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Comment by colmmacc | Hacker News Reader

This is true of all remote voting. The all-postal ballots in Washington and Oregon are certainly subject to this, and there is a certain rate of voter coercion that goes undetected, particularly within households.

For the proponents of all-postal voting, this trade-off is worth it for the sake of the increased participation rates. Democratic legitimacy can be very nuanced and delicate. A well-publicized example of voter coercion could destroy trust in the existing system, but then the well-publicized problems of lines and poor voting hours eroded trust in the previous system too.

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> For the proponents of all-postal voting, this trade-off is worth it for the sake of the increased participation rates.

It occurs to me that there's a fairly obvious way to get the benefits of both: require voting in person, but make voting mandatory.

Australia has this and it gets turnout rates in the 90%+ range. In 2015, Obama threw out that maybe it was time for mandatory voting in the US: https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/19/politics/obama-mandatory-voti...

But the idea has never gotten very far. In general, the idea of a collectivist state that is underpinned by citizen responsibilities has been subsumed by the idea of the state as service supplier, and the citizen consumer.

I'm only for mandatory voting if there is a 'none of the above' option and if the majority votes for that then the election is a do-over and the candidates on that ballot are forbidden from running in the next election and possibly more.

> I'm only for mandatory voting if there is a 'none of the above' option

You could write in a name, or hand in an empty ballot. Mind, nothing will come of this even if it's the majority pick, but you're never actually forced to choose a candidate.

Yea, mandatory voting is more of an assurance that everyone is given an opportunity to vote without encumbrance than that they actually express an opinion. I haven't seen a mandatory voting system that requires you to vote for a candidate out of a chosen list, that seems very dangerous.

If voting is mandatory than any impediments to being able to vote (like not giving employees time off) is quite limited by the fact that such impediments are illegal, in the US voter suppression sort of skates by on BS and lots of talking heads explaining how unmotivated millennials are.

I suspect an even bigger problem is that there are powerful players who seem to have have an interest in the opposite - that is, reducing the number of potential voters who actually vote. I can't imagine them letting mandatory voting go without a real fight.

There is a whole alt-right idea of "Demographic shifting" as a tactic being used to suppress their opinion. Unfortunately Americans are really stupid and conspiracy theories have gotten a deep hold on society.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15003606

> require voting in person, but make voting mandatory.

This is only feasible if employers are legally required to allow employees time off to vote. In many countries, election days are holidays, but attempts to follow suit in the US haven't gone anywhere.

You could also move voting to Saturday.

That would require a constitutional amendment.

Nope! You could easily require states to offer a full week of voting as a minimum, this would also cut down on the tactic of making long lines at voting stations to reduce turn out.

> Nope! You could easily require states to offer a full week of voting as a minimum, this would also cut down on the tactic of making long lines at voting stations to reduce turn out.

How can you do that without an amendment? As I understand it, states are free to choose the methods for elections (which is why there is such variety in the US).

From the whitehouse.gov site:

> Federal elections are administered by state and local governments, although the specifics of how elections are conducted differ between the states. The Constitution and laws of the United States grant the states wide latitude in how they administer elections.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/elections-v...

In Vermont there is a state holiday for "town hall day" it's statutory so everyone either is out of work or getting paid holiday overtime and it's meant to encourage people to participate in their local town's politics - it is awesome and everywhere in America should have it.

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