American Politics Discussion Thread

[Mjmd]

There is a LARGE portion of the US that just doesn't vote..... Could always grab some of those.

[Amicalola]

Yearly plug for compulsory voting and preferential voting as essential to a healthy and representative democracy.

[Mjmd]

Yearly plug for compulsory voting and preferential voting as essential to a healthy and representative democracy.

Yes please.

One of the hard things growing up in America is we are always told we are the greatest democracy in the world. Its not even close to true and less so now; not going to lie it hurt learning that. We are the most geopolitically important democracy very very sadly.

[Charriu]

Yearly plug for compulsory voting and preferential voting as essential to a healthy and representative democracy.

Agree but then you also need to lift all this stupid "register to vote" stuff. You have to make the process of voting very easy.

[Miguelito]

I've wrote this before here: give every adult citizen a voter ID free of charge, register them automatically, easy done.
The responses from US / Anglosphere in general posters here was that registering to vote is super easy and quite a joy to do (according to reportages that might not be true quite for every voter); nobody picked up the free ID thing .

[superdeath]

Yearly plug for compulsory voting and preferential voting as essential to a healthy and representative democracy.

Yeah no. There hasnt been a candidate that had a shot of winning that i would have willingly voted for in the almost 10yrs that ive been able to vote. Im not being forced to vote for someone.

[Amicalola]

Yearly plug for compulsory voting and preferential voting as essential to a healthy and representative democracy.

Yeah no. There hasnt been a candidate that had a shot of winning that i would have willingly voted for in the almost 10yrs that ive been able to vote. Im not being forced to vote for someone.

I'm sure I've explained this upthread, but compulsory voting just means you have to show up to the booth. You can tick a box to vote, or draw some genitals on your ballot, or anything in between. No one will know.

Edit: But lots of people who wouldn't normally bother showing up will decide to vote once they're there, creating a better representation.

[superdeath]

Still no. Why would you ever want to force people to vote? Most of us dont care who is in charge because A: things never change, basically every politician is corrupt. B: No matter who is in office, our day to day lives dont really change much.

I lean more towards the corrupt part of it, but compulsory voting will never go thru. Its up there with some of the worst ideas ive heard in a long time.

Now, voting day being a national HOLIDAY... im all on board for. Same with the every adult having easy access to voting. But making it compulsory...

[Amicalola]

Still no. Why would you ever want to force people to vote? Most of us dont care who is in charge because A: things never change, basically every politician is corrupt. B: No matter who is in office, our day to day lives dont really change much.

I lean more towards the corrupt part of it, but compulsory voting will never go thru. Its up there with some of the worst ideas ive heard in a long time.

Now, voting day being a national HOLIDAY... im all on board for. Same with the every adult having easy access to voting. But making it compulsory...

What I am describing is not forcing people to vote? As I said, you do not have to tick a box on your ballot. You just have to submit one. If you submit a ballot with no votes listed, that still gets your name ticked off. It's called a 'donkey vote,' at least here.

[superdeath]

forcing people to the booth, is basically forcing them to vote. All it WOULD do is whatever party promises to eliminate that, will get all the votes. "not forcing people to vote, but they HAVE to submit a ballot"...