Kelly Wooters / October 31, 2011 at 8:10 PM DT

I agree that people SHOULD vote, but REQUIRING them to vote would mostly likely cause millions of random, uninformed votes.

Luis Soberon / November 3, 2011 at 3:00 AM DT

Requiring voting has a few complications. I'll name two that come to mind

First is the practicality concern. There needs to be an enforcement mechanism in place and it's hard to see one that does not seem really intrusive. The least intrusive measure would be incentivizing, like saying that voting exempts you from a "non-voter" tax every other April.

The second worry is the rights argument. There is something to be said about not voting. Maybe a perfectly informed person does not want to vote and use that as a symbolic gesture. What would this kind of law make of that kind of right?

David Sauter / November 6, 2011 at 11:18 AM ST

There's also the problem that requiring people to vote injects a lot of noise into the system and gives even more power to the media companies. You can't require people to think.