President Obama is taking some heat for suggesting this week that mandatory voting might not be such a bad idea.
Speaking in Cleveland Wednesday, Obama pointed to foreign countries that have such a requirement as a potential solution to offset the increasing influence of money in politics.
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“In Australia and some other countries, there’s mandatory voting. It would be transformative if everybody voted,” he said. “That would counteract money more than anything. If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country. Because the people who tend not to vote are young, they’re lower-income, they’re skewed more heavily to minority groups and immigrant groups. And they’re often the folks who are scratching and climbing to get into the middle class, and they’re working hard. There’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls. We should want to get them into the polls. So that may end up being a better strategy in the short-term.”
The remark didn’t draw any applause from the audience. It certainly didn’t from some in the punditocracy, either.
“This is, forgive me, a totalitarian impulse — that he would march people into the voting booth,” Judge Andrew Napolitano, a prominent libertarian, said Thursday.
“Here’s the point [Obama] refuses to point out or that he misses: Not voting is also a legitimate choice that some people make,” Sen. Marco Rubio weighed in. “I wish more people would participate in politics, too, but that is their choice. That is the choice of living in a free society.”
And the questioning was wide and deep.
‘It’s idiotic’: Drew Carey not a supporter of Obama’s mandatory voting idea http://t.co/9NUSxmthYb
— TwitchyTeam (@TwitchyTeam) March 19, 2015
“The full list of nations with compulsory voting includes such paragons of civic virtue as Egypt, Congo, and Lebanon” http://t.co/TZkCAotUdk
— Graeme Wood (@gcaw) March 19, 2015
#Obama wants mandatory voting cause his policies have made people so lazy & indifferent unless he can spook them they’re not going to polls
— Charles V Payne (@cvpayne) March 20, 2015
Obama’s half-baked idea: http://t.co/WzuBqMkcAJ
— Ron Fournier (@ron_fournier) March 20, 2015
.@kennedynation responds to Pres. Obama’s comments on mandatory voting. Thoughts? Weigh in using #FoxBusiness pic.twitter.com/pUk2eqDK4p
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) March 20, 2015
Well, this is a terrible idea: @BarackObama wants to make voting mandatory: http://t.co/QSDQvlIGjp | #tlot #yal
— YALiberty (@YALiberty) March 19, 2015
The White House tried to clarify the president’s remarks Thursday, saying it wasn’t a “specific policy prescription.”
What was concrete was the president’s long-term solution: “I think it would be fun to have a constitutional amendment process about how our financial system works.”
