Obama wants mandatory voting

[clacy]

No, I'm not making this up......

Obama wants mandatory voting

[moda0306]

There are a lot of things that I would like to see not mandatory in this country more than voting.  And I say that as someone who hasn't voted since 2008.

[Reub]

No, I'm not making this up......

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ ... thing.html

clacy,  better not speak ill of our President or he'll Netanyahu you.

[MachineGhost]

I've come to the conclusion Obama is fuckin' stoopid.

[barrett]

I'm fine with mandatory voting as long as it's also mandated that we don't keep getting crappy presidential candidates.

[Ad Orientem]

With the vast majority of this country's population in possession of an education that I think would leave then unqualified to be a shift manager at McDonald's, I am not wild about the idea of mandatory voting. I suggest we start by lowering the drinking age back to 18 and raising the voting age back to 21. Beyond which no one should be allowed to vote who cannot pass the same examination we give to legal immigrants seeking naturalization.

[Pointedstick]

Voting is hardly neutral. People who benefit from the votes of the poor, ignorant, uneducated, and transient will try to get more of those people to vote, by force if necessary. And people who are harmed by their votes will try to disenfranchise them.

I would expect no less from a Democrat in the same way that I fail to be shocked when Republicans try to depress turnout among those groups. Everybody's just trying to get ahead.

[Tyler]

While still stupid, this would carry a bit more weight if suggested by a person who did not abstain from 30% of votes as US senator. 

http://votesmart.org/candidate/key-vote ... Q21q_nF9yU

[Pointedstick]

To be clear, I don't approve of this. It's transparently an attempt to capture more votes from people who are more likely than not to be ignorant, low-information voters who are swayed almost entirely by tribal loyalties. But I understand why the Democrats might want to do this. It's simply an attempt to counter the Republicans' attempt to pervert democracy by limiting voting to people marginally intelligent enough to receive a free government ID card.

[moda0306]

Voting is hardly neutral. People who benefit from the votes of the poor, ignorant, uneducated, and transient will try to get more of those people to vote, by force if necessary. And people who are harmed by their votes will try to disenfranchise them.

I would expect no less from a Democrat in the same way that I fail to be shocked when Republicans try to depress turnout among those groups. Everybody's just trying to get ahead.

Yeah, I'm not seeing why this is stupid or insulting as some have said.  I understand that Republicans would not like the idea, for the reasons PS said.

There are quite a few countries that do this (wikipedia list).  Quite a an interesting list, as it includes Australia, as well as the darling-of-freedom lovers Singapore.  Apparently 10 of the 30 OECD countries have compulsory voting.

Why is compulsory voting any worse than other compulsory stuff the government already mandates?

In particular, I'm thinking I'd prefer compulsory voting over compulsory military service.

Exactly.  There's about a dozen reasons I don't really like the idea... but I'm still more pissed about not being able to buy beer tomorrow. 

[Tyler]

I can probably think of more if I stew on it, but offhand I can think of two reasons that this would be a bad idea in the US even if it makes sense elsewhere in a different culture and political climate. 

1) In an executive amnesty world, it's a flat vote-buying tool.  Losing?  Just amnesty enough to win and require them to vote.

2) If you think district gerrymandering is out-of-control now, wait until voting is compulsory and the lines can basically decide every election. 

Both items make campaigning and voter issues largely irrelevant in elections, which only serves to set apart the political class from the voting class even more than they already are.  Pass.

[MachineGhost]

There are quite a few countries that do this (wikipedia list).  Quite a an interesting list, as it includes Australia, as well as the darling-of-freedom lovers Singapore.  Apparently 10 of the 30 OECD countries have compulsory voting.

Compulsory voting's considered a joke in Australia: http://mind-trek.com/writ-dtf/votehoax/index.htm

[Dieter]

It's simply an attempt to counter the Republicans' attempt to pervert democracy by limiting voting to people marginally intelligent enough to receive a free government ID card.

Or have the time for a 3+ hr round trip to get an ID that can only be used for voting....

