May/June Beginners Debate Tournament: Voting should be mandatory

I. Mandatory voting (MV) surfaces the general will through wider representation. Democracy's core value is upholding the right of every member of a sovereign state to voice out their individual will. Once individual wills are concatenated, the general will of the collective, even amidst an intermixture of conflicting ideas, emerges beyond the friction. This philosophy aims to not only allow people to banner their individual interests but also to seek out what the collective thought truly is. Instituting mandatory voting induces a broader voter representation that boldly strengthens this democratic philosophy. It allows every qualifying citizens to cast a ballot, making the results deserving of stature. Outside metaphysics, a larger turnout would find the legitimacy of the elected politicians far from being underminable because of stronger political participation. II. MV dismantles bad tactics. Possessing the broadest range of voter representation cancels political strategies to target special interests groups. When politicians see that they could rake votes in this particular group more than the other, fiercer campaign efforts are showered towards that particular group. This, in turn, would make minority groups hopeless to have their needs finally catered, their woes symphatetically resolved. A strong example of this is how Israel pulls liberals and democrats to its favor. "One person who has spoken candidly about this is Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. Addressing an audience in Boston, he said: "But you know as well as I do that, somehow, the Israeli government is placed on a pedestal [in the US], and to criticize it is to be immediately dubbed anti-Semitic ... People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful -- very powerful."[1] "Two well-known Jewish writers, Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab, point"ed out in their book, Jews and the New American Scene: "During the last three decades Jews [in the United States] have made up 50 percent of the top two hundred intellectu"als... 20 percent of professors at the leading universities ... 40 percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington ... 59 percent of the directors, writ"ers, and producers of the 50 top-grossing motion pictures from 1965 to 1982, and 58 percent of directors, writers, and producers in two or more primetime television series."[1] This article tells how compelling Jewish lobby groups and political elites are in getting their concerns catered and desires favored due to their numerical superiority, in which are sourced from being the most influential and powerful people collectively. This is why mandatory voting's impact is needed. The impact of this policy is to seismically level the playing field when it comes to magnetizing votes. Since, the policy renders any sly and unfair tactics undeployable, saving the marginalized groups of political inequalities. III. Voting is a civic duty. Voting is more than just a right. It is a civic duty that should be exercised every election. It is a duty for the people to erect a new government with which a reciprocated benefit takes place, citizens vote, elected officials serve. This beneficial mutuality is analogous to taxes. We pay taxes to experience the privileges the government provides. Once we fail to, are we still deserving of its services? I think not. And, that would certainly speak the same for voting the future ruling government. Moreover, MV as a duty is also a tool that when utilized, strengthens yet again, the democracy of the nation. Abiding a civic responsibility constitutes firm discipline, undebased reverence, and trust, that our government will reciprocate what we put forth for its legitimacy and power. IV. MV increases voter's political knowledge. Political engagement encourages political knowledge. The curiosity and call to rationalization moves the voter to explore the depths of political knowledge. There may be less knowledgeable and savvy voters, but people will be forced to think rationally the minute they fill up the ballot. And, most of the time, adults get to hear anecodotes and personal experiences regarding the candidate's attitude and track history. So, to deny the onset of disseminating news, and divulged political views, is to deny the intrinsic societal stimuli during a period of election. In the majority of cases, political knowledge doesn't pose a grave threat to the end results. But, implementing MV would pose a threat to social biases ever-present in countries that follow a voluntary voting system. According to the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) project, in which data came from 133 election studies, held in 47 countries between 1996 and 2013 states: "Finally, previous research shows political knowledge, like other forms of knowledge, accrues with age. Here, the interaction of compulsory voting and age has no discernable effect, even with the large number of respondents. If anything, it has an almost invisibly small positive effect on political knowledge. This may reflect the accrual of knowledge over the lifecycle, as citizens in compulsory systems will have voted on average more times than those in voluntary systems and we expect participation in elections has some informative effects. "In conclusion, compulsory voting " particularly where it is enforced with sanctions or fines " does appear to result in more evenly distributed political knowledge than voluntary systems."[2] The key findings here was that voters' political knowledge increases gradually over the course of time. So, it may be true that when it is implemented now, the voters will be forced to know facts, but it will be truer then, when the people would finally learn to look at the political spectrum with enthusiasm and maybe out of practice, and have accrued knowledge of what political context genuinely entails. In conclusion, let me summarize my points. First, the democratic philosophy of the general will as an essential value that perpetually strengthens the newly elected government's legitimacy is unassailable through mandatory voting. Second, through this policy, social bias and marginalization will be dismantled while cultivating political equality. Third, a civic duty such as voting is imperative to abide and helps strengthen our democracy. Lastly, political engagement through voting increases political knowledge ceaselessly and is proven prospective in the long run. With that, I temporarily end my speech. [1]www.ihr.org/leaflets/jewishlobby.shtml [2]blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/compulsory-voting-results-in-more-evenly-distributed-political-knowledge/