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posted by janrinok on Sunday March 22 2015, @11:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the but-but-it's-raining! dept.

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.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @08:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @08:30PM (#161254)

    >>What would keep me from setting up 1,000,000
    >> small corporations and thus controlling 1,000,000 votes?

    Well, the half billion dollars or so it'd cost to set them up might slow you down. Filling out a million sets of corporate filings would be a tad time consuming. Then another set of annual filings every year.

    You'd need 5 or 10 million people to sit on all the boards. All of whom would have their own opinions,too...

    Other than that, no problems...

  • (Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Sunday March 22 2015, @08:49PM

    by Buck Feta (958) on Sunday March 22 2015, @08:49PM (#161257) Journal

    I think you vastly overestimate the cost to set up and run a small corporation, you certainly don't understand corporate ownership structures.

    --
    - fractious political commentary goes here -
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @09:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @09:10PM (#161258)

    > Well, the half billion dollars or so it'd cost to set them up might slow you down.

    $50 for an LLC in Arkansas [arkansas.gov]

    > Filling out a million sets of corporate filings would be a tad time consuming.

    Mail merge.

    > You'd need 5 or 10 million people to sit on all the boards.

    Just need one person for an LLC and no reason the same guy can't be on the board of all 1 million.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @10:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 22 2015, @10:19PM (#161277)

      And then print out a million copies.buy a million stamps and a million envelopes... Lick all the envelopes. I wonder how big your car will have to be to drive them all to the post office?

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2015, @04:48AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 23 2015, @04:48AM (#161359)

        > And then print out a million copies.buy a million stamps and a million envelopes...

        Electronic filing.
        Even if it paper filing was the only option - we have an entire industry in American dedicated to handling the task of bulk mailing.