cast your vote america
Cast Your Vote America
By: Emily Veit
Dr. Kirkpatrick
GOVT 2035- MW 4:15-5:30
March 25, 2013
The great American eighteenth birthday allows a citizen to buy a lotto ticket, purchase tobacco, and gain the right to vote. The 2012 election only had around a fifty percent voter turnout for the United States of America. Australia has used a system called compulsory voting since 1924, which mean that voting is mandated. Whether it should be enforced in the United States has become an arising question. In exploring why this would be worthy or poor for the United States, we must discuss how far this would be pushing the citizens in a positive or negative direction. This position paper will discuss if compulsory voting will make Americans question their protected rights and whether every citizen is or should be allowed to vote, or on the other hand it could prove to give all Americans a legitimate voice, make politics more educational and a lot less corrupt, and to give more equal opportunity to all economic statuses, races, and genders. Compulsory voting is defined as a system in which electors are obliged to vote in elections or attend a polling place on voting day. If an eligible voter does not attend a polling place, he or she may be subject to penalizing measures.
When explaining what mandating voting is, we must inform Americans that it is not essentially forcing them to chose a candidate, instead it is helping them aid in running there country. The American resident would become more than an average Joe with a job; he or she would take part in changing his country to be the absolute and efficient machine to fuel the world. A large reason compulsory voting is a possibility for some American citizens is that citizens would truly have there voice heard. According to Marion Just, in the article Same-Day Registration, “recent research shows a vicious cycle in which nonvoters do not believe government will
By: Emily Veit
Dr. Kirkpatrick
GOVT 2035- MW 4:15-5:30
March 25, 2013
The great American eighteenth birthday allows a citizen to buy a lotto ticket, purchase tobacco, and gain the right to vote. The 2012 election only had around a fifty percent voter turnout for the United States of America. Australia has used a system called compulsory voting since 1924, which mean that voting is mandated. Whether it should be enforced in the United States has become an arising question. In exploring why this would be worthy or poor for the United States, we must discuss how far this would be pushing the citizens in a positive or negative direction. This position paper will discuss if compulsory voting will make Americans question their protected rights and whether every citizen is or should be allowed to vote, or on the other hand it could prove to give all Americans a legitimate voice, make politics more educational and a lot less corrupt, and to give more equal opportunity to all economic statuses, races, and genders. Compulsory voting is defined as a system in which electors are obliged to vote in elections or attend a polling place on voting day. If an eligible voter does not attend a polling place, he or she may be subject to penalizing measures.
When explaining what mandating voting is, we must inform Americans that it is not essentially forcing them to chose a candidate, instead it is helping them aid in running there country. The American resident would become more than an average Joe with a job; he or she would take part in changing his country to be the absolute and efficient machine to fuel the world. A large reason compulsory voting is a possibility for some American citizens is that citizens would truly have there voice heard. According to Marion Just, in the article Same-Day Registration, “recent research shows a vicious cycle in which nonvoters do not believe government will
References: Brennan, Jason, “High Turnout Would Be a Disaster,” New York Times, 7 November, 2011. Hill, Lisa, “Mandatory Voting Works,” New York Times, 7 November, 2011. Just, Marion, “Same-Day Registration,” New York Times, 3 October, 2012. Ornstein, Norman. 2012. “The U.S. Should Require All Citizens to Vote.” July 17. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/the-us-should-require-all-citizens-to-vote/259902/ Staino, Sara. 2006. “The practice of compulsory voting: a right or a duty?” November 15. http://aceproject.org/electoral-advice/archive/questions/replies/705390376