What Are The Pros And Cons Of Mandatory Voting

The United States of the America was built on the idea that the public would be involved within the government. By voting for officials, being on jury duty, paying taxes, or just by caring about the countries’ environment a citizen can be quite active within the country. It has been nearly 250 years since the country was founded on these principles and it appears that many of today’s citizens have taken their freedoms and responsibilities for granted. Involvement within the government has not been prioritized by the citizens. This has become apparent by the low voter turnouts. Some have noticed the lack of participation in the polls and various ideas have been considered to change this pattern. One idea is to enforce compulsory voting on the citizens. …show more content…
However, not everyone feels the same way.
Mandatory voting has a history dating back to the nineteenth century. In 1892 a policy was made in Belgium to penalize those who did not to vote in public elections by administrating a fine. This method is still currently used in Belgium. Furthermore, a Belgium citizen can lose the right to vote for ten years if one chooses not to vote in four elections. Mandatory voting is all Belgium citizens know, they have not experienced voting in any other way. Thus mandatory voting has been successful and effective. Australia is also a current participant of compulsory voting. Australia, like Belgium, fines those who fail to vote. In addition, if a fine is left unpaid it could lead to imprisonment. This has been in practice since 1924 and has had positive effectives. Bolivia and Greece have adopted slightly