Autumn Regular Tournament: In a democracy, voting ought to be compulsory

http://www.youtube.com...Thanks, Philo. In a classic South Park episode the character Stan, uncomfortable with his choices for an upcoming school mascot election, chooses to abstain from voting. After being pressured to vote by his friends, threatened into voting, and ultimately shunned from his community Stan finally returns and registers a vote only to find out that it didn't even matter in an extremely lopsided election. The episode lampoons our cultures view on voting: that despite the stupendous improbability of any individuals vote actually mattering, and even if an individual dislikes or has no opinion on the candidates, it's still viewed by many people as some kind of obligation. However even in their wildest, most cynical dreams the creators of South Park could not have envisioned a world where their "Vote or Die" song would become actual government policy. This is the world Pro wants. Puff Daddy would probably make an excellent enforcer in the Pro world. Don't have an opinion? Don't like the choices? Have a sincerely held moral objection to voting? Too bad. Vote or die.=Framework= What values should we enshrine into law? Pro believes that the only important value is democracy, a manifestly absurd view that would allow 51% to vote to exterminate the other 49%, but it's clear that good governments, including democracies, have higher values--ultimately governance is a balancing act between individual rights and the common good. Pro totally ignores the individual rights part of the governance equation. Obviously compulsory voting violates individual rights, but is it in the interest of the common good to mandate citizens to vote? The answer is clearly no, and whatever minuscule benefits it manages to bring to the table are vastly outweighed by the complete destruction of individual rights brought about by this policy. =Counterplan=Assuming that we want to drive voter turnout as high as possible, democracies should make it easier to vote and institute tax credits for individuals who cast a ballot. This economic incentive would be extremely easy to put into practice and would drive up turnout without any of the ethical implications that stem from compulsory voting. I. Undemocratic Pro wants us to value whatever is most democratic. By far the more democratic option is to allow individual societies to determine voting policy themselves rather than making a blanket declaration that they have an obligation to force their citizens to vote. National nuances, opinions, customs, or autonomy be damned--Pro may not know anything about Nauru or Monaco but he still views those nations as his to rule. This is the height of totalitarianism, not democracy. In the United States, the overwhelming majority, 66%-26%, opposes compulsory voting[1]. This statistic is utterly devastating for Pro, who wants the entire debate to come down to whatever is more democratic. I'll get to Pro's specific arguments later, but it's absurd on its face to suggest that it's more democratic to overrule the vast majority of the population on this issue. Ultimately, the Pro position relies upon a fatal conceit: the idea that from our vantage point in the first world we can legislate for everybody else just as well as we could for our own nations. This kind of thinking is what provided the justification for colonialism and indeed Pro's intellectual framework relying on the assumption that we in the West have the right to dictate policy for the rest of the world is blatantly neocolonialist and must be rejected, to vote Pro is to perpetuate this kind of thinking. This neocolonialism is the antithesis of any kind of lofty democratic ideals and to reject it requires also rejecting the resolution. In a democracy, voting ought to be compulsory if that is the policy that is best for their society and we don't get to decide that for them. II. Freedom of Speech and ExpressionArticle 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[2] protects an individuals freedom of expression. The right to free speech is declared in the very preamble. Article 19 specifies: "this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." I argue that both the rights of freedom of speech and expression protect an individuals right to refrain from voting. Voting is inherently a speech act, it's a citizen voicing his opinion on who he wishes to hold the position in question--but freedom of speech itself contains the right *not* to speak. The US Supreme Court in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette[3] took the obviously correct position that the freedom of speech protects the right of silence as well, protecting the right of schoolchildren to *not* salute the flag if they chose. The court ruled that forcing everyone to salute the flag created a "Compulsory unification of opinion". Forcing everyone to vote would violate free speech in much the same manner, and, in the US at least, would mean completely undermining court precedent and the rule of law. An individual has the right to refrain from voting as a speech act--perhaps the individual wants to make a statement about how they disapprove of every candidate on the ballot or if they do not support democracy and favor another system of government such as a monarchy or anarcho capitalism. Refraining to vote is also an act of political expression. Article 19 protects an individuals right to hold an opinion "without interference". Many individuals feel that voting is immoral for various reasons, such as they do not want to perpetuate a system they oppose, and they are allowed to hold and exercise that opinion. Many individuals also believe that by voting for a politician they are implicitly responsible for the actions those officials take. As George Carlin once said[4]: "I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain...If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain." If an individual disapproves of every candidate for office, or every choice on a referendum ballot, forcing them to vote is forcing them to violate their conscience. Governments have to have a compelling state interest before they can override individual rights and force an individual to violate his sincerely held moral beliefs. Pro's arguments don't come anywhere close to meeting this litmus test as we'll see in the next round.III. Freedom of ReligionArticle 18 of the Universal Declaration gives every individual the right to "to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." Jehovah's Witnesses, due to religious reasons, are required to maintain political neutrality[5]. Pro would bulldoze over their right to observe their religious teachings. The US has a really great litmus test for what laws violating religious freedom are to be allowed, called the Sherbert Test[6], which requires that if the government is going to violate an individuals sincerely held religious beliefs it must prove that both there is a compelling state interest behind the violation AND that the policy is the *least intrusive* method of achieving this compelling state interest. For example, if the government has a compelling interest in promoting contraception, forcing the Catholic Church to distribute contraceptives after every Mass would not be the *least intrusive* means to achieve this interest. Other democracies have similar policies and I will defend the validity of this test should Pro choose to engage it. If one rereads Pro's arguments with the Sherbert Test in mind it's quite clear that even if there is a compelling state interest in bringing voter turnout as high as possible (there isn't), forcing Jehovah's Witnesses to violate their beliefs is not the least intrusive method of achieving any of these benefits.IV. Nonvoters are less informed Those who choose to refrain from voting often make a wise choice. According to Pew[7], 76% of the people who report rarely voting admit that don't feel they don't know enough about the candidates to cast an informed ballot. Pro argues that forcing people to vote will improve education, but there can be no denying that some people are simply too busy or too lazy to properly inform themselves on politics. The counterplan of providing tax credits for voters would be superior to crafting a high turnout, educated electorate because only generally nonvoting people who actually have an income and pay enough attention to politics to learn about the tax credit would be motivated to vote. We can have high voter turnout without forcing the 29% of Americans who cannot even name the Vice President of their country[8] to cast a ballot and expecting the results to be beneficial to the nation as a whole. Maybe in other democracies with a more informed electorate this policy would make sense (although, I would argue, even in those the tax credit system is preferable) but not in the US. Not in a lot of other democracies. In conclusion, those who refrain from voting are generally less informed than those who choose to vote, compulsory voting grossly violates actual human rights and a tax credit system could achieve similar results without any of these impacts. Don't empower Puff Daddy to force you at gunpoint to vote. Vote Con. Sources:1. https://today.yougov.com...2. http://www.un.org...3. http://www.oyez.org...4. 5. http://www.jw.org...6. http://definitions.uslegal.com...7. http://www.people-press.org...8. http://gawker.com...