A federal judge on Friday narrowed a section of Georgia election law that banned the practice of handing out food and water to voters waiting in line to cast ballots, as well as halted enforcement of a requirement that voters put their birth dates on the outer envelope of their ballots.
If you’re legally required to vote but voting is made into a very painful experience, who are you going to vote for? The guy that made it very difficult?
If the voting experience is sufficiently onerous, people will still not vote and pay the penalty (or go to jail). Then it’ll be just another tax/burdon on people in disadvantaged areas.
Looks like Western Australia charges $50 for repeated failure to vote. $50 Australian ($31 USD) to not take off work to stand in line for 3 hours getting sunburnt? That’s less than minimum wage in my state. It would make financial sense to just go to work and pay the penalty, ignoring the less tangible potential long-term benefit of effecting change in favor of paying rent.
Except voting day in Australia is on a weekend, not during the week. And there are also pre polling centres, where if you plan to be away on vacation or working on voting day, you can go along to a pre poll centre and vote weeks in advance. Australia also has mail in and even telephone voting for those unable to visit these centres.
Some would, for sure. But some would stick it out. And even in many areas thought of as deeply red, the margin required to flip the result is not that much. If you have a previous voter turnout of 2/3, and just 1/4 of the previous non-voters end up voting because it’s mandatory, that’s an 8 point swing. That would have been enough to swing 4 more states in 2020, as well as Maine’s 2nd district. Or if it were the Democrats responsible for attempted voter suppression, those same stats would see 7 states plus Nevada’s 2nd flip to Republican. That’s looking at the presidential race because the stats were easiest to find and compare, but it’s likely even more pertinent in congressional races. Enough of the races would be close enough to basically guarantee the side supporting people’s democratic rights will win a majority of seats.