should all lections be won by a majority and should voting be mandatory?

Question

Eligible voters 100 million. voted 40 million.
what is up with our country? Not only is voting a priviledge, it is a duty!
maybe the vote should be attached to the tax form and make it mandatory. NO VOTE, NO RETURN!
and what about when we have a candidate who receives less than 50% vote and wins? Not right, because the people , as a majority, said they did not want this person!
How about don't get 50%, you are out! another candidate runs. or a second election between the two largest vote getters and then someone MUST get over 50%
Electoral college? OUT WITH IT!
My vote WAS my vote!!!
100% balanced budget means to me that we only spend what comes in, so get it this year, spend it next, after you already know what you have to work with!
Allow people to assign a certain percentage of their taxes to what they want to support!
How about a nation-wide vote that permanently freezes federal lawmakers wages, or better yet, since it is public service, make the positions voluntary NO PAY!!!

YOU, sir assume that I made a mistake as to the type of government we live under. I did no such thing!
second the right to vote is given in the constitution, not the Bible!
God is very totalitarian! his way or HELL!
that is beside the point even though it is a right, that right is a priviledge and a duty!

As for me being a liberal?? I think not! I hate just about everything ever to come out a liberal person's head!

Dear Moose,
I have read the entire constitution. It was designed to creat a democratic republic. The electoral college is not needed to fulfill this end.
When I vote, my ballot states that I am voting for a candidate. the Idea of one man one vote is what should rule.
the republic is that we have representatives. not everything is up for a vote of the general population.
How unreasonably gridlocked if all we had time for was to go and vote every day about everything!
So the idea of representative makes sense!
the electoral college does no such thing. twice (if not more) the electoral college has defeated the will of the people!

astly, the Constitution has within it, the mechanismto change the constitution. they could not have seen the changes that have been made in the last 230 yrs.
technology had not come very far since the time of Christ compared to the last 100 yrs. they could not see nor had reason to guess where we would be today!

As for the idea of having paid 'servants' in D.C., when was the last time anyone who was NOT singularly wealthy won and NEEDED this pay?

Answer 1

i agree that it is a duty and the worst offenders of all are the ones who would make the biggest difference young women (under 30)

Answer 2

I agree that more people should vote, and that most people don't just because they're too apathetic. But voting should not be mandatory. Oftentimes, not voting can be as much of a political statement as voting can. If voting was mandatory, what would I do if I didn't believe any of the candidates deserved to be elected? That strips away the meaning of the vote, and is only one step away from the the single-party "elections" in socialist and dictatorial regimes where everyone is forced to vote, and only one candidate is on the ballot.

It's a nice idea that someone should have to get 50% of the vote to get elected, but think about what would happen. If only 40 million out of 100 million even voted, the most the winner could get would be 40%. With no winner, who would take office? If we had an election, with someone who got more votes than anyone else, and yet no one took office, how long do you think the government would stay in power? Why would anybody vote if it doesn't do any good anyway?

We have the electoral college because it makes things a LOT easier. Remember all the mess in Florida in 2000? Hanging chads and messed up recounts? The electoral college meant that Florida could swing the balance either way that year, but with no electoral college, the votes in ANY state, in ANY county would be fair game, and the Florida fiasco would have played out a hundred times over all over the country.

A 100% balanced budget is a great idea and one we definitely need to move towards. But there are times of emergency when we have to be allowed to go a little bit into debt. I think this has been greatly abused, but we still must have that ability for emergencies. When 9/11 happened and when Katrina hit, the budgets for that year were already decided. Without the ability to allocate emergency debt, nothing would have happened in response to either of those tragedies. If you think the federal government didn't do much for Katrina, they wouldn't have been able to do anything at all!

Now the allocation of a percentage of your taxes to particular areas is not a bad idea... it would be a much more direct form of democracy than what we have now, but again there would have to be allowances. Oftentimes things come up where it's quicker and more efficient for Congress to approve spending than for Congress to go to each and every taxpayer and try to convince them all that they should check this or that box on their return in April. Nothing would get done if the entire budget was allocated like that.

Answer 3

Dude,
You are mistaken. The United States is not a democracy. You clearly fail to understand the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic. Do you believe that our country was founded to be a country of majority rule? Can you imagine what our country would be like today if the majority did rule? Aren't you glad the majority doesn't rule? Do you believe that the Revolutionary War was supported by a majority of the Colonists?
Before you decide to rant please answer the following: How many times can the word "democracy" be found in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution?
Do you believe people living in a free country ought to be compelled to vote?
You also seem to completely fail to understand the difference between a rule of law and the rule of man (We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...)
Two other things. First, legislators are paid to allow the position to be held by any common working person who can get elected. Second, your vote was your vote. You just didn't realize that you were voting for a representative vote in the Electoral College.
The United States has one of the shortest Constitutions in the world. It's not hard to read. Try it.

Answer 4

You wrote: "Not only is voting a priviledge, it is a duty!" The truth is, it's neither. It's a RIGHT. Rights come from God. Priviledges come from Man.

You're making the mistake of thinking we're a true democracy. We're not. We're a Representative Republic.

Want to know why we don't allow majority rule to decide national issues?

What would happen if all white people decided to elect someone who supported returning to slavery? Whites make up over half of the population. According to your plan, blacks would be in trouble.

The Electoral College protects the country from being dominated by huge population centers like Manhattan and Los Angeles.

Try educating yourself on this issue before trying to discuss it intelligently.

Answer 5

All elections are won by a majority of those who actually voted, with the exception of the electoral college, which generally does a reasonable job of reflecting popular will, OR a handful of elections are won by as plurality, the highest number LESS THAN a clear majority. I agree it is not merely a right, but a duty! One counter argument is that, if hardly anyone shows up, MY vote has more clout!

Answer 6

We live in a free country where voting is a choice & should never be made made mandatory.
As for attaching it to your TAX FORM, are u out to lunch on this as l should not have my taxes not returned because I chose not to vote. That is a ludicerious idea. All we need is for the GOVT. to have more control of our lives.
AS 4 alowing people to assign a certain % of their hard TAXES to whomever or whatever they want to support, is also a lame idea. Just what we need the GOVT. to get more of our hard-earned money.
AS for freezing federal lawmakers wages, or making the position voluntary, we'd be in for a very lawless country.
Get a grip, people have the right to vote or not vote. It's simply their choice in a free DEMONCARY.

Answer 7

I don't quite understand how making more people vote would help the country. If they don't care about voting, how responsible will they be with their votes when they are forced? Voter turnout may be a symptom of apathy, complacency, ignorance, feeble-mindedness, and other things, but none of those will be cured by forcing votes. It will just increase the amount of apathetic, complacent, ignorant, feeble-minded voters. It's hard to get excited about that.

Answer 8

I think the voting system needs reform and policing to avoid the Florida mess over again. I don't think we can force people to vote but we can encourage them to vote by trying to keep it a clean fair practice that it did not appear to be in the last 2 elections.

Answer 9

You sound like a liberal.....GOD BLESS YOU!!! I agree 100%
and I've been voting since 1972

Answer 10

MAJORITY RULES