Patterico's Pontifications

3/19/2015

Obama: Hey, How About Mandatory Voting?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 9:41 pm



Now why would he think that having a bunch of low-information voters at the polls would benefit Democrats?

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.

“Other countries have mandatory voting,” Obama said Wednesday in Cleveland, where he spoke about the importance of middle class economics, and was asked about the issue during a town hall.

“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.

We all know what “many” means when used by Big Media types: “Me and the other guys at the water cooler.” (I explained this in March 2004.)

“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.”

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.

Placing to one side the propaganda we constantly hear about how important it is for all citizens to vote, low voter turnout is a wonderful thing. There is no need for me to explain this anew, when I already explained it over ten years ago, on March 15, 2004 (apparently March 2004 was a good month for common-sense posts at this blog):

If you know me, you know I am a big fan of low voter turnout. High voter turnout means people are voting who really have no business doing so. When voter turnout is low, the people who do vote tend to be better educated and informed.

But if you know me, you also know that I am not one to argue a point halfway, when I can pound you repeatedly over the head with other arguments.

So: you know how the article above mentioned that wonderful mandatory voting they have in Australia? Well, in a comment to a post Dana recently wrote about the brilliant (read: moronic) idea of Los Angeles city officials to pay voters to vote, our friend Milhouse made the following observation:

Australia has compulsory registration and voting, and therefore turnout is always around 90%. It has not led to more informed voting. In fact it’s produced what is known as the “donkey vote”; about 4% of voters will vote straight down the ballot, numbering all the boxes in strict order from top to bottom. Candidates used to be listed alphabetically, and this gave a clear advantage to those with names higher up in the alphabet. When the Australian Democrats started, in 1977, they took advantage of this by deliberately nominating people with names near the top of the alphabet; as a result, in 1984 the law was changed to have the order of candidates determined by lottery. In Tasmania they go one better and print batches of ballots with different orders. But my point is that if voting were not compulsory these “donkeys” would just stay home and the problem wouldn’t exist. Artificially high turnout doesn’t make things any better. Stupid voters are stupid, and more of them means more stupid results.

He’s right, you know.

Why, just this morning, I waxed on about the lack of incentives that voters have to do their research — and that’s the people who actually want to go to the polls. Here is a brief excerpt from my post, which I encourage you to review if you missed it:

For a voter . . . your feedback [from your decision to vote for a particular candidate] is weak and sometimes nonexistent. If your preferred candidate (the one for whom your voted) loses, you will never feel the consequences of your choice, good or bad. If your preferred candidate wins, he has no obligation to live up to his promises. And in any event, even if he does, some of the promises he carries out may offend you, unless you happened to agree with him on every single issue.

This is not a situation that incentivizes being an informed voter.

Indeed. The guy who wrote that really knew what he was talking about!

In fact, you could write a whole book about the myth of the rational voter. Oddly enough, two days ago, the following book arrived at the Patterico household: The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies.

Good title.

Democracy, frankly, is bad enough to begin with. (It’s just tough to find a better system.) Giving the vote to every Tom, Dick, and Harry is worse. But making these idiots vote? Absolutely not.

It’s an idea only a Democrat could love.

32 Responses to “Obama: Hey, How About Mandatory Voting?”

  1. Good Lord.

    Patterico (9c670f)

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

    I love it when Democrats complain about big money in politics, even though it’s mostly on their side. Too bad nobody in the bought and paid for Democrat Media Industrial Complex ever points that out.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  3. But making these idiots vote?

    Heh. The root of idiot is idiotes, literally “private person”, one who does not participate in civic matters. Did you intend the play on words? Greece has mandatory voting — not voting can keep you from having your driver’s license renewed among other things. “I think I’ll cast a blank ballot” is commonly heard when people discuss elections.

    nk (dbc370)

  4. Did you intend the play on words?

    I’d like to be able to claim I did, but, no.

    Patterico (9c670f)

  5. I know it’s obvious, but how can voting be mandatory without voter ID. A lot of smart folks have pointed this out.

    Regardless, if Obama’s dream comes true, how will it be enforced? If you want to believe wikipedia it says for Australia as an example:

    “Compulsory for federal and state elections for citizens 18 years of age and above. The requirement is for the person to enroll, attend a polling station and have their name marked off the electoral roll as attending, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box. The act does not explicitly state that a choice must be made, it only states that the ballot paper be ‘marked’. According to the act how a person marks the paper is completely up to the individual. In some states, local council elections are also compulsory. At the 2010 Tasmanian state election, with a turnout of 335,353 voters, about 6,000 people were fined $26 for not voting, and about 2,000 paid the fine.”

    So, the law provides for a minor fine. How do you force voting on the old and infirm? By that, I don’t mean sending them a ballot. How do you force them to fill the ballot.

    Wait a second. I’m sorry for everything I just posted. Let me start over.

    The United States of America elected twice the most ignorant, credentialed man ever to pretend to represent the free world.

