Voting is a right given to every U.S. citizen. Every citizen has the chance to vote for the person they believe see’s fit to run our country, many times over in their lifetime. We all know that this is the beauty of our government, the right to choose our president. From another country’s point of view; this can be seen as a privilege, we the people, take for granted because many U.S. citizens don’t vote when there’s a presidential election.
In the recent U.S midterm election, I’ve seen a lot of talk about issues along the lines of ‘only X percent of young voters, who were supportive of cause Y came to vote’. The campaigns of politicians are about getting people that already support them to bother to vote rather than convincing the general populace of the righteousness of their cause. The validity to apply this law is extraordinarily sound, contrary to what many people may think.
One of the most common counterarguments most people argue with is that it impedes freedom, but I think that its quite bizarre because many people have given up freedom for far less important causes (e.g. copyright/privacy), even where freedom is best marketed, in the U.S. It has been equivocated to good. “Absolute freedom would be anarchy”(Ferrell, David, and others). Even if this is untrue and freedom is sacred, it seems that it is more sacred than democracy. Specifically, freedom to not vote is more sacred than the government acting on behalf of its people.
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Another point I’ve come across is that it stops people who are too uneducated or disinterested from voting. It is certainly a flaw in democracy that sometimes it can just be determined by ‘mob rule’ where the public is generally misinformed, but if someone has a problem with that with everyone voting, most will certainly have a problem with it with fewer voters, as people don’t necessarily decide to vote based on how informed he or she really is.
It’s contradictory to elect someone who will lead & represent the people with just a skewed sample of votes from our population. Having a different amount of votes every election makes our elections inconsistent; as we’re voting for our President, Commander in Chief, we should make it mandatory for everyone to vote. In 2016, the presidential election only got 60.1% of the votes from the eligible voting population (‘Elections: The Nation’s Evolving Election System, 2006).
This number is actually higher than average compared to other elections. In 1922 & 1924, the voting turnout even came below 50% of the population, 1924 is the lowest at 48.9% of the eligible voting population. Since 1918, the voting turnout has varied, usually staying in the 50% range. The highest turnout we got was in 1960, with a percent of 63.8% of the eligible population voting. These inconsistent results should not determine our presidential elections if our government is a democracy; yet, only around 50% of our voting population actually vote, never even reaching at least 65% at all.
When some years, only a dismal minority of our voting population voted. Where was the majority of the country when we chose the person who is the head of our Executive branch? The person that has full control of our military, and can go to war with a country without Congress stepping until six months later? The person who passes the laws that shape and mold each and every one of our lives every day, and also have the power to veto such laws before they pass from just his judgment?
Another argument is that voting should be a civic duty like jury duty. Without the participation of citizens in their own democracy, a democracy will fail. A democracy is as important as its citizens believe it is, as a currency. If faith in a democracy or belief in one falls below a certain level it begins to break. I am sure someone could make the argument that refusing jury duty is a form of free speech, however, the ridiculousness of taking this argument to its logical conclusion does not explain it fully. Almost every forced interaction with the government could be claimed to be impeding on the people’s freedom of speech.
I also support conscription but not in the way we did the draft but like what Germany used to have where “citizens can do civil service instead of the military”(Suhay, Lisa). This could also be claimed to be a violation of free speech by some but is an important part of running a state and supporting a democracy. Being free does not mean non-participation. It means everyone is free to make his or her own decision within the system, Our system requires citizen participation. Everyone does not get a choice in that.
