Voting is the act of expressing your opinion through several different polls, allowing you to represent your own beliefs on different issues. According to the 2016 and 2018 ballot in 2016, 60% of registered voters voted while in 2018, only 53% of registered voters voted. These results continue to decrease, alarming people. Several people believe that voting should become mandatory because of this, but that isn’t the right call.
Voting should not become mandatory due to several reasons that could negatively affect America’s poll results and give the government more power.
There are multiple detrimental effects that making voting mandatory can cause. First, by making voting mandatory, this is forcing many inexperienced, uneducated voters to vote. Many people do not vote because they don’t know enough about the candidates. By making everyone vote, we are forcing people to vote randomly instead of what they actually believe. Every election has high stakes, so anything that goes wrong in polls can lead to wars, damaging laws and terrible economic policies. Also, by making voting mandatory, we are just giving the government more power over us. Everybody over 18 has a right to vote, but we also have the right to freedom. By making everybody vote, the government is taking away more of our freedom by forcing us to do something that not everyone necessarily wants to do. According to Scholastic Civics 2022, “For instance, we have the right to write novels or do science experiments, but it would be a violation of our individual freedom if the government forced us to do those things.” By forcing everyone to vote, that is a violation to our freedom, and the government shouldn’t be allowed to force us to do anything.
Although some might argue that by making voting mandatory, the United States will get more people to participate in polls. This is true, but also, there are many inexperienced voters. These results may come out unexpected and cause a lot of harm to the United States. People shouldn’t be forced to gain knowledge on politics when that might not be their interest, or something that they care much about. Trying to make these people vote will turn out just having them put a random name down, instead of someone they might politically align with.
In order to stop this from happening, instead of forcing people to vote, you should help others get into the idea of voting. Help educate your friends and family or just people around you. By getting people more aware about what is happening in politics, maybe they will want to vote in the next election. There is a way to get more experienced people to vote without forcing everybody to do so. By communicating with others and talking to them about voting, you can help get the amount of people voting in the next election much higher than previous years.
Voting is a freedom that any adult has and it shouldn’t be forced on anybody. Voting is meant for the people’s say in topics, and by forcing everybody to vote, there is less say for citizens. Instead of having the freedom to vote, it becomes no longer a freedom. People should be able to choose if they feel they have enough knowledge on a topic to vote on it. Everybody should work towards more democratic approaches to get more people to vote, instead of taking a step backwards in democracy.