[Pointedstick]

It's simply an attempt to counter the Republicans' attempt to pervert democracy by limiting voting to people marginally intelligent enough to receive a free government ID card.

Or have the time for a 3+ hr round trip to get an ID that can only be used for voting....

It seems like you're painting a picture of the extremely rural poor, which I don't believe accurately represents either the face of poverty in America or the kinds of people the Republicans are trying to disenfranchise with voter ID laws.

Besides, what sort of person doesn't have a government-issued ID of some kind? This person can't legally drive, get a job, rent an apartment, open a bank account, get married, fly on a plane, rent a room in a hotel, or buy alcohol, cigarettes, or firearms. Frankly the only kind of people who I can imagine actually living day-to-day without government ID would be drifters, hermits, or full-time criminals.

Seriously, who doesn't have an ID?

[WiseOne]

That's one thing I'd kind of wondered about voter ID laws...even the poor/minorities/etc who are typically targets of voter ID laws absolutely have an ID:  their Medicaid cards!

I think the issue is that they'd have to get their act together enough to show up to vote WITH their ID card.  Given that they have no trouble showing up for clinic appointments and keeping their smartphones active, I doubt this is much of an issue either.  The people who would be hit hardest by voter ID laws are people who are too busy working to stand on long voter lines - which I presume would happen if the volunteers at the polling station have to take the time to check IDs.

[Dieter]

I don't know anything about Medicaid cards, but not accepted. Acceptable list in Texas:

"
Texas driver license issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)
Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS
Texas personal identification card issued by DPS
Texas concealed handgun license issued by DPS
United States military identification card containing the person’s photograph
United States citizenship certificate containing the person’s photograph
United States passport
"

http://votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/need-id/

Many don't have or no longer have a need for a license (ever or recently) -- not everyone drives / owns cars; already have a bank account so don't need ID.

I haven't read it all, but a summary of issues is in http://today.law.harvard.edu/wp-content ... e20141.pdf (found via Google -- haven't validated, but admittedly does back some of my pre-conceptions....)

And while requiring that voters understand the issues has a certain appeal, who gets to judge?

[Libertarian666]

This is a stupid idea but I would agree to it so long as only net taxpayers in any jurisdiction get to vote in that jurisdiction.

[moda0306]

This is a stupid idea but I would agree to it so long as only net taxpayers in any jurisdiction get to vote in that jurisdiction.

This is almost impossible to determine, if you think about the economics of it.

- Which taxes do you measure?  Are sales tax and property tax included?  If not, why not... if so, how do you determine that, efficiently?

- Is this on a cumulative or a year-by-year basis (many retirees are not net taxpayers in the latter basis)

- What do you net against tax payments to determine "net taxpayers?" Simply dollar payments (dollars are more easily measurable, but only one type of value-add)?  What about services (free education, free healthcare, roads, defense, property recognition and enforcement)?  How do you measure the FMV of those latter items?

[Libertarian666]

This is a stupid idea but I would agree to it so long as only net taxpayers in any jurisdiction get to vote in that jurisdiction.

This is almost impossible to determine, if you think about the economics of it.

- Which taxes do you measure?  Are sales tax and property tax included?  If not, why not... if so, how do you determine that, efficiently?

- Is this on a cumulative or a year-by-year basis (many retirees are not net taxpayers in the latter basis)

- What do you net against tax payments to determine "net taxpayers?" Simply dollar payments (dollars are more easily measurable, but only one type of value-add)?  What about services (free education, free healthcare, roads, defense, property recognition and enforcement)?  How do you measure the FMV of those latter items?

You're making it a lot harder than it needs to be, at least to be an improvement over the current horrid system. Sales tax and property tax would qualify you to vote in whatever districts collect them. Property taxes come with an itemized list of those districts, so those are easy. Sales taxes are collected by states, counties and sometimes cities, so there again it is easy to determine which you would be qualified for voting in.

