A town hall meeting in Cleveland seems like a strange place to make an announcement of this caliber, but U.S. President Barack Obama did it anyway. While speaking to the civic group City Club of Cleveland on Wednesday, Obama brought up the idea of compulsory voting, stating that this was the first time he’d ever mentioned the idea out loud.
When asked about how to best counteract the influence of money in elections, Obama began talking about voting rights and accessibility.
“If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country,” Obama said at the meeting, the Associated Press reported. He went on to call the effects “potentially transformative” and said that mandatory universal voting would “counteract money more than anything,” the AP reported.
This idea comes after years of pretty dismal voting rates. Voter turnout is consistently at less than 65 percent for presidential elections, and turnout during the midterms rarely reaches 45 percent, according to data from The Center for Voting and Democracy. Voter turnout in the 2014 midterm election was at an all-time low of just 37 percent, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
Those who decided to abstain from the polls in the 2014 midterms tended to be younger, less educated, lower-income and more likely to be minorities, according to statistics by FairVote. Keeping that in mind, it’s no secret that rounding up all these non-voters and directing them to their nearest polling place would help boost numbers for the Democrats.
“There’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls,” Obama said at the meeting, CNN reported, not so slyly referencing the Republican initiative to seemingly make it harder for people to vote.
About two dozen countries have compulsory voting, spanning every continent (besides Antarctica). Multiple countries have introduced compulsory voting only to abolish it some years later. Most recently, Fiji abolished mandatory voting in 2014. Failure to vote in the countries that require it is usually just punishable by fine. However, in Belgium, failing to pay your fine could land you in prison, CNN reported.
Obama cited the huge influence that the wealthy have over voter turnout as one of the biggest problems in the way the voting system works. Low voter turnout provides an advantage to the party with the best turnout, and compulsory voting would change that completely, irreversibly altering the makeup of the electorate.
Changing the role that money plays in the election process would require a constitutional amendment, the likes of which the GOP has blocked from passing in the past. Obama, on the other hand, has historically opposed court rulings that would allow super PACs and unlimited campaign spending. Although Obama said it might be “fun” for the United States to consider amending its Constitution, he realizes that this is not necessarily realistic for the near future.
“Realistically, given the requirements of that process, that would be a long-term proposition,” he said.
Long-term indeed, and perhaps too optimistic. It’s a great idea in theory and in intent — having everyone providing his or her opinion is clearly the best way to advocate for everybody. There’s no better way to galvanize people who are apathetic (or people who have been disenfranchised by the current voting system) than by making voting mandatory. They’d have to look into party platforms and get educated, and they’d obviously make informed decisions, right?
Not necessarily. There’s a very valid fear that some people, if forced to vote, would not do so carefully. Voting based on name recognition or single-issue voting are issues we already face from the current electorate. Imagine how many times that would be multiplied if 100 percent voter turnout were mandated. Voting would not be as sincere of an effort. Also, we can’t forget about the people who would say that being forced to vote is infringing on their rights. Voting is a right, but it’s not a right if it’s a law.
It’s concerning, obviously, that only half of the country — sometimes less — cares about who’s running our country. But why is that? Why are these people not voting? That’s the question that needs to be addressed before compulsory voting can be considered, among other things such as campaign finance reform and reform of the electoral college system. We need to improve the voting process itself before even considering letting everyone vote. You know the saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” Well, it’s definitely broke. And we definitely need to fix it.
Something that should be done, whether or not voting ever becomes compulsory, is getting more people to care and getting more people educated, especially younger people. This generation of college students is the future, and we’re the ones least likely to vote. In order to enact something like this, you’d have to require some sort of education among the general public. We’re the ones sitting here writing the news, so we are informed, but that’s not the case for all people. If you make people vote, you also have to make people care.
Voting fix, just in time for 2016
http://bit.ly/1DCNzQK
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the majority of Electoral College votes, and thus the presidency, to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by replacing state winner-take-all laws for awarding electoral votes in the enacting states.
Every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections. No more distorting and divisive red and blue state maps of pre-determined outcomes. There would no longer be a handful of ‘battleground’ states where voters and policies are more important than those of the voters in 80% of the states that now are just ‘spectators’ and ignored after the conventions.
The bill would take effect when enacted by states with a majority of Electoral College votes—that is, enough to elect a President (270 of 538). The candidate receiving the most popular votes from all 50 states (and DC) would get all the 270+ electoral votes of the enacting states.
The presidential election system, using the 48 state winner-take-all method or district winner method of awarding electoral votes, that we have today was not designed, anticipated, or favored by the Founders. It is the product of decades of change precipitated by the emergence of political parties and enactment by 48 states of winner-take-all laws, not mentioned, much less endorsed, in the Constitution.
The bill uses the power given to each state by the Founders in the Constitution to change how they award their electoral votes for President. States can, and have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Historically, major changes in the method of electing the President, including ending the requirement that only men who owned substantial property could vote and 48 current state-by-state winner-take-all laws, have come about by state legislative action.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).
Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed recently. In the 39 states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-83% range or higher. – in recent or past closely divided battleground states, in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.
The bill has passed 33 state legislative chambers in 22 rural, small, medium, large, red, blue, and purple states with 250 electoral votes. The bill has been enacted by 11 jurisdictions with 165 electoral votes – 61% of the 270 necessary to go into effect.
NationalPopularVote
Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state. Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
In 2012, 56,256,178 (44%) of the 128,954,498 voters had their vote diverted by the winner-take-all rule to a candidate they opposed (namely, their state’s first-place candidate).
And now votes, beyond the one needed to get the most votes in the state, for winning in a state are wasted and don’t matter to candidates.
In 2008, voter turnout in the then 15 battleground states averaged seven points higher than in the 35 non-battleground states.
In 2012, voter turnout was 11% higher in the 9 battleground states than in the remainder of the country.
If presidential campaigns polled, organized, visited, and appealed to more than the current 63,000,000 of 314,000,000 Americans, one would reasonably expect that voter turnout would rise in 80% of the country that is currently conceded by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns.