Vargas 1 Daniel Vargas Prof.

Scarborough English 1301-64 12-11-2012

Should Voting for the President in the United States be Mandatory? Voting for the president of the United States of America should not be mandatory because there are many Americans whom when made to go out and vote will do so without any prior knowledge to the positions presidents have on certain topics. When these Americans go out and vote they will jeopardize the elections done by voters who have based their selections on knowledge. Many people do not recognize the importance of voting when it comes to choosing our president. We have the potential to choose our new leader for four more years to come. By making the vote of the people mandatory the election will be compromised by people who really dont care about voting but in an instance were forced to because of knowledge of penalties of disobeying. So making the vote mandatory would not be a good solution whatsoever. Voting is a right so like anything else that we are free to choose such as our religion and speech we are free to vote so, obligating people to vote would not solve anything. By obligating the people to vote; Americans will no longer be free to choose whether they want to participate in certain events or if they choose not to participate in certain events.

Vargas 2 Daniel Vargas Prof. Scarborough English 1301-64 12-11-2012

When women and African Americans were accepted to vote they were not obligated to vote but they were given the right to do so. These novice voters were permitted the right to vote if they so wished but they were not obligated because they had the RIGHT to vote. So voting is not something that should be mandatory because doing so would be wrong in the United States of America according to our government. We as humans can discern between what is good and what is bad so we can also discern in what we would like to do whether we would like to vote or not vote. Most of our minds are clear of any medical conditions which can prevent us from making a decision so we are able to make the decision we like certain numbers in studies find that election participation are actually dropping. Such is that in the last election which was in 2012 that 6.8% drop in numbers of how many people elected. Yes it is sad to see the less people care about the election but we must also face the hard truth and decide that people who want to vote will vote and they will hopefully do their research if the stance of each of their choices before going up and voting. Encouraging people to vote is great because then we will get people that want to vote out there doing research on which candidate they prefer. But if voting were mandatory then many people would out there want to vote without knowledge in the brains about the candidates.

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In conclusion, know that getting more people to vote can easily be done by making voting for the president an obligation but in doing this the voting will most likely not be knowledge based but will instead be based on race, ethnicity, religion or speech. And many of the Americans minds will be closed to thinking that a certain person is better because of these traits without knowing the plans that each candidate brings to the table. But by keeping voting optional we will get clearer results on who is chosen as our president and know that on the election days people that were out there voting were people who cared and they knew with great knowledge after research on who they wanted to elect as president of the United States of America.

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Work Cited

Balint, Robert , Arwa Gunja, and Paul Smith. " Should Voting Be Mandatory? - The Takeaway." Home - The Takeaway. N.p., 26 July 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. <http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jul/26/should-voting-be-mandatory/>.

David, Michael . "Voting rights in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_

Lee, Stan. "Compulsory voting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting

Liu, Eric. "Why Voting Should Be Mandatory in the United States | TIME.com." Ideas | Essential Insights. Great Debates. Informed Opinions. | TIME.com. N.p., 21 Aug. 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. <http://ideas.time.com/2012/08/21/should-voting-bemandatory/>.

Ornstein, Norman. "The U.S. Should Require All Citizens to Vote - Norman Ornstein - The Atlantic." The Atlantic News and analysis on politics, business, culture, technology, national, international, and life TheAtlantic.com. N.p., 17 July 2012. Web. 11 Dec.

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2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/the-us-should-require-allcitizens-to-vote/259902/>. Phildes, Richard. "Give Voters Choices and Competition - Room for Debate NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., 7 Nov. 2011. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/07/should-voting-in-the-us-bemandatory-14/give-voters-choices-and-competition>. Silver, Nate. "Turnout Steady in Swing States and Down in Others, But Many Votes Remain Uncounted - NYTimes.com." Election Forecasts - FiveThirtyEight Blog NYTimes.com. N.p., 12 Nov. 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2012. <http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/turnout-steady-in-swing-statesand-down-in-others-but-many-votes-remain-uncounted/>.

Vargas 6 Daniel Vargas Prof. Scarborough English 1301-64 12-11-2012