As to netting, the answer is that if you get specific benefits, e.g., if you are on the public payroll you have to subtract that from your taxpaying credits. Services are also included if you get anything that others are not entitled to, e.g., public school costs attributable to your children are subtracted from your property tax payment, because people without children don't get those benefits. Public goods that are available to everyone without discrimination, e.g., public roads, do not have to be counted, or can equivalently be counted against everyone equally.

Even better, votes should be multiplied by net taxes paid, as proposed by Heinlein many years ago. This provides even more disincentive to heap taxes on particular groups.

[moda0306]

Tech,

With all-do respect, I'm really not over-complicating it. You're over-simplifying it....

First off, you pay sales tax through the entities you buy from, but rarely is it efficiently measured.  Property tax would be somewhat easy.

Re: Netting...

So when you say if someone's on the public payroll, do you mean government employees?  What about businesses that contract with the government?  Do you account for gross revenue from them or net income from them, if you're having to sell the government products or services?  Also, you didn't answer whether this is on a year-by-year basis or a cumulative basis.

Further, some people don't use roads to near the degree others do.  If I don't have a license, I may only use a sidewalk.  Also, even if I DO have a license I may barely ever drive, meaning that some folks get FAR more value out of the roads then I do.

Your "even better" idea is similarly flawed.  Tax dollars are only ONE measure of value.  There are a lot of other negative and positive values government puts out there, and all on the basis of the supposed authority to.  Reinforcing and defending ill-gottten land deeds at the expense of a 1% property tax and some income tax might be well-worth it to many people... that doesn't make it right.

If we don't like having people vote, I would much rather have voting limited by intellect than income... especially since much of income is achieved upon a foundation of ill-gotten gains of past generations and manifest destiny.  Your system just reinforces that, while claiming to be "fair" because it ends one specific type of potential wrong-doing in government while protecting the ill-gotten gains of similar actions in the private sector.

Ultimately, the largest "taxes" that have been paid have been by slaves, Native Americans, and drafted soldiers.  These are situations where not only did government engage in coercion, but the other side had NO choice in the matter... while most in the economy have plenty of freedom to choose whether earning more income (taxable as it may be) is worth their time, energy and risk. 

[Pointedstick]

If we don't like having people vote, I would much rather have voting limited by intellect than income... especially since much of income is achieved upon a foundation of ill-gotten gains of past generations and manifest destiny.

+1

[moda0306]

If we don't like having people vote, I would much rather have voting limited by intellect than income... especially since much of income is achieved upon a foundation of ill-gotten gains of past generations and manifest destiny.

+1

Careful... I haven't picked the test subjects yet.

JK.

But for real... based on my experience, we would be far-better off with a smarter electorate than a more wealthy electorate.  And the correlation between those two priorities is shockingly low compared to what one would think.

[Libertarian666]

If we don't like having people vote, I would much rather have voting limited by intellect than income... especially since much of income is achieved upon a foundation of ill-gotten gains of past generations and manifest destiny.

+1

Careful... I haven't picked the test subjects yet.

JK.

But for real... based on my experience, we would be far-better off with a smarter electorate than a more wealthy electorate.  And the correlation between those two priorities is shockingly low compared to what one would think.

There are a lot of smart people I wouldn't want voting. Marx and Engels were smart, as was Keynes; and of course Wilson was a college professor.

What we would really be better off with is an electorate that voted according to the Golden Rule.
I'm not holding my breath for that, of course.
And yes, I'm still against government, for those who seem to forget that sometimes.

[MachineGhost]

And yes, I'm still against government, for those who seem to forget that sometimes.

I predict that you'd rapidly agitate for re-establishing a government once the inevitable elite cronyism affected you personally in your anarchy bubble.  Why, just look at the recent gold fixing corruption! 

[Libertarian666]

And yes, I'm still against government, for those who seem to forget that sometimes.

I predict that you'd rapidly agitate for re-establishing a government once the inevitable elite cronyism affected you personally in your anarchy bubble.  Why, just look at the recent gold fixing corruption!