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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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AskBeehaw
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There are less coercive ways to remove barriers to voting. Some US states send everyone ballots in the mail and you have a long time to fill them out, which removes the need to go to a specific place on a specific day; all you have to do is fill it out and put it back in the mailbox. I think that kind of thing is a better option. There are situations where there are strong reasons civic participation has to be mandatory, like jury duty, but if the only real problem mandatory voting is meant to solve is life circumstances leading people to not bother voting, there are a lot of other plausibly effective steps that can be taken instead and it isn't clearly necessary to do something that invasive.
australia has compulsory voting and id say that most people here would not describe it as “invasive” - it is, in fact, a source of national pride
we have early voting, mail in ballots, etc too so people are enabled to vote however is easiest and you can not vote, but you have to submit a vote
There are also countries with mandatory military service for all citizens where people there have a positive impression of the program and feel national pride about it, but I don't think that necessarily means it is a good practice. I think anything the government is forcing people to do should meet a high bar of not being able to accomplish the same thing any other way, because freedom is important, whether or not people know to value it.
why do you think mandatory military service isn’t a good idea?
why are you judging peoples countries based on your view that governments shouldn’t force people to do things?
in fact you’re judging peoples’ lived experience and opinions based entirely on your own narrow views of government
mandatory military service might mean fewer wars if people understood better what that meant
my government (australia) is, all in all, a good thing - them telling people in this country to do things is, again all in all, a good thing. we live in a society, and the world has different people with different opinions and different ways of viewing the world and doing things
am i privileged to have a government that i can trust? sure! no denying that… but mistrust of the government is not a reason to write off the entire concept of societal mandates
yknow what else is good? taxes, fire services, disaster response, and dare i say - public healthcare and ambulances… all things im mandated to pay for along with everyone around me in case we ever need them
Because that's what this thread is for, sharing thoughts on compulsory voting.
Rather I'm saying that just because people approve of something doesn't mean it's good. If you think governments forcing people to do things is something to be embraced in general, and your lived experience with it is positive, that's your opinion, which is fine, but it doesn't mean that opinion is right.
Agreed, but I think you're papering over some important nuance in the position I'm expressing here. I see this sort of compulsory taxation and what it buys as an example of something where the need outweighs the harm. It is ok because of how important these services are, and despite the lesser harm of making people slightly less free. If all taxes rather went to building golden statues of the president, they would be bad.
My argument against compulsory voting is premised on the idea that reduced freedom is a harm, and must be justified by some good that sufficiently outweighs it. I haven't made an argument supporting that premise, but I think it's a sufficiently intuitive and popular sentiment that I shouldn't have to. If you disagree with that premise, I think that just means we have very different values.