Why Americans Should Not Be Required To Vote

In the 2016 election of the United States, only about 55.4% percent of Americans voted, the lowest turnout in twenty years. Voting is in fact one of the biggest parts of democracy, sadly though, many people do not. In effort to increase voter turnouts countries have started making voting mandatory while others have not. Should America enforce a compulsory, or mandatory, voting system? There are three reasons why Americans should not be required to vote: most countries don’t require citizens to vote, countries with compulsory voting systems have higher satisfaction rates, and uninformed voters can be dangerous.
First of all, one reason why Americans should not be required to vote is most countries don’t require citizens to vote. Evidence to support this reason is statistics from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance state that about 40 countries use compulsory and about 160 countries do not. This evidence helps explain why Americans shouldn’t be required to vote because only one in every five democratic countries use a compulsory voting system, therefore, making compulsory voting in the minority.
Next, a second reason why Americans should not be required to vote is countries with non-compulsory voting has higher voter satisfaction rates.
Evidence of this is information included in Filip Palda’s “Vote. Or Else!” Fraser Forum states country with the lowest voter participation, such as the US and Switzerland has some of the highest satisfaction rates. this evidence helps explain why Americans should not be required to vote because in compulsory voting systems people do not care about what they put on their ballot, just that they don’t get punished for not voting at all. Therefore, fewer people are happy with the election's
outcome.
Finally, a third reason why Americans should not be required to vote is uninformed voters can be dangerous. Evidence of this is in New York Times “Must You Vote?” Randy Cohen states “ it is irresponsible to encourage the unaware to put the ignorance into action aimlessly.” He also mentions that the expression “Just vote” does not express your civic virtue. Cohen also stated that “ you might as well as the unpracticed to use power tools or Rollerblade. Simultaneously. at least they injure only themselves.” This evidence helps explain why Americans should not be required to vote because an ignorant voter could ruin everyone’s future not just their own.
In conclusion, it is possible to understand why some people might think that Americans should be required to vote. They could protest that it is not too unreasonable to be asked to do such a minimal deed for your country. However, provided with these reasons: most countries don’t require citizens to vote, countries with compulsory voting systems have higher satisfaction rates, and uninformed voters can be dangerous, the argument for the non-compulsory voting side is stronger.