The Reasons Voting Should Not Be Compulsory

In the past years, less and less people have been voting and the government sees this as a problem. Some think the solution would be just to make it illegal to not vote, such as in Australia. But, others think that it would violate the Constitution and the rights of the people. I also believe that it is a violation of our rights to enforce mandatory voting.

I have many reasons as to why I believe this and different solutions that could potentially solve the problem.

There are better solutions than fines. Like better informing the people. The government can create commercials that people will see when they watch tv. The average citizen watches 35 hours of tv per week and commercials about the importance of exercising their right to vote might help. People would be very likely to see the commercial, and learn more about the candidates and where they can go to vote. The could use all platforms of social media to advertise as well.

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The government could try and make public service announcements about the candidates and what they promise. They could make individualized public service announcements or templates for local governments to use that would give more detailed information on area polling places and times. They could also give more funding to schools so that they could better educate our youth about voting and what it entails. Not only that, but they could reward the state with the highest voting average.

If non voting was made illegal than that would mean there would need to be a consequence.

In Australia, the consequence is a 20 dollar fine. But what about the people who don’t have access to transportation to where they can vote? What about the people who are too busy to take the time off to go and vote? Who need childcare to go vote? Is that fair to them? No, it’s not. Which is another reason as to why it wouldn’t be fair to the American citizens who run more busy lives. My mother for instance, she often doesn’t have the time to vote because she is working and caring for our family. Some people don’t even have access to transportation to go vote. A majority of the population is poor and lower class. They can’t afford to lose any pay taking time off of work to go vote. Maybe they don’t want to waste the gas. Maybe they can’t afford daycare while they go vote. There are many reasons, I could go on and on.

According to the constitution, voting is a privilege. Forcing someone to vote would be taking that privilege away. We fought for that right when we liberated ourselves from Great Britain. America is the land of the free. We have the freedom to choose to be part of our Democratic system or not. It immediately begins to tear down the Democratic system by making it a mandatory law punishable by a fine or penalty. The people have the right to choose to vote or not.

In conclusion, making it mandatory to vote would not be good for a country. There are others ways we can promote voting, like some of the ways I mentioned. Voting is a privilege, so don’t take that away.