The topic of voting was interesting to me because I never thought of it as something to question morally. It is so relevant with this election coming up. Without support for either candidate that is running for presidency this fall, my solution was that I was not going to vote for either. After discussing in class, I have a different viewpoint.
I think that compulsory voting is moral because if everyone voted it gets us closer to a truer democracy by definition. If the U.S. is going to say they are a democracy, then there should be a moral obligation to have the policies define that and decisions define that. Like See mentions, it is part of our social contract of being part of a country that is a democracy. It is almost like lying if we don’t. It is something that should be just as important as the laws that we have.
One objection is that it would cause a lot of uninformed people to head to the polls for the first time. Since this is a government action they should provide support to help inform voters as well. They would have to put money towards the polls and having non-bias information available. Since people have to vote, they would have more motivation to take part in learning what is happening and making their decision. They could also push for it in curriculum in schools as well where there is a required class to take at the end of high school that explains voting and how to learn non-bias information and research candidates. Compulsory voting is a huge opportunity for everyone.
From this, I will probably go and vote, but the next question I have, is it better to vote for the less of two evils or write in a vote which would pretty much be throwing my vote away anyway? That seems like a whole different moral argument and much more complicated than the one here.
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