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[Criptfeind]

Mandatory voting is a terrible idea because voting is a right, not a responsibility.

If one wants to turn voting into responsibility, then we essentially would have "professional voters".

What a terrifying idea.

And I could see it happen in America at least.

[smjjames]

Mandatory voting is a terrible idea because voting is a right, not a responsibility.

If one wants to turn voting into responsibility, then we essentially would have "professional voters".

Australia has mandatory voting and yet they got Tony Abbott, so having mandatory voting doesn't guarantee better politicians anyways.

You do have a good point here and I was speaking in the hypothetical earlier.

[Frumple]

... professional voters. People who put as much effort in to voting and the political process that one would a job. Yes. That's terrible. We really don't need more of the population aware of and involved in the political process.

But nah, the US just needs to declare voting day a bloody national holiday. That would help. Well, "just" in the sense of that, and then all the other stuff regarding disenfranchisement and whatnot, but eh. Baby steps.

[Criptfeind]

... professional voters. People who put as much effort in to voting and the political process that one would a job. Yes. That's terrible. We really don't need more of the population aware of and involved in the political process.

That would be a good thing, but that wouldn't make someone a professional voter. Being paid to vote would make one a professional voter. (Well. Actually, paying people to vote doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me.) The thing that I said was terrifying was the idea of people paying other people to vote for them. Obviously that's pretty. You know. Far off. But yeah.

[Il Palazzo]

... professional voters. People who put as much effort in to voting and the political process that one would a job. Yes. That's terrible. We really don't need more of the population aware of and involved in the political process.

That would be a good thing, but that wouldn't make someone a professional voter. Being paid to vote would make one a professional voter. (Well. Actually, paying people to vote doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me.) The thing that I said was terrifying was the idea of people paying other people to vote for them. Obviously that's pretty. You know. Far off. But yeah.

What is it about the non-obligatory voting system that prevents the same thing from happening, though? Seems like it should happen anyway.

[Levi]

Mandatory voting would be awful.  It forces you to put your support behind a candidate when they are probably all asshats.  If you don't like your options, you shouldn't have to vote.

[Criptfeind]

To clarify, I don't think it's would be likely to happen in any case. Trying to put a system in place that allows a person to transfer their voting powers to other people strikes me as something that a lot of people would be opposed to. So I don't think it would happen in any case. Also, even if it was more likely in a mandatory voting setting, that's not enough that I would say mandatory voting isn't better. I disagree with Sergarr that mandatory voting is 'awful' I'm still for it. I just didn't bother to say that. I can understand if there is some confusion there about if I changed my mind after his post, but I didn't.

As for why it seems less likely in a non mandatory system. Well, people who don't care about voting in such a system can just simply not vote. In a mandatory system they would ether need to vote or (if the option existed) give their vote away. Simply that when you take away a option, the other choices become more likely to be picked, and the overlap between people who don't vote and who would give their vote away seems naturally higher to me then the overlap who don't vote but would vote if forced too. If that makes sense?

Mandatory voting would be awful.  It forces you to put your support behind a candidate when they are probably all asshats.  If you don't like your options, you shouldn't have to vote.

This is true as well. I guess I was assuming that you could do pointless write in or just "I HATE EVERYONE" just showing that you at least tried. But maybe that's not the case, how does it work in Australia?

Edit: According to wikipedia, all you have to do is 'mark' your ballot. So you can do anything you want to it. Presumably that means you don't have to vote for anyone in particular.

[Sergarr]

... professional voters. People who put as much effort in to voting and the political process that one would a job. Yes. That's terrible. We really don't need more of the population aware of and involved in the political process.

That would be a good thing, but that wouldn't make someone a professional voter. Being paid to vote would make one a professional voter. (Well. Actually, paying people to vote doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me.) The thing that I said was terrifying was the idea of people paying other people to vote for them. Obviously that's pretty. You know. Far off. But yeah.

What is it about the non-obligatory voting system that prevents the same thing from happening, though? Seems like it should happen anyway.

Because then a person can simply refuse to go vote?

