{"id":14037,"date":"2016-04-11T20:03:48","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T20:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14037"},"modified":"2016-04-11T20:04:15","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T20:04:15","slug":"no-mandatory-vote-rule-needed-mr-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=14037","title":{"rendered":"No mandatory vote law needed, Mr. President"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Barack Obama is frustrated at the political division and the apparent apathy among voters in the United States.<\/p>\n

I share the president’s frustration.<\/p>\n

However, I don’t share his enthusiasm for a suggested remedy.<\/p>\n

Make voting mandatory, he said in a speech at the University of Chicago law school.<\/p>\n

The Australians <\/a>\u00a0do it right, he said, by requiring citizens to vote. He said such a requirement would be “transformative” by boosting turnouts to the 70 to 80 percent range.<\/p>\n

There are ways to encourage turnout without making citizens do it, Mr. President.<\/p>\n

We could declare Election Day a national holiday. Give everyone a day off from work to vote. That’s an idea.<\/p>\n

As for mandatory voting, the U.S. Constitution grants us the right to vote. It doesn’t specify it as a condition of citizenship. Our rights as citizens depend on whether we choose to take full advantage of them.<\/p>\n

I am proud to\u00a0vote. I almost always wait to do so on Election Day, whether it’s in the primary or in the general election. There’s just something ham-handed and, dare I say, dictatorial<\/em> in declaring that Americans must vote.<\/p>\n

I also lament the pitiful voter turnouts. Only 53.6 percent of Americans voted for president in 2012. The Australian turnout was greater than 90 percent in its most recent general election. Yes, that is vastly better than our own electoral performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really are the only advanced democracy on Earth that systematically and purposely makes it really hard for people to vote,\u201d Obama told the law students.<\/p>\n

That might be true. There are many options out there to make it easier for Americans to vote. Writing that requirement into law isn’t one of them.<\/p>\n

We must remain free to vote — or not vote<\/em> — as we see fit.<\/p>\n

For better or worse, that’s the American way.<\/p>\n\n

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Barack Obama is frustrated at the political division and the apparent apathy among voters in the United States. I share the president’s frustration. However, I don’t share his enthusiasm for a suggested remedy. Make voting mandatory, he said in a speech at the University of Chicago law school. The Australians \u00a0do it right, he said, … Continue reading No mandatory vote law needed, Mr. President<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[540,2877,3716,5043],"class_list":["post-14037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-mandatory-voting","tag-presidential-elections","tag-us-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14037"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14042,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14037\/revisions\/14042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}