Should The US Have Mandatory Voting?

[0rganism]

76. you hit on the answer right there - vote-by-mail

Didn't see it in the poll, but it's the answer, really.

Oregon has vote by mail. Guess what our turnout rates were for the midterm elections. Go on, guess. Or google it, i'll wait.

...

70%

Problem solved. Get vote-by-mail for the whole country, and watch the turn-out rise by 20 points for the mid-term elections.

It's not that people don't want to vote, it's that they don't have time to vote. Look at some of those lines at the polling places, especially those where the GOP-dominated state leg decided that the major metropolitan areas deserve about 1/3 the voting apparatus of the rural counties. You want to vote there, you set aside half a day, most of which is spent standing in line. Outside. In November. On a Tuesday.

Which brings me to my next point. People work, many at jobs where they don't get time off for voting. People often feel like they have better things to do than stand around waiting for an opportunity to cast a vote which may never happen in which case they have to cast a provisional ballot which probably won't get counted for candidates who all-to-often fail to inspire the slightest bit of interest. And that last bit is key, too: important as that local bond measure may be, you can't count on it to generate a lot of turnout. That takes high-quality candidates.

OR vote-by-mail. You want turnout? Go with that, no need to punish people for not doing something expensive, annoying, and difficult.

Know what else you get with vote-by-mail? An informed electorate. By sending out ballots and election information booklets describing candidates and ballot measures, you ensure that people have time to read about what they're voting for before they mark the page. People get to take their time, sit down, and think it over, without being rushed to get out of the tiny booth to make room for the next citizen. Nice, huh?

Another thing you get: instant paper trail. People differ on how reliable paper-free touch screen voting is, but vote-by-mail ends the debate because it's all on paper. No more wondering if the overpriced touch screen machine mis-read your vote by accident or by design, no more fretting over how to do a recount. With vote-by-mail you can shift your suspicion upstairs to the central tabulators where it belongs.

Anyway, that's my take: establish vote-by-mail nationwide, and watch the problem of midterm turnout evaporate.