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

Thanks, Philo. =Pro case=FrameworkPro argues that the only concern that should govern policy is if that policy is "democratic". This is absurd--democracies are governments and as I articulated in my framework, governance is fundamentally a balancing act between individual rights and the common good. Good governments are ones which make acceptable trade offs on this scale. Pro never explains why we should care if a democracy is "good" or not. It's vastly preferable to be ruled by a just king than a tyrannical president. It's vastly preferable to disenfranchise the 51% that would vote to exterminate the 49% even though this would be less democratic. Good governance is more important. The question then becomes if the practical effects of compulsory voting outweigh its violations of individual autonomy and as we will see, the answer is clearly no.I. TurnoutI do not concede that high voter turnout is inherently good. In Weimar Germany I would've preferred the Jews had higher turnout than members of the Nazi party did, regardless of what the actual opinion of the broader electorate was. We should value good government, not necessarily whatever happens to be the most "democratic" policy. Ironically, Pro argues that democracy means "all" the people are involved in the governing process and then immediately contradicts himself by arguing that certain people are unfit to rule. This is a huge blow for Pro because it destroys his argument about how democracy is a joke is we don't involve everyone. I don't want people who can't name the vice president to decide elections. Pro argues that if everyone doesn't vote a government doesn't have a mandate. There's no evidence Pro cited of governments under compulsory voting regimes having greater legitimacy than governments who don't force their citizens at gunpoint to endorse the system. Outside of nations with compulsory voting it's incredibly rare for the outright majority of eligible voters to endorse the ruling party but this has no effect on the governments ability to rule. Pros argument here also assumes a two party system--in a multi party system it would be incredibly unlikely for the winning party to gain a majority even with compulsory voting. Are these governments any less legitimate? Pro certainly hasn't proven so. Considering that he brings it up later Pro clearly puts great stock in his mandate argument but I genuinely don't know how to reply because it's simply not warranted at all. Where are all challenges to sovereignty to these governments without mandates? The strongest language from Pro on this contention is that a plurality rather than a majority "somewhat" contradicts democracy. This timid, unassertive word choice is extremely telling--even Pro himself can't get himself to fully commit to this argument. Even if you buy that high turnout is good, state coercion is just not the best way to achieve this goal when we have options like tax credits. II. Accessibility to votingAbsolutely nothing in this contention is unique ad governments can easily pass laws that remove hindrances to voting. Making election days national holidays, extending early voting and same day registration are all discussed and worthy reforms, but compulsory voting is manufacturing a tornado to blow out a match. In fact, I can easily turn this argument: It IS hard to vote sometimes, but nothing in the resolution presumes that issue will be resolved. Pro only gets to assume that he succeeds in adding a legal obligation to vote, not that he makes it easier to vote. He's going to punish all of those hard working or disabled people he lauds. III. EducationPro has no evidence linking compulsory voting with a better educated electorate. Pro says that in a free society it's easy to ignore politics but thinks that forcing people to show up once every four years to randomly select candidates would turn us all into political junkies. In the United States, the election is all anybody hears about on the news for about two years before it even happens (this process has already begun). Social media, Internet access, and incessant news coverage make it almost impossible to not learn about politics through sheer osmosis. If people are tuning out, it's for a reason--probably because they realize that their vote doesn't matter in the slightest and have more important things to do in their lives than to listen to corporate shills lie. There's absolutely nothing in our modern world that stymies our natural curiosity, compulsory voting wouldn't make a difference. IV. ExtremismPros card on extremism refers specifically to primary elections[1]. Primary elections are the elections where party members select the slate of candidates for the general election--compulsory voting wouldn't solve for this because voting in primaries will *always* be voluntary unless Pro wants to argue that the government should force people to join political parties. The solutions suggested by the article, such as voting by mail and same day voter registration are far superior to Pros plan. I can't emphasize this enough, the article specifically lays the blame for polarization on primary elections so Pro gets no impact here--only solutions that increase *voluntary* turnout (like tax credits) would help here. Moreover, other than the weak democracy argument Pro doesn't explain why having politically motivated people voting more often is a bad thing, nor how having representatives with convictions ("extremists") is a bad thing. The article cites the example of Chris Murphy who won a low turnout primary and quickly became one of the most liberal senators and just assumes this is bad. Why is having one of the most liberal states in the country represented by a liberal a bad thing? Pro doesn't seem to understand that the moderates that are "unrepresented" voluntarily ceded their right to vote. They aren't underrepresented because they never seeked representation in the first place. The election of ideologues and extremists is often an act of protest. It's likely that compulsory voting would actually increase the probability of electing ideologues as leagues of potential voters who sit out elections out of disgust would now be forced to make a choice.=My case=CounterplanPro argues that my plan of tax credits would cost money. Actually it would grow the economy due to the multiplier effect. The multiplier effect is a phenomenon whereby investment in certain sectors yields returns that are higher than the initial investment. So if a multiplier was 1.1, an investment of 1 billion would yield 1.1 billion. A paper for the United States Conference of Mayors[2] explains that the Earned Income Tax Credit for low to moderate income earners, a payment similar to my voting tax credit proposal, has a multiplier somewhere between 1.5 and 2. Pro claims that a tax credit would cost a lot of money. On the contrary, the credit would grow the economy by something between 1.5 and 2 times the money put in. This is a completely independent reason to vote Con. Even if you don't see any ethical or practical issue with compulsory voting, Pro doesn't grow the economy. I do. I. UndemocraticPro cites a poll showing Australians favor mandatory voting. He asks "[Why] should the statistic from the USA take precedence over the statistic from Australia?" It shouldn't! That's exactly the point! Somehow Pro entirely missed the crux of my argument, which is that the resolution should be rejected as it's better to let nations decide their own policies for themselves. This is the democratic position. Australia is not mine to rule, and while I think I could make convincing arguments to them as to why compulsory voting is bad policy, ultimately the decision is up to them. Pro, on the other hand, believes that nations he has never heard of and knows nothing about have a moral imperative to implement this policy even if it would be disastrous for them. Pro totally missed the point of my neocolonialism argument. The problem with his position is its blanket assumption--the issue is with this concept that nations we couldn't identify on a map are ours to rule. This type of hubris, that we can legislate just as well for anybody as we can for our own nations and that our policies have to work for them is the type of thinking that led to colonialism. Reject colonialism. Reject the resolution. Let nations decide their own policies for themselves. Despite his emphasis on democratic ideals, this autonomy is by far the more democratic position. II/III RightsPro does not argue that these rights don't exist, he just argues that people can just spoil their ballots. This isn't always true--it's unlikely, for example, that one could spoil their vote in electronic voting machines that wouldn't allow you to select more than one candidate. Moreover, many people wouldn't know how to spoil their votes or would believe it to be illegal ("Is it illegal to spoil your vote?" brings 125,000 hits on Google). To make sure that none of these rights are violated would require a concerted effort by the government to bring to the voters attention their ability to spoil their ballots, which defeats the purpose of forcing them to vote when they could just allow them to abstain instead. Moreover spoiling your ballot is not a true act of political neutrality--spoilt ballots are typically viewed as protest ballots[3]. The only truly neutral act is to not vote. Pro does not dispute that we should use the Sherbert Test: forcing people to violate their religion and hoping that they'll know to spoil their ballots is not the *least intrusive* means of achieving high turnout. Allowing them to abstain and encouraging voluntary voting through tax credits is.Pro removes legitimitate means of political expression and forces us all to give consent to the system. I'll discuss the rest of my case and crystallize the debate in the next round. 1. http://tinyurl.com...2. http://tinyurl.com...3. http://tinyurl.com...