BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Voting does not make sense as a rewardable/punishable action.

Punishing someone for not voting would add insult to injury. By not voting, a person has actually made a huge sacrifice – they have waived their right to have any say in the running of their country and possibly incurred extreme consequences if the person who is voted in decides to persecute them. If a person doesn't vote, knowing the full consequences of their actions, it is akin to surrendering in battle – an action that, rather than 'lazy', is a powerful decision in itself, not something you do without a good reason. On the corollary, when a person votes, they are making use of their right. They are reaping a reward – it is like one free voucher to slightly more political power than they would otherwise have. While I am not saying it is an unvirtuous thing to vote – I admire anyone who votes for a genuinely ethical party against the advice of a strong majority – I do not think rewarding a reward makes a lot of sense.
Civic duty to vote

We already hold various functions important to the running of the country as duties in this country, such as the payment of various taxes. Voting is arguably the most important civic function because it ensures our democracy continues; there would be enormous outcry if a government were elected by a small turn-out, which is the way the trend is heading. We also cannot be seen to be exporting democratic values around the world (e.g. the Middle East) when not enforcing those values at home. It would be hypocritical to say that voting in your leaders is important abroad, while not caring domestically.
Weekend voting would be a more sensible solution

If the purpose is to increase turnout, weekend voting would be the more sensible option. It gives people more free time in which to vote, and doesn't have the problems that coercion brings with it. It doesn't address the wider problem of apathy, but treats the non-voting problem more acceptably than compulsory voting does. Better yet, introduce a public holiday on election days and provide free public transport to and from polling stations.
Persuasion is more effective than coercion

Forcing people into voting when they are disengaged from the politic process will exacerbate this problem; no one likes doing something simply because they have to. Election results may be skewed, particularly in marginal seats, by voters who vote at random because they still don't bother to find out about the candidates, parties and policies involved. Rather than forcing people to vote, more should be done to engage the public in political life. Westminster is a distant body, detached from real life, and should be made more relevant and more deserving of the public's trust, for example by releasing full details of MPs' expenses. Citizenship classes should teach the importance of the electoral process, and the history of the suffragette movement, the reform bills of the 19th century and the responsibilities of living in a democracy.
A true democratic mandate for the government

Forcing people to vote (against their will, in the case of some Jehovah's Witnesses) does not ensure a greater democratic mandate. There will be voters who are voting not because they want a particular party to win but simply because they have to vote. Bullying tactics should never be used in free and fair elections because they undermine the democratic process, and compulsory voting works only when backed up with fiscal punishment for those who don't vote.
People forced to vote are unlikely to vote intelligently.

Would you force someone to vote even if they were actively uninterested in politics? Even if they were determined to cross a random box? Even if they did not even know the political party in power/opposition? If you force everyone to vote you make it a criminal offence to be incredibly apathetic, so the incredibly apathetic people will merely vote insensibly, counting against the people who are actually voting on the basis of informed opinion. In an extreme case, idiots could sway the result of an election. If your not even bothered enough about the future of your country's government to even turn up at the polling booth at each general election, then you don't get a say, and I think thats actually good. Forcing uninterested people to vote is not really democratic its just random. You might want to decide who's in power by throwing the dice instead.
The right not to vote

Better to register dissatisfaction with politics by actively registering a non-vote. Ballot papers could include an abstention box to properly register this message. Spoiling a ballot in order to show that one feels no candidate is suitable, or even that they are dissatisfied with the entire system, sends a message out much more clearly. If one simply did not attend the vote at all this could be for many reason - sickness, forgetfulness, pure laziness - and is not making any kind of political statement.
Compulsory Voting Does not enhance democracy

It is highly unlikely that this would be the case across all 600+ constituencies of the UK. Furthermore, an abstention vote means 'do not count me', not 'don't elect anyone'. The number of votes in this category therefore do not matter, so long as the real candidate with the most wins the seat. (It would be different if the option were to Re-Open Nominations, but that has not been proposed.)
A true democratic mandate for the government

Low election turn-outs result in a government that does not truly have the democratic mandate of the population. Compulsory voting would ensure the governing party has the majority of the country on its side, and better reflect the wishes of the people. In my ever so humble opinion voting should be compulsory because I believe (perhaps somewhat niavely) that if an individual is forced to vote they would/should make an effort to become more informed on the issues that the various parties are campaigning about, and the issues that affect themselves and their local electorate. In Australia (yes I am Australian but live in the UK) voting is compulsory. That being said, the only compulsory part of the process is showing up and getting your name ticked of the roll. What you do in the privacy of the booth is entirely up to you. If you dont agree with any of the politicians or parties you vote incorrectly which makes you vote invalid and therefore doesnt count. (stupid but legal)
It will provide more accountability

