commented on the subject, said. “And they’re the folks who are scratching and climbing to get into the middle class and they’re working hard. There’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls. We should want to get them into the polls.”
What’s the counter-argument to mandatory voting? Some would argue, I imagine, that our government should not force us to do something. We have free will, and can make the decision to vote or not.
To that, I say this: nonsense.
Within thirty days of turning 18, every male must sign up for selective service — a system developed so that the government could quickly mobilize a generation of men in the event of a “crisis requiring a draft.” It is illegal to opt-out of selective service registration. Those who do not register with selective service face jail time, fines, and other punitive measures (like lack of access to student loans).
If we can mandate that men of a certain age must register for a system of military conscription, we can surely mandate that all people of a certain age — whether that should be eighteen is another topic — must vote, one way or another, for their duly elected representatives.
Everyone complains about Washington. But the American system is so great because it is flexible and fixable. One vote is more powerful than one dollar. It is not cliche to say that the voters hold the power. If we had more voters, our elected representatives would be forced to actually represent all of their constituents…not just the few who vote, or the even smaller number who contribute.
I’d like to see a 2016 presidential candidate put mandatory voting on their platform. Why not?
Originally published at brendanhartdotcom.wordpress.com on March 19, 2015.
