Headline Roundup • March 8th, 2020
Perspectives: Should Voting be Mandatory?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Featured Coverage of this Story
Reason
American democracy—or, at least, the California simulation of it—requires that even disinterested and actively hostile non-voters mark a ballot so government officials can gin up participation numbers, says Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael). Levine has introduced a bill that would make voting compulsory, with civil penalties for the non-compliant. It's a proposal that seems guaranteed to make disaffected non-voters become even less impressed with a sketchy political process.
If passed, the measure would "require a person who qualifies and is registered to vote to cast a ballot, marked or unmarked...
The Boston Globe
In the name of “strengthening our democracy,” State Representative Dylan Fernandes has introduced a bill to force Bay State citizens to vote in November general elections — whether they want to or not. In California, Assemblyman Marc Levine goes even further: Declaring that “democracy is not a spectator sport,” he has submitted legislation to strong-arm Californians into taking part in every election, including local and primary contests.
Their goal is to make democracy better, but their results would make it worse.
Presumably, Fernandes and Dylan would not describe their respective...
New York Times (Opinion)
Around the world, citizens appear to be re-engaging with democracy. In May, voter turnout at the European parliamentary elections reached a 20-year high, and in 2018 turnout for the United States midterm elections was the highest in a hundred years.
Yet in each instance, voter turnout reached just a feeble 50 percent. In the context of recent history, that was a surge. In the 2014 United States midterms, only 37 percent of the electorate voted, rising to 50 percent in 2018. In Europe, this year’s turnout was 50 percent —...
