Compulsory Voting In The United States

In many countries, the government believes that voting is the citizen's constitutional right. Even though that goes for most countries, there is a small portion with a government that believed voting is the citizen's duty and responsibility. These countries go by the compulsory voting system. The compulsory system makes it so citizens don't have a choice on whether they want to vote or stay away and let others decide. Having a compulsory voting law in the U.S would be unconstitutional and would damage the electoral process. .Advocates of compulsory voting argue that decisions made by democratically elected governments are more legitimate when higher proportions of the population participate.

The leading argument against compulsory voting is that It is not consistent with the freedom associated with democracy. Voting is not an intrinsic obligation and the enforcement of the law would be an infringement of the citizens' freedom …show more content…
Countries with limited budgets may not place the enforcement of mandatory voting laws as a high priority still they hope that the presence of the law will encourage the citizens to participate.

Can a country be considered to practice compulsory voting if the mandatory voting laws are ignored and irrelevant to the voting habits of the electorate? Is a country practicing compulsory voting if there are no penalties for not voting? What if there are penalties for failing to vote but they are never or are scarcely enforced? Or if the penalty is negligible?

Many countries offer loopholes, intentionally and otherwise, which allow non-voters to go unpunished. For example, in many countries it is required to vote only if you are a registered voter, but it is not compulsory to register. People might then have incentives not to register. In many cases, like Australia, an acceptable excuse for absence on Election Day will avoid