    I am, for one, ready for Hillary’s Fun Camps. We’re living in a “Tommy” world.

    Ag80 (eb6ffa)

  6. At REASON’s article on this appalling idea, I suggested that mandatory voting be linked with a system whereby if the majority voted for it, all the candidates would be hanged, and the election cycle reset for the next year. What a great way to rid society of anti-social elements like the Clintons and Kennedys.

    C. S. P. Schofield (a196fd)

  7. I read about this at Reason too. The biggest point they made was that making voting mandatory means it is no longer a right, but an obligation akin to paying taxes.

    Plus, Australia has a completely different political system.

    Dejectedhead (68bf09)

  8. It sounds like barry is scolding us, or at least the Democrat voters he turned off in the last election cycle.

    Always blaiming the country for his own mistakes and misdeeds. And the ratio of those are about 20/80. Most of the general screwing he has given the country was all too delibrate.

    Never reflecting to himself, “Maybe I should chill out for a day, take a step back from the grift”.

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  9. I would rather have mandatory voting which by the way you could leave blank as a protest as they do in many countries then have voter suppression trying to stop people from voting who want to vote.

    voter (c2c907)

  10. if america’s fascist propaganda whore media repeats voting and mandatory often enough in the same sentence

    no small percentage of you idiot americans are gonna think voting is mandatory

    happyfeet (831175)

  11. The man illegally import MILLIONS of people and bestows BILLIONS in gifts upon them withh OUR money and gives them ID that will allow them to vote and then says MAKING them vote is the answer.

    I did NOT see this coming.

    WarEagle82 (83e867)

  12. Hold on a minute. Let me check the flag pole. Yep. Still have the stars and stripes out front, so that means the individual states are in charge of elections, not Obama.

    Dude seriously thinks he’s chairman of the party and we’re a comie dictatorship.

    Sorry Barry. You don’t have the power to change election laws in California, or Nebraska, or Delaware, or New York, or even Washington D.C. for that matter.

    That power does not reside on Pennsylvania Avenue.

    (Constitutional scholar my lily white butt. Dude was cutting class and smoking the ganja.)

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  13. What is going to stop obama? team r?
    lolsfhicb.

    mg (31009b)

  14. 12. Way past time for a military junta to relieve this banana republic of her veneer of democracy.

    DNF (2964fc)

  15. School board elections are the one example of bad results from low voter turnout. The unions get the teachers out to vote. No, I don’t have a solution.

    Mike K (90dfdc)

  16. 13. 12. Way past time for a military junta to relieve this banana republic of her veneer of democracy.
    DNF (2964fc) — 3/20/2015 @ 5:41 am

    The junta will be meeting today at 4:00 p.m. over nachos at the Twin Peaks at Mockingbird and I-75 in Dallas. Followed by cocktails and dancing at the Armada Lounge in the Ramada.

    If you’re interested.

    Steve57 (88b05c)

  17. Business casual, folks.

    Steve57 (88b05c)

  18. The wonderfullness of mandatory voting in pictures.

    http://kimjongillookingatthings.tumblr.com/

    100%, folks. 100%.

    Ok, only after the executions.

    Steve57 (88b05c)

  19. It’s always about force with these guys! Let’s bring back the don’t trust anybody over 30 crowd.

    Joe Miller (64cdc0)

  20. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Australia

    The immediate impetus for compulsory voting at the federal level was the low voter turnout (59.38%)[3] at the 1922 federal election. However, compulsory voting was not on the platform of either the Stanley Bruce-led Nationalist/Country party coalition government or the Matthew Charlton-led Labor opposition. The actual initiative for change was made by Herbert Payne, a backbench Tasmanian senator from the Nationalists who introduced a private member’s bill in the Senate, the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1924, on 16 July 1924. Senator Payne’s bill was passed with little debate (the House of Representatives agreeing to it in less than an hour), and in neither house was a division required, hence no votes were recorded against the bill.[4] It received Royal Assent on 31 July 1924.[5] The 1925 federal election was the first to be held under compulsory voting; the turnout figure climbed to 91.4%, an increase of 32 percentage points on the previous election.

    Voting is compulsory both at federal elections and at elections for the state and territory legislatures. In the states of South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia voting at local elections is not compulsory.[6] About 5% of enrolled voters fail to vote at most elections. People in this situation are asked to explain their failure to vote. If no satisfactory reason is provided (for example, illness or religious prohibition), a fine of up to $170 is imposed,[7] and failure to pay the fine may result in a court hearing.

    A citizen can only vote when enrolled. Enrolling to vote is mandatory. Failure to enroll can incur a fine.[8] However, citizens who later enroll themselves are protected from prosecution for not enrolling in the previous years by section 101(7) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918.[9] In New South Wales, this situation has been somewhat modified by the NSW Electoral Commission’s “Smart Roll” system. Introduced in 2009, the system draws information from various government departmental sources and enrolls eligible electors automatically on to the state roll, but not the federal roll.[10] A protection in Section 101 (8) exists for offences prior to enrolment (including failure to enroll) for those enrolled in such a way by the Electoral Commissioner.

