Mandatory Voting

I. Uniformed PublicFirstly, my opponent said that he presented evidence to prove that voting would increase public knowledge and awareness. However, I believe that I properly refuted that argument, as he didn't respond to my rebuttals. .Then, my opponent questions the accuracy of my source to prove how uniformed voters are. However, here's a paragraph taken directly from the article I found my information in. "The poll was conducted by Conquest Communications Group, a professional polling firm located in Virginia. The responses were obtained through live telephone surveys of 700 likely voters across the continental United States on Dec. 15–20, 2015. Likely voters are those who say they vote 'every time there is an opportunity' or 'in most elections.'" [1]Lastly, my opponent says that every voter will have blind spots when voting. I will concede a bit to this. Yes, every voter will have blind spots, but let me reference even more data to share how uniformed voters are."Despite years of public controversy over the budget,surveys consistently show that most of the public have very little understanding of how the federal government spends its money. They greatly underestimate the percentage of federal funds allocated to massive entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security—which are among the largest federal expenditures—and vastly overestimate the proportion that goes to foreign aid (only about 1 percent of the total). Voters are also often ignorant about the basic structure of government. The Annenberg survey found that only 36% of Americans can name the three branches of the federal government: the executive, legislative and judicial." [2]This is a huge problem. If most voters don't know about issues like Medicare, Social Security, or even the basics of our government, then why bring even less informed people in instead of focusing on bringing accurate information to the masses?II. Freedom of Choice and SpeechIf we skip ahead a little bit in his rebuttals, my opponent quotes Harvard Law Review notes. With my defense, I'll pick parts of it to really dissect."[C]ompulsory voting is a legitimate infringement upon individual liberty for the purpose of ensuring that political outcomes reflect the preferences of the electorate...the very idea that a right, by definition, can be waived is false. Numerous rights cannot be waived; and, although many others can, this still does not imply the general existence of inverse rights." [3]It isn't that the right is being waived necessarily, they just simply aren't being exercised. Let's say that we have a man. We'll call him Jim. Jim is unregistered to voter and is simply not interested. Let's say a few years later that Jim wants to register to vote. Just because he didn't vote previously doesn't mean that his right was taken away. He still has the right, he just didn't acknowledge it.III. Universal Declaration of Human RightsI will concede to this rebuttal.ConclusionI still stand by the fact that mandatory voting would be harmful to Democratic societies. To end this debate, I'd like to thank ThinkBig for his participation. Thank you for a fun debate. I wish you luck. So long and goodnight! Citations[1]http://www.theblaze.com...[2]http://www.forbes.com...[3]http://harvardlawreview.org...