in a democracy voting ought to be compulsory

Hello, Storm. I accept your challenge and look forward to a great debate. I will begin by offering my own arguments first and then move on to addressing your contentions later in my post. Compulsory voting should not be law in a democracy, especially certain democracies like the United States. First, compulsory laws violate the spirit of a democracy, which cherishes freedom of expression. To act is to speak, and in the United States, we cherish freedom of speech because we believe that progress happens through multiple perspectives working vigorously for a common good. A prohibition on criticism inhibits our political goals. Compulsory voting would be problematic, especially in the United States, because a non-act (not voting), would also be protected under freedom of expression. Some religious practices too, which are protected in the United States, include non-voting, so ostensibly, compulsory voting laws inhibit freedom of religious expression as well. Second, enforcement would be financially catastrophic. There are only a few countries in the world that have "enforceable" (Australia, Argentina, Brazil, etc.) voting laws, and few of these actually live up to the enforceability their laws claim. These countries, however, have much smaller population than the United States and still see voter turnouts well below 100%. In a country of over 300 million people, with far more rural living space than many other democracies, keeping track of who votes requires a whole new federal department, not to mention that individual states" frequent state and municipal elections would require smaller departments below the newly created federal one. This means thousands of new employees on the government bankroll at least, not to mention billions in funding when the United States" national debt has already surpassed $ 16 trillion. Third, compulsory voting laws at best add no advantage to democracies and at worse, create bad policies. To prove that compulsory voting laws have actually strengthened the democracies in which they are current applied, you need to show a cause and effect relationship, specifically demonstrating that the voters who would not have voted normally without the laws have in fact positively changed policies. I will admit that this is a high burden to meet. At the very same time, you must also realize that the reason why many people don"t vote is because they simply are not interested. In the United States where capitalism and lax campaign finance laws have negatively impacted elections, you can bet that compulsory voting will result in bad policies, as people who remain mostly apathetic to politics are very easily influenced through the media, by the loudest, most virulent voices. We are already seeing this today as Tea Party extremists have been pushed by financiers and pundits to implement terrible ideas, like the government shutdown. Compulsory laws do nothing to change dedication to or interest in politics. The last thing we need are millions of impressionable, disinterested people herded to the polls to decide an election. Now, regarding your offense, First, your Contention 1- Self-Responsibility A. Stefan Bauschard is a debate coach from Harvard, not a political scientist or sociologist, so I do not think he really qualified to be making predictions about how people would react to compulsory voting laws. Unless you post his reasoning, I cannot identify the fallacies. B. I"m not really sure about the value of the "accurate poll" argument. Besides, research a little into the sub-science of polling, and you will realize that there are many mechanisms dedicated to accurate predictions and identifying the likely voters from unlikely voters. On realclearpolitics, for example, the polls can be identified by LV (likely voters), RV (registered voters), and A (anyone). LV, of course, produces the most accurate prediction while A is the least accurate. Second, your Contention 2- Reduces the burden on citizens A. You overestimate the burden and you don"t solve this problem: 1. No-excuse early voting is possible for most states. And, absentee voting is possible in all states if you are surely unable to make it to the polling station on Election Day. 2. Your plan doesn"t provide any kind of additional infrastructure to solve this problem. Simply making it illegal not to vote will not help those who have trouble voting already because of geographical location or disability; in this case, you are putting a greater burden on citizens because of the legal penalties. B. I don"t call being forced to vote having more "opportunities," as it sounds like you are taking opportunities away. For clarification, see my offense above.