SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
CNN reports that when asked how to offset the influence of big money in politics, President Barack Obama suggested it's time to make voting a requirement. "Other countries have mandatory voting," said Obama "It would be transformative if everybody voted -- that would counteract money more than anything," he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly.
"The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups. There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls."
At least 26 countries have compulsory voting, according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Failure to vote is punishable by a fine in countries such as Australia and Belgium; if you fail to pay your fine in Belgium, you could go to prison. Less than 37% of eligible voters actually voted in the 2014 midterm elections, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. That means about 144 million Americans -- more than the population of Russia -- skipped out.
Critics of mandatory voting have questioned the practicality of passing and enforcing such a requirement; others say that freedom also means the freedom not to do something.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @11:26AM
Everyone else forget about it.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @11:32AM
Dude, man, if we get like, umanimoius votes for Bama, he gotta get a third term, dude! And if the dude get his third term, you know he gonna legalize it! Eveeevvybody vote for Bama, man! Unamimoss write-in votes for O-B_A_M-A and you know heel win agan!!
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Sunday March 22 2015, @11:46AM
At the risk of feeding the trolls, you do realize there is a 2 term limit for presidents in the United States, right?
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @11:56AM
Until someone writes an executive order that says otherwise.
(Score: 2, Informative) by naubol on Sunday March 22 2015, @02:09PM
Executive orders are trumped by the constitution. If he did that, the SC would overturn the order via judicial review. It would likely be ignored by all governors anyway. If he tried to ignore that with executive powers, he would be swiftly given articles of impeachment by the house and convicted by the senate. In which case, he would technically no longer have executive powers, and then for him to actually use them would require a colossal coup involving a tremendous number of agencies, generals, governors, commandants, etc. etc. etc.
In other words, he's not going to have a third term and he and everyone else knows it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @02:15PM
Just imagine how historic it'd be: first black president is first to serve a third term since that white cracker roosevelt who didn't deserve four terms.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Sunday March 22 2015, @03:54PM
The constitution trumps executive orders and statutes ... in theory. In actual everyday usage? Not so much.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @06:12PM
When there is ambiguity it will be exploited. That is human nature, maybe even just plain old nature.
But the 22nd amendment is starkly clear: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @11:44PM
Easy hack: "postpone" future presidential elections indefinitely.
Not that I believe the problem lies at the presidential level - the root problem seems to be generations of people that forgot about freedom and instead see government as a club used to bludgeon other people they don't like.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Sunday March 22 2015, @04:04PM
Executive orders are trumped by the constitution.
I don't think anybody is going to be running for a third term any time soon. The proposal is downright ludicrous. That being said, invoking the constitution as a guideline for what the government can and cannot do is also ludicrous, perhaps even more so. Ever heard of Edward Snowden?
(Score: 2) by naubol on Thursday April 02 2015, @03:41PM
You're not arguing that the constitution is selectively enforced, which is my position, and seems to me to fit the facts.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday April 02 2015, @06:25PM
I guess that I don't see a meaningful distinction between selectively enforcing a legal document and not enforcing it. As soon as you're not enforcing large parts of it because they're inconvenient for your agenda the parts that you still happen to enforce seem like they just coincidentally have backing by the document.
I don't think that America's political power structure would allow Obama to seek a third term (assuming that he was crazy enough to try for it), but I think that most pundits' invocations of the Constitution in that discourse would be ad hoc arguments wrapped in legalize and patriotism. They could not be taken as genuine arguments about Constitutional law unless a given pundit also took firm Constitutional positions on the Second and Fourth amendments, not just the Twenty-second.
Strictly speaking I cannot disagree with the statement that the Constitution is selectively enforced.
(Score: 2) by naubol on Friday April 10 2015, @07:48PM
My invocation of the constitution was in context for refuting the idea that Obama would go for a third time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @12:54PM
Three hundred million votes for Obama can't be wrong. The constitution must be wrong.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @05:20PM
Three hundred million idiots voted for him, that's whats wrong.