There is no reason to attribute all the failures of the current setup of UNSC to PM. For example, Rwandan genocide cited as one such failure has in reality nothing to do with PM as such. Rather the use of hidden veto whereby the P5 members would convene in private and make decisions behind closed doors has caused UNSC inaction in this case. [[http://bit.ly/p5hH8b]] And since prop itself accepts that veto power is a totally separate issue from that of PM, to blame PM for failure to prevent atrocities in cases such as Rwanda is to ignore the reality on the ground. To expand PM is to actually break this pernicious practice of secret consultations by the few powerful states by admitting new permanent members from underrepresented regions and thus requiring the old PMs to consider the views of all regional blocks when making decisions. Prop fails to see the real issues at play PM is not the reason for UNSC’s lack of accountability. There are other means to improve transparency and accountability, e.g., by improving the working methods of the Council, institutionalizing UNSC co-operation with other principal UN organs and strengthening consultation with all relevant stakeholders.[[ http://bit.ly/ob0R5F, p. 135]] Granting formal decision-making power to non-permanent will not automatically shift the balance of power in the world. Political power and strategies such as threats or side-payments are used to gain the support of other members. [[Rev Int Organ (2011) 6:163–187, p. 172]] Abolishing PM would encourage regional powers to use informal ways to get their interests served, e.g. back-door deals and side payments to win votes. It’d be naïve to expect them to step back, watch decisions of import to their strategic interests being made for them and follow orders of less powerful states. PM serves as an accountability mechanism putting major international players under the spotlight and requiring them to make decisions in the open as opposed to back-door dealing.
Summary - Team Latvia

To restate, our plan is to abolish permanent positions in the UNSC altogether. All 15 seats shall be distributed in world regions and subjected to an election of the member states of that region. The first crucial problem with status quo is that current structure of UNSC is illegitimate. 5Ps are predominantly Western liberal democracies and include no single country from South America and Africa, whose global security interests are severely underrepresented. Our plan improves the UNSC's legitimacy by a) reducing North-South representation disparity; b) giving more political leverage (via elections) to countries that originate from the same region as current 5Ps do (because now they may not be reelected the next time). The opposition responded to this by proposing simply including more countries from various regions as permanent members; although improving representativeness as well, this idea falls for two important reasons: lack of accountability and inefficiencies. As regards accountability, while UNSC's goals are to ensure collective security, its outlook and resolutions are unavoidably biased because permanent members (both current and suggested by Opposition) can always insert their own political agenda in the decision-making process, knowing that whatever they do they remain at power. Our plan makes each member place subject to election by its regional neighbors; this basic democratic mechanism involves more countries in the global security process, which is more objective and accountable. The opposition engaged very weakly on this point, talking about risk of not including major powers in UNSC but failing to show why is it different from SQ and could be disastrous. They also said that voting may lead to backdoor deals, providing no explanation on why these deals can't take place now or with more permanent members, and failing to disprove that increased competition through elections will limit such activities. Speaking of effectiveness, under our plan countries will feel they have more leverage over UNSC decisions because of increased accountability of its members. When there are no permanent seats, even if a country exercises veto, it can no longer take only its own interest into account; it has to be to some extent aligned with the interest of the majority of the region. Thus, countries will be more motivated to take part in the decision-making process, which will make it more objective and efficient. Even if stalemates occur, now vetoes would be backed regionally, i.e. more justified; plus, it'd be possible to solve conflicts more efficiently via elections. All in all, any country that is granted permanent membership in UNSC has a moral hazard to abuse it and pursue its own interests, disregarding collective security. Moreover, being permanently represented is not legitimate and does not match the ever-changing nature of power balances in the world. Thus, there should be no permanent member states of the UNSC.
Argument 2: UNSC sanctions become powerless without PM