    It is an offence to “mislead an elector in relation to the casting of his vote”. An “informal vote” is one which has not been filled in correctly or not at all. The number of informal votes is counted but, in the determination of voter preferences, they are included in the total number of (valid) votes cast. Around 95% of registered voters attend polling, and around 5% of House of Representatives votes are informal [11]

    Australia also has instant runoff preferential voting. In some systems, every caniddate but one must have a number beside his name. ‘donley votes” are where there are only a few preferences made, and the rest numbered in in the order in which they appear.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting

    Australia – Introduced in 1924.[17] Compulsory for federal and state elections for citizens 18 years of age and above. The requirement is for the person to enroll, attend a polling station and have their name marked off the electoral roll as attending, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box. The act does not explicitly state that a choice must be made, it only states that the ballot paper be ‘marked’. According to the act how a person marks the paper is completely up to the individual. In some states, local council elections are also compulsory.[18] At the 2010 Tasmanian state election, with a turnout of 335,353 voters, about 6,000 people were fined $26 for not voting, and about 2,000 paid the fine.[19]

    Sammy Finkelman (9f1a19)

  21. I know it’s obvious, but how can voting be mandatory without voter ID. A lot of smart folks have pointed this out.

    What have the two got to do with each other? On the contrary, at least in principle compulsory voting should reduce (but not eliminate) the need for voter ID. If almost everyone is likely to show up at some stage to vote, then it’s more risky to vote in someone else’s name, because when the person shows up the fraud will be discovered. (Of course this doesn’t eliminate the case where the fraudsters know that a person isn’t going to show up, because s/he is dead or incapacitated, or because the polls have already closed, but it greatly reduces the scope for such fraud.)

    Milhouse (9d71c3)

  22. Why not mandatory voting? Obama comes from a place where every dead person buried in the local graveyards rises up and votes at least once, and maybe even two or three times for the local Democrat machine. Hey dead person, or walking talking brain dead Democrat voter—same old same old. They all vote early (and often).

    Skeptical Voter (12e67d)

  23. Uhh, Milhouse.

    How do you know which one is not the fraudster?

    Here’s a thought.

    ID.

    Steve57 (88b05c)

  24. Uhh, Milhouse.
    How do you know which one is not the fraudster?
    Here’s a thought.
    ID.

    You can use ID for that, but the two are not linked in any way. Voter ID is a good and necessary thing for its own sake, but mandatory voting makes it somewhat less necessary, not more. Australia has mandatory voting and no voter ID, and they have got along with it quite well. There’s very little fraud of the kind where someone shows up in person and pretends to be someone else; the fraud that happens is more like the Chicago kind, where 50 dead people vote, and coincidentally 50 ballots are found to all be in the same handwriting, and on ballots that bear impressions from having been under a piece of paper on which someone wrote something.

    Milhouse (9d71c3)

  25. You learn by holding a seance who actually was supposed to cast a particular vote.

    As oppose to, I dunno, call me crazy, asking for a driver’s license.

    Thanks for filling us in.

    Does the same magic work for liquor sales?

    Steve57 (88b05c)

  26. When someone shows up to vote, and is marked on the roll as having already voted, but insists that he has not, it’s difficult to determine the truth and impossible to identify and remove the previously cast vote. But as I wrote, this sort of fraud is rare, especially since it’s bound to be discovered when the real person shows up. The kind of fraud that happens is of the kind I described, and ID would be no help there. I agree with
    voter ID, because however little it helps it’s better than nothing, and there’s no reason not to require it; but don’t pretend it’s a panacea.

    Milhouse (9d71c3)

  27. There would have to be some kind of id check or a Voter Id card issued to every voter. If fraud could be eliminated I guess it would be good, but the problem would be how to verify everyone’s identity. Isn’t that what some states have been pushing for and getting charged with racism?

    Robert (1a174f)

  28. Sigh. You would need an identification system that identifies every eligible voter within every precinct. “You haff been liffing hier for 31 days, Herr Dunderkopfenschiesser. Vy rechiztered to
    fote you haff not?”

    Obama is a c***sucking f****t.

    nk (dbc370)

  29. To sum up, Milhouse:

    1. It’s important for the government to have records so you know who fraudulently voted.

    2. It’s only stupid right wing racism that would prompt anybody to look at one of those government records before voting.

    Have I got this right?

    Steve57 (88b05c)

  30. Doesn’t he claim to be a constitutional scholar? how could he not see how this silly proposal would fly in the face of the 1st Amendment?

    JD (86a5eb)

  31. On a related matter:

    http://www.lawyerscommittee.org/page?id=0046

    Sammy Finkelman (033fec)

  32. unintended!

    seeRpea (c1462d)


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