Mandatory voting? What else should be made mandatory?

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(CNN)The president whose major policy achievement is mandatory health insurance thinks maybe voting should be mandatory, too.

Asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it’s time to make voting a requirement.

“It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything,” he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly.

The clout of millionaires and billionaires in campaign funding has been enormous, and many claim the uber wealthy have undue leverage in politics.

Speaking of “big money in politics”, I live in Los Angeles- Santa Monica to be more precise- and I am sick of the number of times that President Obama (and VP Biden) have tied up traffic out here with their Democratic Party fund raising trips. They seem to stay and leave in the area where I must travel, at the time that I normally must travel. Consistently. Even though he wasn’t golfing on taxpayer’s dime this time around, this last frivolous trip (last week), the President had to make an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to talk about mean tweets and Ferguson (*groan*) and fundraise at a DNC $33,400 dinner per couple event at Chris Silbermann’s home in Santa Monica.

But I digress…

“The people who tend not to vote are young, they’re lower income, they’re skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups,” Obama said. “There’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls.”

So young people- like high school and college age baristas?- should be made to influence the direction of this country? And immigrant and minority groups? What is an “immigrant group”?

At least 26 countries have compulsory voting, according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison.

Aside from campaign finance issues, the United States also grapples with one of the lowest voter turnout rates among developed countries.

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Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. That means about 144 million Americans — more than the population of Russia — skipped out.

I agree that it is a national embarrassment at how apathetic we are as a nation when it comes to voting; that so many of our citizenry take the privilege for granted. However, if a citizen has not familiarized himself with the issues or a politician’s stance on the issues, do we really want to force that person to vote? Should he just toss a coin? Play eenie-meannie on the ballot?

So since the right to bear arms is also in our Constitution, does President Obama also want to make it mandatory that every citizen be a gun owner, or pay a fine? Or, since “Australia and some other countries” have mandatory voting, should we also base our gun-ownership on a foreign nation’s practices such as Switzerland? What else do we want to adopt since other nations do it? The reality is, Australia’s voting system is completely different from ours. So citing it is just bizarre, to me.

Mandatory voting would be forced speech. Not free speech. Being forced to cast a vote is just as wrong as being denied the right to vote.

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The White House was quick to walk back from Obama’s comments, saying he was more thinking out loud than proposing anything specific.

Josh Earnest:
“The president was not making a specific policy prescription for the United States,”

This trial balloon would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Does Obama even know how that is done?

Maybe he’s just going to float, stoned out of his gourd, through his last few months.

than a tax on the male organs and the female organs.
the fool should have been voted out of office 6 years ago
see that the Rubinesk first lady made a fool of herself in Japan.

There are several questions that need to be addressed. Will the dead be required to vote in every election, even if they have no particular interest in a particular election?

Those who vote several times using different aliases at different polling stations, will they be required to maintain their different aliases and be required to vote in every election? This could prove to be an undue hardship for Democratic voters without transportation.

What percentage of voters may we assume lack the acuity to understand or comprehend the issues or parties involved and how will these voters be directed to vote so that a particular party may control this particular demographic or should they be allowed to vote with no comprehension of the process or issues?

We have three distinct groups of potential voters: literate, semi-literate, and illiterate. Will the Democrats presume control over the illiterate and semi-literate voters? What if some of these voters want to vote against the Democrats, will there be a means to help that particular voter?

These are not hypothetical questions. Since Obama can regulate through the EPA or any of the regulatory agencies he controls, we will soon be required to vote because one man, The Won, thinks we should all vote; especially, since he has lost a major demographic, the lucid people, for the Democrat Party. He desperately needs new voters, alive or dead, intelligent or stupid, he needs anyone who can pull the lever for the Democrat Party and he will soon be trying to get 16 year olds to vote. Yes, the impressionable ones his teachers’ unions have been training to be Leftists. Once they are trained to vote Democratic, what difference does their age make?

A tough issue. True, I think every citizen should be encouraged to vote, have their voice heard.

But Obama’s call to arms isn’t a call to counteract “the money”, it’s an invitation for more money to be in politics.

Obama won by spending more on commercial-style ad campaigns that targeted the groups he cited above. If you all you see is a smiling face, and it promises you everything you want (whatever that may be…just a mirror, not a real promise), yes…you will vote for that person. So the poor, the under/overeducated, and the young will be targets for ad money….

Lots and lots of ad money….

Billions….like Obama: the first prez to spend over a billion dollars to get elected.

Non-mandatory voting is a hedge against exploitation, and everyone retains their freewill….

Something the country is founded on, like it or not.

The guy who was bathing in questionable and unexplained campaign donations is now concerned about the power of money and how it influences American politics.

Please, can a Liberal explain how using the totalitarian technique of requiring everyone to vote will reduce the power money has on elections, especially the foreign money from oil-rich Arab nations, the money that flows in in the form of untraceable temporary credit cards.

Josh Earnest:
“The president was not making a specific policy prescription for the United States,”

Quisling Josh seems to have overlooked the fact that Obama has made many radical statements before, only later to use, abuse and overstep his powers of office to enact these “specific policy prescriptions” oh his. Why should we believe the mouthpiece of a liar any more that the liar himself.

