Compulsory Voting In The United States

Abstaining from voting is a form of voting while it does nothing to maintain the true interests of the people lack of an answer is still an answer in the minds of citizens. According to Elect Project in the 2014 election there was a 36.7% of voter turnout this is a low amount compared to nations with compulsory voting (2016). In our two-party system the votes typically come from citizens who support either Republican or Democrat leaving third party candidates to suffer. “A rational voter will cast a vote only if the benefits therefrom exceed the corresponding costs, which is not often the case” (Tucak and Sabo, p.179, 2015). Cost can be observed as financial in the sense of time off work, time in that many voter have to spend time in line to vote and many other cost have been explored by scholars (Singh, 2015).
Figure 1 US Voter Turnout Data from 1968 to 2014 in the US by IDEA The United States graph creates a case study of a control group in which there are no experimental variables applied across the entire nation. As shown the control group displays low turnout for …show more content…
Figure 3 displays that voter turnout rose the election after gambling returned but over time the turnout has steadily decrease arguing against the thesis that if countries are allowed to place bets on election then their voter turnout will be raised. It only fails to show an increase by comparison to the other methods which retain much high turnout but, this records more turnout over the control group. Above 60 voter turnout is still a modest amount. This shows that the hypotheses were partially upheld. The fact that the turnout decreased over time invalidates the hypothesis. The rational choice theory would dictate that the cost of voting supersedes the benefits even if the government allows gambling to be conducted, enabling some citizens to make back the cost they