Rush was right.
Check the 4th paragraph in the article below. Democrats who don't vote are just as stupid as the one's that do.
BTW...anyone see a glaring contradiction here?
According to Barry forcing one to go to the polls to vote creates no hardship... … but asking for a free photo ID to vote is an insurmountable obstacle!
On a related issue.
(The proof is in the pudding)
Thank God his sister Ethel didn't register.
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During an event in Cleveland, Ohio, this week, President Obama declared: "Other countries have mandatory voting."
"It would be transformative if everybody voted -- that would counteract [campaign] money more than anything," he averred. "The people who tend not to vote are young, they're lower income, they're skewed more heavily towards immigrant groups and minority groups," Obama continued. "There's a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls."
Fair enough, but there are also ulterior motives for those who want compulsory voting.
The people who tend not to vote also tend to skew liberal and apathetic (and are presumably less informed). There's an incentive for Democrats to compel every American (or perhaps, citizenship shouldn't be a requirement?) to vote. That's because voluntary voting poses a problem for them, especially during midterm elections (The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that only about 2 in 3 eligible voters actually voted in 2014).
Left unstated, though, is this point: Campaigns might still matter, but it is the rules that generally predetermine the outcome of elections.
Perhaps sensing a firestorm, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest clarified the president's remarks, noting that Obama was "not making a specific policy prescription." This is the kind of clarification we've come to expect from the White House -- one that actually confuses things. Granted, the president was merely responding to a question about the influence of money in politics, not rolling out a policy proposal. But his words clearly betray a strong preference toward compelling Americans to vote, whether they like it, or not.
The conservative argument is that voting is a privilege. Eligible citizens should be encouraged to vote out of civic responsibility, but there should be some effort involved in casting a ballot. This minimal effort weeds out people who don't care all that much.
The problem for Democrats is that Obama's comments play into their authoritarian stereotype. Whether it's health care or voting, they want to mandate everything from cradle to grave. There's also an irony. President Obama suggests it is the poor and young who don't vote, and yet enforcing such a policy would require punitive measures, most likely fines.
The problem for Republicans is that opposing mandatory voting opens the door for more Democratic demagoguery about voter disenfranchisement -- hearkening back to the bad old days of Jim Crow literacy tests. (In recent years, Republicans have been accused of racism merely for having the audacity to suggest that voters should present identification in order to prove they are who they say they are.)
As is almost always the case, the conservatives are fighting a defensive war. In recent years, America has increasingly gotten more liberal about its voting, and I'm not just talking about expanding the franchise to include the right to vote at 18. In recent years, more and more states are adopting policies such as same day voter registration, vote-by-mail, and early voting.
For working moms and dads who might struggle to make it out to the polls on a Tuesday in November, expanded opportunities for voting sounds like a Godsend. But some researchers suggest early voting might actually depress turnout. What is more, these innovations create new challenges in terms of ballot integrity -- and can sometimes results in ballots being cast before all the information is revealed. (What happens if you vote early and then some bombshell information about your candidate drops the next day? It's too late to change your vote, once it has been cast.)
America has, over the years, evolved a pretty effective and fair system of elections It's not perfect; we still have the occasional hanging chad -- but it has served us pretty well. That's not to say tweaks can't be made. Maybe we should restore voting rights to non-violent ex-felons? Maybe election day should be on a Saturday? But it is to say we shouldn't use the extreme elitism of the past to justify heavy-handed solution for the future.
While I don't want to live in a nation where only land-holding white males get to vote, I also don't want to live in a nation where my vote is effectively canceled out by someone who has neither the inclination nor the information to cast an informed ballot. Either extreme results in someone being disenfranchised.
Congratulations are in order to President Obama for inventing yet another way to divide Americans. A week ago, who would have guessed this would even be a relevant topic?