@Skookum:

He desperately needs new voters, alive or dead, intelligent or stupid, he needs anyone who can pull the lever for the Democrat Party and he will soon be trying to get 16 year olds to vote.

He needs mostly the stupid. They have come through for him in the past.

Yes, I too wondered how mandatory voting would reduce the amount of money injected into campaigns. The left will always needs lots of campaign money because they have some many failures and scandals to lie their way out of.

It should be mandatory to get rid of an asswipe like him before his term is up.

He enjoys running up the debt and changing rights & privileges into requirements.

If they really want to remove money from elections, they need to ban from voting, anyone who gets unearned government money as a benefit…. food stamps, section 8, cash welfare… and so on. They also need to make it illegal for a politician to ever be a lobbyist.

@Nanny G:

Maybe he’s just going to float, stoned out of his gourd, through his last few months.

yes, he made it through 6 years that way, why stop now?

Maybe we make it mandatory to be an American citizen to be president.

Imagine being imprisoned for not voting by executive fiat. Not so difficult, actually. not with this monster.

Will Illegal Aliens be required to vote?

What happens if they become confused and pull the Republican lever?

@Skook:

What happens if they become confused and pull the Republican lever?

They would probably give them a do over.

Utterly shameless pandering to convicted felons, illegal aliens, and people with no concept of rational government.

Honestly, any citizen too incompetent to responsibly manage their lives without dependence on welfare, foodstamps, or any other unearned government handout is not responsible enough to vote.

When an elected representative states with a straight face that money that has already been taxed by rapacious government needs to be taxed a second time simply because the person who earned it died and is leaving it to his or her heirs – making the astoundingly greedy claim that such inheritance is unfairly earned – it clearly shows the leftist ideology that wealth belongs first to the government and not to those who produce wealth. Such a position is marxist to the core, and only seems fair to those enslaved to envy.

So of course, extreme leftists like Obama want mandatory voting to swell the roles with the economically illiterate, the lazy, the uneducated, and the easily bamboozled. The mobocracy is so much easier to emotionally manipulate than a truly educated, hard-working populace.

Supreme Court Rejects Challenge To Wisconsin Voter ID Law

This is a substantial victory for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who described the Supreme Court’s decision as “great news for Wisconsin voters,” because the voter ID law is “a common sense reform that protects the integrity of our voting process, making it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

The law provides free photo ID cards for voters who lack a suitable form of identification, but of course it was still described as somehow restricting the franchise by opponents, such as executive director Andrea Kaminski of the League of Women Voters: “The problem with our elections is that not enough people vote in them. The last thing we need is laws that erect barriers for people who have been good voters for decades.”

It’s not much of a “barrier” to any legal voter, but of course the dwindling opposition to the irresistible force of voter ID laws knows that. At this point, they’re just trying to milk a few quick talking points out of the situation before a popular, common-sense reform sweeps America from coast to coast.

It’s worth pondering the Cult of Democracy idea that “the problem with our elections is that not enough people vote in them,” or the implied solution that making it absurdly easy to vote is the answer, rather than motivating more citizens to learn about the issues and expend the minimal effort required to comply with a solid Information Age ballot system. That’s an academic discussion; on a practical level, a great majority of the American people simply see nothing wrong with asking for the same kind of identification that voters need to get on airplanes or purchase alcohol.

The voter ID argument is over – all that remains is to square away a few details, and ensure each new state law meets the standards approved by the Supreme Court in a landmark Indiana case, which required a few adjustments to Wisconsin’s law. The timing of a switch to voter ID is also important, since it’s not unreasonable to argue that changing the rules in the middle of an election is confusing, and elections last for a long time these days. The most convincing argument remaining against these laws is that they don’t do enough to block voter fraud, but that’s obviously not a discussion opponents have been eager to participate in.

Voter ID: Supreme Court Hands Scott Walker Another Win

Despite relentless lies-of-omission from our dishonest race-baiting media, voter ID laws are the rare 80/20 issue in America. By wide margins, Democrats and Republicans embrace laws requiring voters show a valid, state-issued ID in order to cast a vote. Even 51% of black voters support voter ID, compared to just 46% who disagree.

The media always casts the voter ID debate as a racial issue — conservatives attempting to keep black people away from the polls. The American people, including a majority of blacks, have not been swayed by the media’s propaganda. Voters instinctually understand that this is an issue of voter integrity, especially in a country so mismanaged by the federal government we currently have 6.5 million active Social Security numbers for people aged 112.

Democrats knew they were fighting a stupid, losing argument, which is why Obama and the Democrats are trying to subvert the election process by bringing in illegal aliens and giving them Social Security numbers and drivers licenses so as to give them ID that will be accepted by registers without ever questioning these alien’s eligibility to vote.

@Ditto: Still awaiting the answer as to how republicans use voter ID to target democrats unless it is assumed that only democrats are too stupid to get some sort of valid ID.

@Bill:

unless it is assumed that only democrats are too stupid to get some sort of valid ID.

Dimocrats have long argued that all dimocrats and especially Blacks are too stupid to figure out how to get a voter ID. Now the Supreme court has ruled that all should be treated equally.

Obama missed HOW MANY VOTES when he was a Senator?
Oh, take a guess.
It was 324 votes.
324!
He was only a senator for a little while.
I got a senator whose been one for a few terms and not missed that many.