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[NullForceOmega]

That's fine, your opinion is exactly as meaningless.

[Descan]

.

[NullForceOmega]

I'm not a member of any party.  I ascribe to no political doctrine.  My position is my own.

[Greiger]

@government shutdown

From what I've seen from last shutdown is that the biggest thing the average American notices about a government shutdown is that there is no mail.  I imagine bigger things would start cropping up for longer shutdowns, but even if we had direct control over what our representatives do (which we don't, I actually wrote one of my senators about net neutrality and climate change and basically got a nicely worded prewritten batch printed 'fuck you' as a response) I don't think the American people are going to be doing anything to stop a government shutdown because the government shutdowns we did get amounted to absolutely nothing bad happening.

For clarification, the senator I wrote was Rubio. So I don't know what I expected.

[MrRoboto75]

The problem was your letter had no money in it.

At least have a gift card, if nothing else.

[NullForceOmega]

Seriously, you can't expect someone like Rubio to take you seriously unless you're handing out some bills.

[Reelya]

For group 2 all it would do is cause a massive surge of write in votes. Somebody who hated Clinton, Trump, Stein, and Johnson isn't going to stop hating them just because they'll be punished for not voting, and if you're sitting out as a "protest" you are not going to abandon that to avoid a fine. Instead, they'll write in Mickey Mouse, or Donald Duck, or Beelzebub, or something like that.

It's not really, people are too lazy to do even that. 99% of people who didn't want to pick and are forced to pick will just pick something from the offered choices rather than making up a fake choice. No country where voting is mandatory has a problem with write-in choices.

But the existence of those other votes does in fact change the process. People who don't like any choice are in fact more volatile voters and they are therefore a lucrative area for picking up more votes, so they will in fact be targeted and that will change the messaging.

[NullForceOmega]

Yah, that doesn't seem like a valid criticism of mandatory voting, I'm pretty sure logistics is the killer here.

[Greiger]

I think that argument is more along the lines of there will be little gain, because the people who don't care are not going to make an educated decision.  They will either pick one randomly, do a fake write in like Vermin Supreme, or pick the one who had the shiner ads.

If mandatory voting was a thing the person who wins will be the one who had the most amusing ad on the most tv and radio channels before the vote.  That's all the targeting the uninvested will amount to.

None of those scenarios will improve anything, and just run the risk of jailing those with legitimate reasons why they could not vote.

[smjjames]

Yah, that doesn't seem like a valid criticism of mandatory voting, I'm pretty sure logistics is the killer here.

Pretty much. And the fact that Republicans abuse the voting stuff so much that mandatory voting could be seen as voter suppression.

However, even legitimate voters run into problems with voter IDs, and every state does it differently (unless there was a federal mandate), so.....

[Neonivek]

There are basically three classes of people that don't vote in the US.

You are forgetting possibly the LARGEST group...

4) Disenfranchised voters: Voters who do not feel like they are part of the democratic process and are generally dissuaded to vote.

[NullForceOmega]

And we really don't need any more ways for people to be disenfranchised right now, I can't help but feel that in the current political climate of the U.S. mandatory voting would go very poorly for a great many people.

[Reelya]

Yeah, the system needs more patches first. Basically the promise with any expansion of the voter base is that parties can't ignore such large chunks of people any more, it reduces the number of divisive strategies that will work. Mandatory voting can help reduce divisiveness because "drive them away from the polls" ceases to be so effective, but there can't be other barriers preventing people voting.

[Dorsidwarf]

Nullforce might as well be trolling at this point, Jesus Christ.

"Trump is discriminating against the gays again"
"America got what it deserved I'm sitting it out it will all blow over and be fine"
"I think you're being insensitive and saying an issue doesn't matter because it doesn't apply to you"

"HELP STRAWMAN"

[smjjames]

Could someone just throw the match to ignite this gasoline-soaked powderkeg already? Slow simmers are exhausting. I don't think I can handle another 3 years of waiting.

Which one? And lets not blow up the thread in the proccess.