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I didn’t assume anything, your point was “well if we tried that, what if this thing happened” like there is no way to tell. There IS a way to tell, look at the other countries that have already done this.
It’s irrelevant whether or not you are for or against the examples I used. I just find it uniquely American to act like if it isn’t currently what Americans do, then nobody must have ever tried it and to speak of the idea as if it is purely theoretical.
If you’re against it and care, then next time instead of fear mongering in the theoretical, you can educate yourself and offer an informed opinion instead, using real data from the many countries where this is already a thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting
Again, I never acted like that. This is a bold assumption on your part.
I'm aware of countries that take part such as Australia or Belgium. As such I'm aware of their faults too. You know the uninformed voters I was referring to? That's called a donkey vote sometimes. Your system fails to address that. Add on the logistics of tracking participation, dealing with penalties and what have you even accomplished? It genuinely sounds as if you want to control an aspect of peoples lives that should not be controlled.
Oh and since you're so very interested in American culture and what makes us different, has it ever occurred to you that with how nasty things can get on election days that compulsory voting with penalties might just be a further punishment to those already having unfortunate experiences? Republicans are known to harass and heckle other voters at the polls.
Look, there's a lot of things I believe we could adopt from other countries but there's also a lot of work to be done in general. We're not ready for something like this. Your attitudes and assumptions have shown that you are quite uninformed yourself for someone who claims to be so knowledgeable.
In your initial comment, you said “having people vote for a random name could be disastrous”. That is pure speculation, based on nothing. Other countries do it and have for a very long time, it is absolutely not “disastrous”. Flawed? Possibly, all systems are. But perfectly functional and as good or better than optional voting.
Thinking that Americans for whatever reason are unable to do this when other culturally similar countries can manage just fine and have without anything “disastrous” occurring can only be interpreted in one of two ways:
You aren’t aware that this already occurs in other countries and thus are just speculating randomly with no information.
You think Americans are special in one way or another, and evidence from other countries where this is successfully used isn’t applicable because “reasons”.
I assumed it was option 1. From your follow up comment, it’s clear that it is actually option 2. I apologize for assuming you were uninformed, but option 2 is arguably much worse. It’s still American exceptionalism, just not a positive version.
Personally, I think you could handle it and it would be an improvement. Despite you branding me as anti-American, I apparently have more faith in your countries competence than you do.
It will never happen for a myriad of reasons, but they have nothing to do with the efficacy of compulsory voting, and everything to do with those in power knowing how to effectively manipulate the current system.