1) “Speak softly, but carry a big stick” Current P5 membership is represented by main victorious powers of World War II. Vast contribution of P5 ended the WWII & has, for the next 56 years, been keeping peace worldwide. These countries have since assumed responsibility for maintaining peace in the world. Notably, P5 members are the only countries recognized as nuclear-weapon states (NWS) under Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.[[http://goo.gl/LH8vt]] So traditionally PMs have been nations that are able to exert its influence on a global scale and thus fulfill UNSC’s mission best by ensuring peace and security in the world. Their economic, military, diplomatic & cultural strengths enabled UN to maintain peace for more than 50 yrs and avoid disgraceful failure like that of League of Nation’s to prevent the WWII. These strengths ensure UNSC sanctions & resolutions are enforced properly. Sanctions against Liberia, Libya and the former Yugoslavia are examples of UNSC success. [[http://on.cfr.org/qmdpvy]] 2) PM benefits world economy Both existing and aspiring Permanent Members (PMs) are strong economies with major influence on the rest of the world. Ensuring stability of P5 members ensures relative stability of the rest of the world. Economic meltdown in US severely affecting millions of people’s livelihoods throughout the world is an example of PMs’ influential position. The world, in the face of UN, must try to eliminate any threat of turbulences, especially as regards peace & security in PM states, in order to maintain economic stability in the world. For example, Canada whose main export market is US (75% of all exports)[[www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cis-sic/nsf]] anything affecting stability of US would have fatal consequences for Canada. Same holds true for other PMs. In addition, world statistics on external trade for 2009 show that the EU, US & China are major players in global import & export markets.[[http://goo.gl/zZbs5]]
It would increase the legitimacy of the UNSC

Abolishing the permanent seat increases the legitimacy of UNSC. At the moment many developing countries view UNSC as a club of powerful nations for exercising their own interests. When the UNSC was created it had at least some legitimacy because of the power vacuum after WW2. Since the creation of UN the world has changed a lot and many countries have earned reputation to be equal members of the Security Council. They have established stable states (ex. Brazil, South Africa, India) and proved themselves as regional leaders. They have joined UNSC peace keeping missions and supported its aid programs. However they are still treated as not able to make responsible decisions. Instead 5P countries continue enjoying unrivalled ability to make decisions that will affect the collective security. While in the West the UNSC is seen as force for peace, many developing countries perceive it as an instrument of western dominance. While the US, the UK, and France talk about human rights, other 5P members such as Russia and China regularly abuse them (Chechnya, Tibet [[http://www.hrw.org/asia/china]]). The permanent seat is a symbol of unwillingness to be accountable and furthermore, share the power of making decisions. There is no equal playing field although it would be very important for better acceptance of the resolutions passed by the Security Council. Developing and also developed (Germany) nations with ability to vote for their representative would be more supportive of UNSC peace missions and decisions, because they would have potential to influence those decisions. There has to be room for flexibilty when deciding who is the agressor which currently is not present due to the constant ideological issues of some 5P members. If UNSC Security really wants to be legitimate body it should be accountable for its decisions to other nations. A situation when the executive body is also the controlling body does not create legitimacy in the eyes of other nation
It will provide more accountability

The existence of permanent positions in UNSC has led to lack of accountability for decisions of the UNSC. By having indefinitely secured positions in the UNSC showing concern for global threats to security is rather a gesture of charity towards the other countries of the world, than their duty. The 5Ps face no consequences towards their ability to make further decisions in the UNSC even if they fail to adequately respond and thus allow the genocide of Rwandans, the war of Vietnam, and the disastrous violence in Darfur; at the same time they were quick to react on the occupation of Kuwait which happens to be rich with oil [[http://www.gtinitiative.org/documents/PDFFINALS/3Politics.pdf]]. Every decision making system in an organisation which supports democratic values such as the UN [[http://www.un.org/democracyfund/About_Us/about_us_index.html]] needs checks and balances. We are certain that this system is not balanced and fosters no incentives for the decision-making countries to act upon situations outside their own economical or political interest sphere. The notion that some countries can frivolously decide to which crisis the common force should react and get away with wrong decisions just because at some point in history they were awarded with luxury is outdated in the 21st century. Abolishing permanent positions and subjecting every member state holding a position to the necessity to be re-elected to maintain the ability to contribute to decision-making would provide a serious incentive to respond to any critical situation in the world. This means the responses would be more timely and adequate to the threat. Moreover, there would be more responses altogether regardless of the countries involved. Although there are some limitations to popular vote which underlies election, when it takes ensuring peace in the world to win that vote we deem it to be a worthy trade-off which ultimately benefits all parties involved.
Argument 1: PM serves interests of developing countries

