Does the US Constitution allow a change to the electoral
process that would make voting mandatory? Could every US citizen be forced to vote? Of course the option to vote for 'none of the abvoe candidates' must be included. Could not voting be made illegal or a crime?
If none of the candidates running for any party is acceptable to a voter, he would usually not vote at all. Wouldn't it be a pressure tool to have citizen force to vote and force them to say clearly that they do not vote for any of the candidates presented? May be even with a couple of sub sections explaining why a voter could only for "none of the above" and rejects all of them. Could there be a law that would say that if the category 'none of the above candidates' gets the most vote that then none of the other candidates can win? The vote would have to be repeated and candidates would have to adjust their campaign propaganda to win over the hearts and minds of the voting 'none of the above candidates' majority?
Wouldn't that make a lot of candidates and party official scared so that they may pay more attention to what the 99 percent actually want?
Ok, sorry for the question. Just came to my mind. I am out of the loop. Tired and with lots of blank moments.
Have a good next week.
Comments
Hi, mimi.
For most purposes, voting is considered a matter of state law. The Constitution does not grant a right to vote. However, because of the 14th amendment, due process, etc., the Constitution does prohibit discrimination in granting the right to vote. Additionally, voting could be considered a form of political speech, maybe the strongest form.
I think, but am not 100% positive this second, the SCOTUS has held that the First Amendment includes the right to remain silent. If the feds mandated that everyone vote, I am not sure how that would all mesh together. My own view is that the fewer things government forces us to do, the better, especially if failure to do them is criminalized.
Right now, getting voted out of office does not matter to most officials financially. If they played the game right while in office, they get very good paying jobs. Maybe their family members, too.
If we were interested
there are lots of things we could do to improve voter turnout. Is increasing turnout worth making election day a federal holiday? I think the place to start is to make the tactics used to disenfranchise voters illegal. The hurdles to voting are constantly increasing.
Of course people on the ticket who generated enthusiasm wouldn't hurt either.
Good Day - I just have one problem with that answer
But in today's world the Constitution discriminates by allowing to not count those, who don't vote.
Exactly, and voting for none of the offered candidates, is a form of political speech, and that specific political speech, is NOT counted. If it had to be counted and if it would be the majority of votes, then it is a clear result in that none of the candidate could win the majority. How is it possible that this "vote for nobody" is not counted and is pretended to not exist?
My view is that government is not the one who forces you to do anything, it's corporate financial power, who decides, which candidate is promoted. That influence of money should not be able to decide over who is a candidate and who is, with their financial backing, the best liar and "winner of hearts and minds". In my opinion the only chance I see to vote against that corporate influence over the electoral process, would be, if the actual vote against it in form of a mandatory vote that allows the "nobody vote" to be counted. If that vote wouldn't just be shoved under the carpet by realizing that only 30 percent of the people or less voted for an offered candidate of some party, and if that "vote for nobody" would HAVE to be counted by law as a form of political speech, then it would be fair.
Forcing someone to make a vote is still a democratic form of voting, if the option to "vote for none of the above" is included and actually would be counted.
Right now the voices of the majority of people, who refuse to vote, is not counted. And that is not democratic. The system simply does ignore them as non existent. But they do exist. What is more undemocratic, a system which ignores a majority of a non-voting group of people as non existent, or a system that counts all people's votes including those, who say, I do not want any of the candidates, because they don't represent my political views?
https://www.euronews.com/
The Constitution does not discriminate as to voting. At this
point in time, it does not discriminate at all. As my original reply stated, voting is mostly a matter of state law. And, whatever may be the case now about corporations, your essay proposed that the government criminalize not voting. I think that would be a mistake. There are too many reasons to throw us in jail as it is.
I agree with Alligator Ed: people who don't vote are counted implicitly. We know how many people vote total. We also know the population of the United States is 325 million, give or take. Year after year, many articles are published about what a small percentage of Americans vote. I don't think a numeral vs. a percentage would add much.
While I don't play a doctor on TV, I also agree with Ed that you don't have Alzheimer's.
Hello, mimi, if you're confused, join the crowd.
Henry's answer was excellent. It brings to mind pre-WW2 Stalinist USSR. People did not have to vote, but the block watchers (political commissars) took note of who didn't vote and watched them closely. Because Uncle Joe got 99% of the ballots cast.
And to quote the wise paranoiac from the Kremlin: "It doesn't matter who you vote for, it matters who counts the vote".
