With the 2016 presidential election upon us several people have discussed requiring citizens eighteen and over to vote to increase voter turn out. While this may be true I've always appreciated quality over quantity.
George Carlin once stated, “Think of how stupid the average person is and remember that half of them are even stupider than that”. Requiring the average person to vote will not increase their intelligence or improve the quality of politicians elected. Having worked on campaigns, I am familiar with the level of apathy the average adult has towards politics. I can’t recall the number of times I’ve heard adults talk about their disinterest in anything to do with politics. Personally these are not the people I want voting for the leaders of my country. Forcing citizens eighteen and above to vote will do nothing but increase the number of uninformed voters and in turn should not be put into effect.
Voting should be a well thought out decision, requiring time and research. A voter should be well informed on who and what they are voting for and why. I understand that not every person has the time or desire to be well informed on each candidate or proposal on the ballot. That being said if an individual does not want to put the in the effort necessary to be a well informed voter I do not think they should be required to vote. Making voting a requirement is not going to force citizens to do their research and is will only increase the number of low information voters.
As previously mentioned I worked on a local political campaign. I went door to door trying to persuade citizens to vote for my candidate. This turned out to be ineffective due to the amount of indifference and lack of information most people had about the election. Going door to door I heard many people say, “I don’t really care who wins, if I vote, I vote for who my parents vote for.” Several others told me they weren’t even aware of the upcoming election. Statements like this make it clear that some people take no interest in politics and have no desire to vote. While working on the election I also found out that one of the best strategies for getting large amounts of votes is to convince pastors and church leaders to tell their congregation who to vote for. This is another example of low information voting and just a preview of what would happen if voting becomes a requirement. Forcing citizens to vote will not increase the quality of this nation's politicians just the quantity of votes.
Another reason against making voting a requirement is because it would allow politicians to buy elections. This is because low information voters will not do their own research, instead relying on commercials, leaflets and billboards to inform them. All of these sources are undeniably biased and funded by the campaign. Allowing private interest groups to fund and essentially own the candidate making politics even more about the money than it already is. Increasing the amount of low information voters in an elections allows for more corruption in the government.
An argument commonly made in favor of the voting requirement is that it would force politicians to appeal to a larger group of people not just the ones who bother voting. This is false because the amount of propaganda that will saturate the media before elections will outweigh any need for politicians to appeal to more people because the people being added to the voting pool will not be doing their own research.
Voting is an important responsibility that not all citizens want to take on. Making voting required by law will only allow more corruption to seep into the government. The quality of voters is much more important than the quantity and this should be taken into account. Due to the lack of interest, the power of propaganda on low information voters and the responsibility attached to voting it should not be required for all citizens to vote.
