Should Mandatory Voting be Enforced in the United States?

📌Category: Elections, Government
📌Words: 1333
📌Pages: 5
📌Published: 25 June 2021

Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965 all Americans have had the right to participate in voting or choose to stay silent. As Americans, we have fought many battles to concorde many obstacles and to stand for what we believe is right. In today's society, people are questioning if mandatory voting should be enforced because they believe that voting is a duty, not a choice, and also to improve the number of voters. But what some don’t think about is the consequences of enforcing mandatory voting in the United States. Mandatory voting would cause more trouble than it would improve the United States. Voting should not be mandatory due to civil liberties, uninformed voters, flooding at polls, chaos, mad citizens, and on top of all of that we have to worry about the people who simply wouldn’t have a way to get to the pools on time to vote. But we punish them for not voting?

According to Emilee Chapman “The idea of compulsory voting is that it conveys the idea that each person’s voice is expected and valued,”. But if you sincerely value someone's perspective and voice you should also value that person's right of staying silent. America is known to be the Land of the Free, which means more than just being able to attend school if wished or simply getting up in the morning to go to work. It means to be able to make your own decisions. And if your decision is to not vote, that is your right. In the Land of the Free, we have civil liberties. According to the United States Constitution “Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech.” This means as citizens of the United States, no law passed by congress is allowed to tell us when to speak and when not to speak. And when you are choosing a candidate for a certain position, rather it be a state or local election, that is a speech. Voting is a right and making it mandatory is making it an obligation to take away the right to vote or not to vote. People argue that voting is a duty that every American that lives in the United States should be forced to do just like jury duty. But a right and a duty aren’t the same things. A duty is a responsibility that you are forced to do. But a right is being entitled to perform an action. If voting is a right it can’t be a duty and if something is a duty it can’t be a right. Sheldon Richman said, “Individual freedom in moral communities requires not an impotent "right" to cast one vote among multitudes, but the right to ignore the state and live peacefully.” When researching I looked up the definition of the word totalitarianism. And according to Britannica totalitarianism is a form of government that theoretically permits no individual freedom and that seeks to subordinate all aspects of individual life to the authority of the state. And if we continue to let the government control us more and more they will slowly creep in and turn what our founding fathers have created into a totalitarian government.

Some people simply don’t vote because they want to be silent but others don’t vote because they are not informed enough to know which candidate would be best for our country. As stated by Jonah Goldberg “Almost half of the American public doesn’t know that each state gets two senators. More than two-thirds can’t explain the gist of what the Food and Drug Administration does.” If Americans simply don’t know the simple things we are taught in high school, how are they supposed to say which candidate would be the best to run the whole country? Exactly, they can’t. This is what we call uninformed voters. Uninformed voters are citizens who are poorly educated about the beliefs and morals each candidate stands for. Life can get crazy for some. Working all the time, trying to spend quality time with family and friends can get in the way of taking time to get educated about politics. Especially when someone doesn't have much interest in politics. Some might not understand how someone could not care about things like politics that have a big impact on our lives, but it's just like not everyone wants to sit down to watch the super bowl. They think it’s boring. Everyone’s different, and because of that our interests aren't going to be the same. Keeping this in mind, do you really want someone who doesn't even know each candidate's full name to put their input on who should run our country. The Washington Security of State informs us that in 1975 the 26th Amendment was passed which allowed all citizens of the United States that are 18 or older the right to vote in elections. So why would there have to be an age restriction? Well, that's because people under the age of 18 are looked upon as uninformed through the government's eyes. So why would people try to enforce mandatory voting on citizens who are just as uninformed as someone who is under the age of 18? Well, some politicians argue that it would improve the turnout of voters. Which it would make the numbers better but just because the number of voters would be better doesn’t mean it’s going to improve our country as a whole. Not only to mention that the numbers of voters have been increasing without forcing people to vote.

Wilson 3 According to BBC News “Preliminary figures show the highest turnout since 1900, with 66.4% of eligible voters turning out compared with 60.1% in 2016.” That is a really good improvement without the government forcing anyone. We as Americans are independent and have the right to make our own decisions.

Another reason mandatory voting should not be enforced is that it would cause complete chaos. From flooding at the polls to having mad citizens etc. In the 2020 presidential election, 66.4% of Americans actually voted. If we enforce mandatory voting that's going to be 33.6% of the United States population voting more than our last presidential election. Although 33.6% doesn't sound like that much, it's more than you think. Country Meters lets us know that the total population of the United States is 333,456,405 million. So if 33.6% of people don’t vote that's 80 million people according to Domenico Montanaro. 80 million more people would definitely affect the voting polls. It would affect things by causing flooding at the polls. In 2019 the United States issued a global pandemic because of a virus outbreak called Covid-19. Which caused social distancing and having to wear. It would be very difficult to enforce social distancing with states like New York and California that are heavily populated. Some people have health issues that cause them not to be able to wear a mask like respiratory disabilities, post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety, claustrophobia, autism, and cerebral palsy. The question is how are we supposed to enforce something like mandatory voting if not everyone is physically qualified to do so? Not only do we have to worry about these things, but we also have to worry about the unpleasant citizens that stand against mandatory voting. If the people of the United States rebel against the government about mandatory voting what will be the consequence? The Constitution states we have the right to assembly. In a nutshell that means being able to hold a peaceful protest against something that the people disagree with. Which has recently happened in today's society about different subjects but, sometimes things get out of hand. The peaceful protests turned into not so peaceful protests. In fact, they turned into riots. From burning down businesses to robbery and who says this wouldn’t happen again with mandatory voting being enforced. Who would be the one to take the responsibility for causing such chaos over something that took citizens of the United States’ civil liberties and rights away?

Although making voting mandatory could improve the numbers of citizens that do vote each year there are just too many problems that come with mandatory voting. Voting is a right, not an obligation. Making everyone vote would hurt our country because of uninformed voters who really don’t care about politics. And finally, it would cause flooding at the polls, chaos, and mad citizens. And all of this is not worth having everyone vote for someone to be put into office. It puts too many things in jeopardy and on the line. I hope you agree with me and stand for what is right for the sake of all citizens and America.

 

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