Mandatory voting is going to result in many votes which were made either at random or because somebody promised more than others.

[smjjames]

... professional voters. People who put as much effort in to voting and the political process that one would a job. Yes. That's terrible. We really don't need more of the population aware of and involved in the political process.

That would be a good thing, but that wouldn't make someone a professional voter. Being paid to vote would make one a professional voter. (Well. Actually, paying people to vote doesn't sound like a terrible idea to me.) The thing that I said was terrifying was the idea of people paying other people to vote for them. Obviously that's pretty. You know. Far off. But yeah.

What is it about the non-obligatory voting system that prevents the same thing from happening, though? Seems like it should happen anyway.

Because then a person can simply refuse to go vote?

Mandatory voting is going to result in many votes which were made either at random or because somebody promised more than others.

And like I said, Australia still got Tony Abbott (that is how you spell it?), so it doesn't neccesarily guarantee that it'll make politics better.

[Criptfeind]

I don't think anyone here is saying that mandatory voting is going to be the magic bullet that brings American politics into a new era of enlightenment. Just that it might help a smidge.

[Il Palazzo]

Mandatory voting is going to result in many votes which were made either at random or because somebody promised more than others.

I'm just saying that buying votes is a concern that can be equally voiced whether voting is mandatory or not. You could buy as many votes of the disinterested in either system. That it isn't a widespread problem either in the US or in Australia, is due to it being made illegal.

[Drunken]

I think that a much better solution to mandatory voting is that there should be a 'no vote' party. It should be on the ballot and all eligible voters that do not cast a ballot and all invalid ballots should go to this party. The party should have no members and can never get elected, but seats won by that party should be empty. If there are not enough humans elected in any electoral body the election should be declared null and reheld. This would give all parties an incentive to enfranchise voters and would also give everyone a clear understanding of how representative the democracy is.

What I would like even more though is to stay on topic :-), this wonderful forum has plenty of election and democracy threads, it also has a huge Ukraine thread.

[smjjames]

I think that a much better solution to mandatory voting is that there should be a 'no vote' party. It should be on the ballot and all eligible voters that do not cast a ballot and all invalid ballots should go to this party. The party should have no members and can never get elected, but seats won by that party should be empty. If there are not enough humans elected in any electoral body the election should be declared null and reheld. This would give all parties an incentive to enfranchise voters and would also give everyone a clear understanding of how representative the democracy is.

That would be a fun experiment to try.

[Sergarr]

I think that a much better solution to mandatory voting is that there should be a 'no vote' party. It should be on the ballot and all eligible voters that do not cast a ballot and all invalid ballots should go to this party. The party should have no members and can never get elected, but seats won by that party should be empty. If there are not enough humans elected in any electoral body the election should be declared null and reheld. This would give all parties an incentive to enfranchise voters and would also give everyone a clear understanding of how representative the democracy is.

That would be a fun experiment to try.

Kinda happened in Russia with "against everybody" bracket.

Here's a good infodump on that (in Russian, I guess you could Google Translate that)

In some regional votes, there were up to 14% of "against-everybody"-ers.

[Loud Whispers]

I think people slinging the term Pax Americana around dont understand just how much better off the world is today compared to before.  Countries like China and Russia dont want this system to end.  They're trying to play the game under this system not change the system.  It's not a system that the US military is proping up, it's a system that every major world power is implicitly consenting to.  The squables are just over the details.  But that's just the way politics works.  People ignore when everyone talks about the stuff everyone agrees on and focus on the disagreements.

I don't think Russia desperately trying remove American influence from Eastern Europe and the Middle East whilst China steadily makes its advances through the pacific ocean show a willingness to submit to Murrica'.

Pax Americana does sound highly ironic to my ears. I'm sure people living in countries on the receiving end of US war machine wouldn't use that term.

It's relative peace, not world peace referred to here. Think of it like this; a nation invades another then America destroys that nation so hard it never recovers without American help.

Considering how many nations America has invaded or destabilized or began peacekeeping missions in... Well, it's relatively paxy enough. The big nations haven't declared war on each other.