Yeah, compulsory voting is a great idea, except that it violates the absolute most fundamental principle of democracy, Freedom of Agency.
Simply put, if you make voting compulsory, there is no ideologically sound basis for democracy. If the government can remove your freedom of choice for no other reason than a blanket appeal to 'civics' or idealism, or granting itself legitimacy, then it can remove your freedom of choice on anything. It can declare macaroni and cheese to be unpatriotic, or walking down the street between 3 and 4 pm, or failing to salute the flag. Or failing to hand over the Jews.
Then there's the issue of a proscriptive law without a specified punishment; you don't need my degree in Criminal Justice to tell you that, surprise surprise, unenforced laws are rarely obeyed very strenuously. So you would have to track voters, and punish non-voters.
You're going to penalize people for not voting? That's the goal? Oh, jeez, I'd love to see *that* in a country with a guaranteed bill of rights. Since not voting is a fairly obvious form of political expression (the logical contrary position to voting), compulsory voting in the US would require, at least, a constitutional amendment, and a partial rollback of the 1st as well.
As for the rest of your comments, dear god, you've got to be kidding, right? Politicians campaign to the 'whole electorate'? People are informed about which party supports their interests?
Seriously, did you hit your head or something? People are not rational actors. They are not well-informed. They do NOT, especially in the United States, but in general, know who is looking out for them or represents their interests, and they do NOT exercise their votes in a responsible manner to elect officials or pass initiatives reflecting those values. Just as an example, if you poll US citizens on the respective platforms of the two major organized parties, a sizeable majority, around 60 percent, believe themselves to be in the Democratic camp. If you poll by party name, on the other hand, very few believe themselves to be Democrats. Most Americans think they're 'Independents' because it appeals to their sense of personal vanity. Many Americans think they should vote Republican, even though, again if polled on individual issues, they disagree with the platform advanced by the Republican party. This is due to very effective political messaging by the Republican party, which has, among other things, changed the entire language of political discourse (liberal == soft, weak, etc, conservative == strong, national security expert, etc).
Then there's the campaigning to the electorate thing. Yeah, right. Go to CNN, right now, and look at the results of the 'landslide' election in the House of Representatives. You should note, perhaps with a dry chuckle, how few incumbents lost their seats. Almost none. This in a year where a record number of seats changed party hands, and still, 90% of the people in office, remained in office.
This is because the entire system is geared toward granting a massive advantage to those in power, in order to stay in power. Computer assisted gerrymandering has done so much in this regard, it's scary. Given another couple election cycles, we could probably do away with popular voting entirely, and nobody would notice the difference.
If you want to be elected, you campaign to your DONORS. You campaign to those who would give you money. Most of the time, for most politicians, this is a handful of very wealthy people, PACs, and corporate lobbyists. A new trend in 'people politics' is to use the internet to collect huge numbers of small donations for select progressive candidates, but you're still campaigning to your donor base, not your voters (and since the internet doesn't stop or start at your district, often to OTHER peoples voters).
I'd say, rather than comparing uninformed voters to coin flippers being an insult, it'd be praise. Coin flips would come up heads half the time. The voters we have NOW rarely hit their targets with that accuracy.
no subject
Simply put, if you make voting compulsory, there is no ideologically sound basis for democracy. If the government can remove your freedom of choice for no other reason than a blanket appeal to 'civics' or idealism, or granting itself legitimacy, then it can remove your freedom of choice on anything. It can declare macaroni and cheese to be unpatriotic, or walking down the street between 3 and 4 pm, or failing to salute the flag. Or failing to hand over the Jews.
Then there's the issue of a proscriptive law without a specified punishment; you don't need my degree in Criminal Justice to tell you that, surprise surprise, unenforced laws are rarely obeyed very strenuously. So you would have to track voters, and punish non-voters.
You're going to penalize people for not voting? That's the goal? Oh, jeez, I'd love to see *that* in a country with a guaranteed bill of rights. Since not voting is a fairly obvious form of political expression (the logical contrary position to voting), compulsory voting in the US would require, at least, a constitutional amendment, and a partial rollback of the 1st as well.
As for the rest of your comments, dear god, you've got to be kidding, right? Politicians campaign to the 'whole electorate'? People are informed about which party supports their interests?
Seriously, did you hit your head or something? People are not rational actors. They are not well-informed. They do NOT, especially in the United States, but in general, know who is looking out for them or represents their interests, and they do NOT exercise their votes in a responsible manner to elect officials or pass initiatives reflecting those values. Just as an example, if you poll US citizens on the respective platforms of the two major organized parties, a sizeable majority, around 60 percent, believe themselves to be in the Democratic camp. If you poll by party name, on the other hand, very few believe themselves to be Democrats. Most Americans think they're 'Independents' because it appeals to their sense of personal vanity. Many Americans think they should vote Republican, even though, again if polled on individual issues, they disagree with the platform advanced by the Republican party. This is due to very effective political messaging by the Republican party, which has, among other things, changed the entire language of political discourse (liberal == soft, weak, etc, conservative == strong, national security expert, etc).
Then there's the campaigning to the electorate thing. Yeah, right. Go to CNN, right now, and look at the results of the 'landslide' election in the House of Representatives. You should note, perhaps with a dry chuckle, how few incumbents lost their seats. Almost none. This in a year where a record number of seats changed party hands, and still, 90% of the people in office, remained in office.
This is because the entire system is geared toward granting a massive advantage to those in power, in order to stay in power. Computer assisted gerrymandering has done so much in this regard, it's scary. Given another couple election cycles, we could probably do away with popular voting entirely, and nobody would notice the difference.
If you want to be elected, you campaign to your DONORS. You campaign to those who would give you money. Most of the time, for most politicians, this is a handful of very wealthy people, PACs, and corporate lobbyists. A new trend in 'people politics' is to use the internet to collect huge numbers of small donations for select progressive candidates, but you're still campaigning to your donor base, not your voters (and since the internet doesn't stop or start at your district, often to OTHER peoples voters).
I'd say, rather than comparing uninformed voters to coin flippers being an insult, it'd be praise. Coin flips would come up heads half the time. The voters we have NOW rarely hit their targets with that accuracy.