In the society that is today, we have all kinds of different forms of government in different areas. Around the world, government is implemented in countries to help and govern the people of the country. However, in order to assist the country, governments have to depend on some forms of voting from its citizens to understand and learn about the preferences and ideas of the citizens.
In specifics, America uses representative democracy to gather information, as they view voting as a civic responsibility and a fundamental principle of democracy to select leaders who will have the same ideas as they do. However, as more and more knowledge and ideologies are formed, more people think that there are issues and problems to the already set system of voting for government related positions, policies, and productions.
Some people believe that representative democracy is needed to gather the ideas of the people to select leaders who will be guided by the people to decide what is best for the country, while others believe that mandatory voting will provide more data on what is needed, therefore making the country stronger. Even Today, many people still agree with what is the traditional representative democracy, and believe that there should be no changes to mandatory voting for citizens.
While it may seem that the process of electing an official to take care of our country seems too risky and seems outdated, which is from the era of the founding fathers being concerned about the literacy and the knowledge of the people, who in fact, didn’t have many sources and materials to learn and study from was then created for the less intelligent and the lesser taught groups of people, who were usually persuaded by rich, influential, powerful men, to do, act, or vote in a certain way because of bribes or favors. However, people still believe that his system is easier to live off on, due to the fact that it does not require you to go to a specific place to get your votes in every time there is a new proposition, law, or idea that is required for a person to vote on. However, citizens with the representative democracy can leave it up for the leaders that they vote for to make the right decisions. Coming from the same idea, people believe that in a representative democracy, outcomes are considered more legitimate when there is a higher percentage of the elected electorates vote, which comes from the rough times of getting bribed or threatened to vote in a certain way.
They believe that that the government can provide a better service and better represents its people when the most of the electorate participate. Therefore, they can only believe that the electorates that they have selected will be the best fit for them and their needs, and allow voters to vote in peace. Even with the idea that mandatory voting is a way to make more people happier due to their role in voting for laws, regulations, and ideas rather than the administration of the government, it can get very tricky to get people to vote.
Those who believe that there should be a representative democracy believe that mandates can be difficult to claim with lower voter turnout, so it will have more problems than having elected officials take care of our needs. Even the studies prove that there is no evidence that an increase in participation will lead to a better outcome of governance. Therefore, it is pointless to have more data when there will be no improvements in government.
Not only will there be more data to store and count, theories are made that when representative participation occurs, elections will be heavily influenced of those who are uninformed, disinterested, and uneducated voters, which may make the extra voting pointless. It is better to have concise data rather than data that has too many factors and problems to it, according to more educated voters. In the midsts of arguing about whether representative voting or mandatory voting is a better fit for the country, principles of freedom get involved.
Many who side for the representative voting say that oftentimes, due to freedom of speech and liberty, forced participation may lead to protest votes, which lead to blank ballots being turned in due to the oppression of their rights. Then, they argue that the blank ballots will have to be another large percentage of errors in disfavor of the administrators, which can cause hazardous problems like tying, suing for recount, and other problems that need taxpayer’s hard earned money to go through the process over again, which gets expensive over time.
In other cases, others who side for the same side as the officials governing for the people may see it as another duty that they have to take on, such as jury duty registering for the draft, and taxpaying, which are rarely called a threat against democracy. They may argue that while it may be uncomfortable to do so, it is a liberty to govern and represent themselves and others, so it is in their core beliefs to electing representatives and vote on public issues.
Some people may argue for mandatory voting, reasoning that there would be higher voting due to the required voting, and that it is important that each person should have their own voice in speaking out for their beliefs and playing in a role unlike representative democracy, where we choose leaders to vote and choose in behalf of our beliefs. However, there is no recorded evidence that there would be a greater outcome due to higher voting. Not only that, the issue about each person having their own voice in the required voting isn’t something we Americans view makes liberty what it is.
Our founding fathers and the framers of the constitution were not meaning to make the constitution about the right to do whatever one wants to do. They were meaning and hoping for the ability to have liberty to govern and represent ourselves. Therefore, liberty is electing representatives and voting on ideas and issues of the people. In all, the subject of whether or not mandatory voting or representative democracy was the right way to go about a very important issue of voting.
Voting is indeed a very critical and essential need for everyone. Not only does it affect one’s livelihoods, it affects the mood, the aurora felt by other countries, and the liberty and freedom of one’s existence. Representative government, by far, has been the most useful and longest working method of voting and deciding about affairs. Not only that, it gives the people liberty, freedom, and fairness–the essential emotions and traits that describe who we are as Americans.
This provides the strength of who we are as a nation and more. If it were to switch to mandatory voting, it would cause an eruption of problems, starting from switching all formats to mandatory voting on every single issue that the government releases, which would cause tax dollars to be spent on that area, not on other areas that need more help and more funds. Not only that, there is no evidence that proves having more data of more votes will help the government out in helping the people or even a better governance.
Also, it is very unpredictable where we will stand, as there may be lower voter turnouts. Finally, it is unreasonable to change the way that we are voting, due to it being nothing wrong with the individual liberty. Overall, the state of our nation with representative governing is the best and libertarian way of allowing people to do as they wish in their daily lives, while helping to vote for the best leader to lead and guide the country.
