President Obama made health insurance mandatory — is voting next?
When asked how to reduce the influence of money in politics, Obama suggested mandatory voting as a possible solution.
“Other countries have mandatory voting,” he said Wednesday in Cleveland, where he spoke about the middle class and took questions during a town hall. “It would be transformative if everybody voted — that would counteract money more than anything,” he said.
Obama added that it was the first time he was publicly voicing his opinion that the country should be working to make it easier, not harder, to vote.
“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 towards immigrant groups and minority groups; and they’re often the folks who are — they’re scratching and climbing to get into the middle class. And they’re working hard, and there’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls,” he said. “We should want to get them into the polls.”
The turnout of eligible voters in the 2014 midterm elections was less than 37 percent, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. That means nearly 2 in 3 eligible voters, or 144 million Americans, decided not to vote — the lowest turnout in an federal general election since 1942.
At least 26 countries have compulsory voting, according to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Punishments for failure to vote range include providing an explanation, a fine, possible imprisonment or disenfranchisement.
