Bush vs Kerry Debate 3 : Final Debate

Why would you want to do that? Requiring people to vote would simply introduce a greater random element into the electoral process by forcing the uninterested and, therefore, uninformed to vote.

 

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If people were required to vote, they might actually spend some time to "inform" them selves. I honestly don’t care how it would change the results, it’s the fact that the majority of this nation is that apathetic and uninterested in who runs their country that saddens me.

 

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It may sadden you. To some extent it saddens me as well. Still, it would sadden me more to have a bunch of people who are largely ignorant of the issues of the day showing up because they had to and voting for whoever's name sounded familiar or whoever was listed first on the list.

 

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Who to say that would be the situation? Perhaps enforced voting would greatly increase citizen civics.

 

Wishful thinking, you'd be amazed at how many people are ignorant of basic US history and current events. Ask a few random people you come into contact with who won the civil war, who the US fought against in WW2, who is in charge of the Dept of Homeland Security? I think many people don't vote because they, rightly, feel they don't know enough or care enough to make a choice.

 

I would completely support mandatory voting.

I also would support voting reform. Like changing the voting day into the voting week, overhaul registration process, and one size fits all federal paper ballot.

I feel mandatory voting would require the state to make a concerted effort to educate the public on the whole election processes. More in depth coverage of the office seekers and the office holders.

We have Mandatory papers we must carry, taxes we must pay, speeds we must drive, schooling we must attend, etc. etc..

The regular voter is typicaly in the minority of Americans, the national elections strive to reach 50%.

Who can blame them, the non-voter? Work, food, sleep, commute, family. Educating yourself of 50 or so candidates and issues every year in by no means a simplistic task. Perhaps mandatory voting can bring the plethora of ineptitudes of our democracy to light so it doesn't continue to fester away in the darkness.

 

so what happened to the land of the free, mandatory voting, here comes big brother.

just because the proles, dont feel the need to vote, it's there right.





and bush will win.

 

required voting seems to work well enough in other countries. I would not say it wishful thinking.

 

Land of the free?

Mandatory drug tests to get insurance, work, injured at work, sporatic tests when company wants you to, upheld by the courts. (polygragh tests were thrown out in the 80s).

Mandatory insurance for drivers, state enforced. what a crock, it used to be called the protection racket.

Mandatory identity papers. If you do not have valid ID (state drivers liscense, state ID card) it is a misdemeanor. Subject to fines and imprisonment.

Mandatory speed limits. Since Nixon, the state reserved the right to (selectively)enforce the speed. Heretofore the speed limit was safe and sane. For love of power over citizenry, and greed at thinly veiled tax on the targeted.

Mandatory sentencing. Our justice system is screwed beyond measure. We have the highest per capita incarceration rate of ANY industrialized nation. It cost the taxpayer approximtely $30,000 to hold a prisoner for 1 year. less than 30% of prisoners are held on violent crime charges. The great majority are for Drug and Traffic violations. It is a police state we live in. The siege mentality just hasn't kicked in yet.

You are subject to search and siezure in any public area. The drug laws have allowed for a sieze first policy. Only after defeating charges in the court system, up to 2 years later. So you can be driving, pulled over, have all your cash siezed as 'drug money'($2,000 in '92), then not get your money back until you beat the wrap.

Exactly how free do you think you are in America?
I don't mean free so long as you stay invisible either.
Can you walk naked as the day you were born and worship the sun god with your crispy skin? Why not?
Can you 'do drugs'? Why not?
Can you live off the land anywhere in the US? Why not?
Can you -----------OK ranting subsiding, think of summation.

There are so many oppresive laws that yoke the US citizenry to a docile apathetic existence it is simply beyond rational to call America 'the land of the free'

 

Insane,
All those laws are there to protect you

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I agree another mandatory law requiring ppl to vote is not what this country needs. You should have the right to be a lazy SOB.

 

It's an odd gamble. Controversy brings out the deadbeat liberal crowd to the polls, and also new or disenchanted oppositional voters. This is among the reasons higher turnout producs a more progressive result.

An interesting phenomenon that I hadn't accounted for until I heard my partner talking about her father: He's deeply religious, a law-and-order conservative, considered by the GOP to be part of its "base".

He's not voting for President this year. He cannot on conscience support George W. Bush, but refuses to vote for Kerry, and if he's going to throw away his vote (e.g. third-party), he's not going to bother.

Which brings to mind an old Rush song I had to hear thousands of times in my pizza-slinging days: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice".

It's the alienated GOP base that faces the biggest challenges of conscience; I can't say I expect such a sentiment to rip apart the base, but the GOP base is definitely reduced by President Bush's lack of apparent conscience, reliance on federal expansion to buoy job numbers, and general dishonesty.

I would love to see the GOP voter base come unhinged; there are few things in the world I take delight in being wrong about, but the United States would benefit so greatly from the dissolution of the GOP at present that I would love to be wrong about those millions who seem to believe believe lying to be a noble pursuit for a warmongering president.