The only complete argument brought by the side opposition was that having PM is actually beneficial for developing countries, and that number of PMs actually should be increased. Their main justification was improved representation of developing countries in UNSC, which is exactly what our plan brings about by introducing elections and distributing seats among different regions. In fact, their own reference #3 argues for having permanent seats *for regions*, e.g. two for Africa, and not for countries[[http://bit.ly/rnku7m]]. If there is a vote system, there is no need for PM in developing states as you can get voted in by convincing other countries about your ideas. If your ideas are not good enough, then you do not deserve to be elected, at least at this point of time. The clash here is whether having PMs for any single country has any advantages other than representation of this country. The opposition has failed to indicate any, as well as show what would be the "devastating consequences" if PMs are removed. Our arguments against PMs, e.g. lack of accountability and incentive to push one's own political agenda, were never refuted. They talked about increased opportunity of stalemate - we say that expanding the PM will lead exactly to this because there will be more unaccountable members. They also blamed us for siding with P5 and talked about possible mechanisms to influence the power balance. We note that the developed countries can buy votes under any mechanism as what matters is money. However, under our model, there is competition between states because no one's place is guaranteed, which pushes them to more accountable decisions. Finally, they said that UNSC will not be able to work without funding and participation of powerful countries. This is naive because under Status Quo there are many powerful nations that are not in UNSC. Plus, being powerful doesn't justify being unaccountable. We cannot expand PM to include everyone - then the system truly fails.
Argument 3: PM ensures continuity essential to resolving issues of international peace and security

The argument is a gross simplification that basically says that PMs should be preserved because otherwise no one remembers what was achieved before and what are the issues at hand. The UN is a massive organization with comprehensive and advanced system of making & archiving records of negotiations, conferences, etc.; thus, the point falls. The "continuity" idea is ridiculous: using their logic, we can also say that Presidents in liberal Western democracies should stay for more than 2 terms because many of reforms they undertake are complex and can take decades to implement. Finally, the opposition has never proven why non-PM countries can't get access to "knowledge of or background on these precedents" using UN databases etc. It is also not likely that all 15 representatives will not get re-elected at the same time. Moreover, we do not see the problem with not re-elected countries helping to broker the deals they have been mediating as members of UNSC. Cooperation should not stop at transfering the money to UNSC. Goodwill will also benefit them by increaing the probaility of being elected in the next term, so the incentives are present to correct for that. Even if there would be cases when countries should seek compromise in their decisions, taking into account what the rest of the world feels towards the situation makes it a more legitimate decision in the end, since the process of achieveing the outcome involves everyone. It is also rather curious Opposition speak of "consistency and decisive force". We have already shown that if anything currently UNSC has consistently been decisive in situations when interests of 5Ps are at stake while sparing their decisiveness in other cases leading to only make decisions on how to restore countries like Rwanda. And although it was mentioned that it was the closed door discussion that lead to it, we see that having more people behind those door doesn't solve anthing. Having no closed door is the best way out
Introduction

That the reform of the UNSC is necessary and indeed inevitable if the UNSC is to perform its functions under the UN Charter properly is undisputed. Equally, expansion of UNSC to include members from heretofore unrepresented regions of Latin America, Africa and Asia is necessitated by the changes in the balance of power in the world since the end of World War II. Near universal consensus exists among UN members on the need to reform UNSC to provide for better representation and more effective discharge of UNSC mandates. [[Nico Schrijver (2007), J.C. & S.L. 130]] The need for UNSC reform is urgent as, in the word of GA President Joseph Deiss, “it was unacceptable that the international community had been unable to make substantial progress on reforming the 15-member Council, despite active debate for almost two decades.”[[ http://bit.ly/oSbb2V%5D%5D However, how to ensure the reform cures the North-South imbalance and protect the best interest of new members? That the removal of permanent membership (PM) should necessarily be part of UNSC reform is a dubious claim. For whatever benevolent motifs prop here presented for removal of PM its unintended consequences would be devastating, first and foremost, for less powerful states on the UNSC. From the very start proposition (prop) shows lack of knowledge of the subject. Stating that Permanent Members (PMs) single-handedly veto ANY resolution in UNSC is false for ONLY substantive matters “require nine votes, including the concurring votes of all five permanent members”, also known as “great Power Unanimity”. [[http://goo.gl/3ksvH]] Notably, prop fails to articulate a clear & definite position, which makes this very debate weak and poor. Thus, first, they propose having 15 UNSC members representing different regions, then they state that this is not what they want to have our debate on. They also set veto power outside the scope of this debate, but, at the same time, base all their arguments explicitly on veto i