Mandatory voting: is it democratic, or opposite of it?

Depends on what your choices are to express your vote.

Mandatory voting, especially when the choices are effectively limited to corporate-bought tools, might seem mainly insulting rather than democratic. Either you’d have to force them to not vote for Vermin Supreme and other write-ins, or you’d be actually forcing them to vote for people they don’t approve. Unless you make the voting system actually representative of non-forced choices.

One of the most annoying things to me about voting in the USA, is that so few people notice how inadequate our choices are. One vote for possibly several candidates, and lots of agreement that you’re “throwing away your vote” unless you vote for a ( D ) or an ( R ). That’s ridiculously inadequate, especially when the campaigns are dominated by sick amounts of money and other forms of corruption. There is no way for my actual views to get expressed in the US voting system. The best I can hope for is the second-worst corporate offering.

The most painful case was this last year, when there was finally one candidate pretty close to one who would mostly represent what I want. But that candidate wasn’t allowed to run and was seen as hopeless if even he’d run as independent.

However, if we were allowed a system that was even slightly more sophisticated than “vote for ONE”, then we could (and I think would) have seen that candidate elected, instead of the evil orange clown. For example, if the ballot looks like:

A) M. Worst ( R )
B) M. Bad ( D )
C) M. Likable ( I )
D) M. Wacko ( I )

If you are allowed to rate them in order (i.e. Instant run-off voting) or even just to say which ones you do or don’t support, then people could vote for the ones they actually want as well as the lesser evil, and the two corporate-bought parties would no longer have a complete monopoly on viable candidates.

Anything that’s mandatory is authoritarian.

I think what makes it democratic, even if mandatory, is having your choice of candidates, and not being forced to vote for a certain one.

Democratic and authoritarian are not mutually exclusive.

I think it is an easy set up for tampering, knowing in advance exactly how many votes will actually be cast.
It is also, possibly, a way to condition people to think about voting, the responsibility, the opportunity, and how they want to view the powers that affect their lives. Perhaps such measures could be temporary, just to get people ready to think in terms of a democratic voting system. In such a case I would say it is not authoritarian, but simply an aid, to enable people to think of themselves as responsible voters.

Every authoritarian measure ever enacted was sold to the people as an aid to them.

So?
Are you setting some sort of automatic disqualifier?
I merely suggested two ways to look at something.

No, just stating that requiring someone to do something or else face some kind of penalty is ipso facto authoritarian. There’s just no way around it. Whether this is good or bad is up to the individual.

It would be TOTALLY authoritarian if you had only one choice and had to vote for that one. Seems it would also be sort of authoritarian even if voting wasn’t mandatory but there was only that one person to vote for.

@kritiper What if it’s clear only two of the candidates can win, and yet neither one has even 50% approval rating?

Majority wins. It’s not about approval, it’s about votes.

I don’t think it’s undemocratic to impose mandatory voting, but I don’t like it. I grew up in the UK where voting was voluntary. You get involved or you don’t. In Australia we get fined if we don’t vote. I would prefer only those who actually want to be bothered to think about who they are going to vote for turn up on polling day.

If keeping this country under the rule of the people is democratic, then voting is democratic. Forcing someone to vote though, Isn’t ideal. I don’t think it’s terrible to do.
If you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain.
That is, if you are able to vote and you don’t

@SergeantQueen There’s nothing about not voting that somehow disables one from complaining.

If were to argue that no political party will keep its promises, and will not faithfully represent the electorate—then it’s the inevitable complaints of those who do vote which have less credibility.

And that’s exactly what happens after every election cycle. Lots of moaning and complaining from voters feeling betrayed or disappointed—and then they go back to the polls to do it all again, as if it’s somehow going to be any different next time.

This question in one form or another has come up at least once before. My answer is that it makes little to no difference, since mere voting every few years (especially in a centralised representative system) is not sufficient for a functioning democracy.

Of course, there are qualitative differences between one party or another, but there’s no way of telling what the actual differences will be in practice, and there’s no clear objective measure of which is better or worse (else nearly everone would agree). And then most voters aren’t particularly ideological, informed, or have the skills to reasonbly assess the politicians and parties for which they’re voting

There’s also the problem that party politics has an inbuilt bias toward moneyed interests: partly on the reliance on funding to run a successful campaign and to obtain media exposure, and also the influence of lobbyists who will throw money at politicians—most of whom cannot resist the allure of hard cash, or the promise of becoming a well-paid speaker or corporate consultant after their political careers end.

^Correct. I actually asked almost the same question, after Trump won. I didn’t get a warm response. There was also a question about, should presidential candidates have to pass some sort of test to be able to run,and a question about if voters should have to pass a test to vote.

For whatever reason, almost all of Fluther was opposed to all things mandatory, and any testing, in regards to voting.

To most who opined, the ‘choice’ outweighed having a qualified candidate, and the voter’s competence. Many valid points were made about corruption, and biased tests, both for the voters, and candidates.

The “freedom” to choose, weather or not to vote, and the freedom of any candidate to run, seemed to trump (pardon the pun) the perceived advantages…

All three seemed like good ideas to me. To have informed voters, have to vote, for a qualified candidate, would have prevented, at least Trump from winning…

I don’t vote. Don’t see how I could be convinced that any candidates are worthy, or that the system isn’t rigged.

To me, voting isn’t real, and serves only as an illusion of power, for this country’s people. That way, if the country revolts, the government can say “hey, you voted for this, stop rioting.”

The electoral college is a prime example of how it is all rigged. Just in case, the government doesn’t get their man/person, they can still get their way.

As I stated in one of those threads, the only way to get some headway, is to not play.
If not a single person voted, the government would have to take a hard look at the system. Realizing that their game doesn’t work, they would have to redesign the voting system to at least appear to be fair. The most powerful vote, is no vote at all. It says “I’m not playing this stupid game, until you make it fair.” Without votes, a democracy cannot function. If that’s what you call it doing now…

@kritiper “Majority wins. It’s not about approval, it’s about votes.”

What do you mean? I know how the stupid, primitive, thoroughly corrupted two-party system works. Are you trying to say something meaningful, and if so, what? Do you think that if the voting system allowed people to vote in a way that reflected their actual preferences and/or order of preference, that they would prefer the lesser-of-two-evils candidate that they don’t really approve, over a candidate that they do approve?

opposite

I oppose it. Not voting is a form of political expression. Voting because you have to does not reflect the true sentiment of the public.

Brian Ghilliotti