You don't get over your past history?
the "big brother" or nowadays the "big sister" threats to punish those, who they surveille with a technology that the 99 percent of little people can't control, and with their threatening attitude to "better vote for my candidate or else", is NOT the most dangerous threat. Those threats will always exist and be used.
It is imo important to count all votes, which would include the votes for "none of the above". If the "none of the above" vote would be counted like all the other votes for a "candidate xyz", the threat of "big brothers" and "big sisters" would be flattened, as nobody would know who votes for "none of the above". The vote for "none of the above" needs to be counted and considered the same way as the vote for "candidate xyz". A vote for 'none of the above' also would clearly express the desire of those voters to NOT build a coalition with any of the other candidates.
At least I don't see any other solution to counter the influence of corporate financial power and the power they have on the technologies they can use to surveille the 99 percent of people. It's not WHO counts the votes, it's that the 'non voter' is not counted, which is the real threat and undemocratic as well.
I would not mind to be forced to vote, as long as my "refusal to vote for any of the candidates listed" is counted as a vote the same way as the "vote for a candidate" is.
ok. some people seem to think I have Alzheimer, so that might explain my pov.
And btw, if you think that technology (ie managing people with text messages over cell phones) like little rats on the line having to dance to any quip of their employer to make them do what their superior wants them to do at any time of the day with any changes in work hours, schedules etc is not a form of abuse, which is so far NOT legally controlled, you make a big mistake. It is a form of slave labor. And it needs to be resisted.
https://www.euronews.com/
In my professional opinion, mimi,
you do not have Alzheimer's disease. Having treated hundreds of AD (Alzheimer's disease) patients, I guarantee none of them could write so eloquently in their second language. Keep on, keeping' on.
...
https://www.euronews.com/
The best way of getting people to vote is giving
then something to vote for rather than against, moving the polling day to a weekend would also help.
ah that's so little peanuts ...
edited a word ..
it's quite telling that the US so far hasn't even managed to implement that common sense measure. Just tells you how far "off" from anything reasonable the voting procedure is in the US. Sorry to say.
https://www.euronews.com/
I used to think
a national holiday for federal elections was a good idea, but ultimately conclude it would not make a difference. In fact, if election day remained tuesday, there'd be more people taking a long holiday weekend and not voting at all.
In the end, the only way to compel people to vote is to give them a legitimate reason to do so.
No, it says we're supposed to be free.
But we aren't that either.
Voting is worthless at the national level, the system has to be changed to prevent the rich from controlling it. A law to make people vote is like a law to make people buy health insurance.
Excellent analogy, Big Al
'Nuff said.
In Germany people must have health insurance
it's up to them to decide which one, but they have to have one.
That leads to the "funny" situation that if a German, working in the US, doesn't have an employer, who offers a US health insurance package, the German worker then tries to get health insurance from a German provider. But the German health insurance provider gives a German worker, who works outside the EU member states, a health insurance package only, if the German worker can prove he has no health insurance overseas, ie the US.. With the kind of hiring and firing that is going on in the US for the very little people, who should be protected most, you have to prove for any new job you start to not have or have a health insurance. That's basically ridiculous to even attempt to do, because even if a US employer offers a health insurance package, it usually starts only after a probationary working period of 3 to month at a job has ended. It has been quite clearly a strategy for US employers to fire a worker shortly before the probationaryory period is ending and replacing him with a new worker, because that way he hasn't to pay for and provide health insurance coverage.
Right now for example, I got back into a German health insurance, as, residing in Germany, I have to have it. But that health insurance program doesn't cover me in the US. So, I have to establish my US residence and make my still active health insurance from the East Coast, working in HI. And I can't stop my German health insurance either, because I reside in both locations. Of course to reside at two places on the globe is a sin. I am a sinner, are you too?
There are private health insurance providers which offer packages that covers you world wide, but they are not affordable for the 99 percent of little people.
So... what the heck... I see advantages to ask for mandatory enrollment in any of the health insurance programs offered, prefarably a publicly financed Medicare for all style of program.
Otherwise ... may be there is a condition of freedom-pathology syndrome spreading in US-ian brains.
Sorry to say.
https://www.euronews.com/
The difference?
It's always struck me as a bit odd that by refusing jury duty (to "perform our civic duty" as the jury summons usually mentions), one gets a visit from the county sheriff. Said sheriff can lock you up should you continue to shirk the summons. Voting is also mentioned as our "civic duty." For some reason, one civic duty does not appear to be the same as the other.
It's occasionally mentioned that the judicial system would collapse without the threat of incarceration made to potential jurors. I would think the same argument could be made of our electoral system.