Mandatory Voting

Many thanks to missbailey8 for her superb opening statements. Without further ado, here are my rebuttals. I. Uninformed Public As I argued in the previous round, making voting mandatory could actually lead to an increase of public knowledge and awareness of political issues. Con also begs the question. What exactly is an uninformed voter and how much knowledge should one need to know before casting a ballot? What amount of knowledge, and on what issues, does one have to have before becoming "informed"? Exclusionary elitism has no place in democracy. Con cites a quiz given by Just Facts. The problem with their organization is that they are often heavily bias. For example, on abortion, they write:"False arguments aside, the vast weight of scientific evidence indicates that preborn humans can feel pain by 20 weeks or earlier. While this does not rise to the level of 100% certainty, it rests upon factually solid ground." (1) Unfortunately, the fetal pain is a lie and is totally bunk science as Lee et al. write (2): "Evidence regarding the capacity for fetal pain is limited but indicates that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester. Little or no evidence addresses the effectiveness of direct fetal anesthetic or analgesic techniques. Similarly, limited or no data exist on the safety of such techniques for pregnant women in the context of abortion. Anesthetic techniques currently used during fetal surgery are not directly applicable to abortion procedures." They also admit that their viewpoint is more towards the conservative side (3). Finally, it is arguable that we are all misinformed about some issues. Grigory Graborenko writes (4): "The truth is, even with the best intentions, any individual has a vast number of blind spots. How can a leader tell the difference between a policy that is unpopular because the people are too stupid to understand why it’s necessary, and a policy that is genuinely awful? We are told that our politicians are wise, experienced, and clever, and that making “hard choices” is the sign of true leadership." So once again, we are left begging the question. What/who is an uninformed voter and how much knowledge does one need until they are properly "informed"? II. Freedom of Speech Con argues that requiring people to vote violates the First Amendment and the Freedom of Speech. Conceding for a moment that this is true, we could simply amend the U.S. Constitution to permit and require voting. Next, the debate is not necessarily about mandatory voting in the U.S., but rather democratic societies in general. But the more serious issue is that it is not so clear whether or not it does violate the U.S. Constitution. A note in Harvard Law Review notes (5): "[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. The Supreme Court observed this in Singer v. United States, in which it upheld a federal rule that requires government consent in order for a criminal defendant to waive his right to a jury trial. The Court declared that “[t]he ability to waive a constitutional right does not ordinarily carry with it the right to insist upon the opposite of that right," and cited several examples of this principle in the context of a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights: the right to a public trial, the right to be tried in the state and district where the crime was committed, and the right to confront the government’s witnesses." "The reason that a right does not imply its inverse is that there are competing interests at stake. An individual right may serve both a public and a private interest, and creating an absolute individual right of waiver would leave unprotected the public interest that the right serves. The right to trial by jury is a protection of the individual from the power of the state, but it also serves an important collective function by promoting the accuracy and legitimacy of criminal trials there is no inverse right to a bench trial because this would focus only on the individual interest and would ignore the collective interest. Similarly, the collective interest in having open trials prevents a defendant from turning his right to a public trial into the inverse right to a private trial." III. Universal Declaration of Human Rights This is perhaps con's most far-fetched contention. As I argued above, the rights do not necessarily mean that there is a negative right associated with it. I would contend that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights absolutely supports mandatory voting. Article 22 states (6): (1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. The third one is the one that is most relevant. As I argued in round 1, democracy requires the consent of the people. The way to ensure that you have the consent of the people, is to ensure that all eligible members of the population vote. Finally, this contention is absolutely ridiculous because there are more than 20 countries that make voting mandatory (7). Should mandatory voting actually violate human rights, the UN would almost certainly have spoken out against it by now. We simply do not see this happening. Conclusion Compulsory voting is much needed for Democratic societies. By making it mandatory, we are affirming that we have the consent of the governed. Over to con! SOURCES 1. http://www.justfactsdaily.com...;2. http://jama.jamanetwork.com...;3. http://www.justfacts.com...;4. http://tinyurl.com...;5. http://harvardlawreview.org...;6. http://www.un.org...;7. http://www.pbs.org...;