George Will: Higher voter turnout is bad because Hitler

[aviv_b]

by Laura Clawson

George Will is very concerned that the Obama administration is talking about trying to make it easier to register to vote and vote, which Will sees as a slippery slope toward mandatory voting, which would be bad because "As indifferent or reluctant voters are nagged to the polls-or someday prodded there by a monetary penalty for

Comments

[mollywobbles867]

Mandatory voting seems to work for Australia.

[liliaeth]

Belgium has mandatory voting as well, and the only negative effect it has is the amount of votes for protest parties. (many of which in Belgium are unfortunately for right wing parties)

[merinnan]

Indeed. I quite like our mandatory voting system, because it cuts out the sort of voter suppression I constantly see in the US at election time.

And to be more precise, what's mandatory here is turning up to a polling booth and having your name marked off. You do not have to submit a valid vote if you don't want to.

[chaya]

Iiiiiiiinteresting. I didn't know that part. (Is that Australia or Belgium?)

[merinnan]

Australia. I know several people who, if they don't want to vote for any of the candidates, will just submit an invalid vote by doing something like just ticking a box (or, in one case, they filled out the boxes with F U C K T H I S).