A Modest Proposal: Allow different tax rates for taxpayers who could vote, but don't. Perhaps if the pain was more personal, then few people would regularly vote straight-ticket for the Apathetic Party?

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WalterBright 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Penalizing people who don't vote will not result in carefully considered votes. Voting rights include the choice to not vote.

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bell-cot 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Beyond "what superficially sounds best for me", I don't see much evidence of "carefully considered" voting now. :(

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kevin_thibedeau 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Mandatory voting would be nice to have, but it is a form of compelled speech.

	▲	defrost 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Wrong. In Australia, mandatory voting is compelled real or virtual attendance. You are required to cast or mail in an anonymous response, that response can be blank, a vote for someone not listed, a regular vote, a donkey vote, paper with many pictures of various genitalia, etc. No speech is compelled, no pen to paper is compelled, just that registered voters are ticked off the rolls and those registered that don't respond provide at least a weak excuse (my grandmother was sick that day) or face a nominal fine (eventually). Think of it a citizens part to play in a democracy, the commitment to at least pay attention to the government hired by and paid for by citizens.

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XorNot 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's just mandatory voting.

The fine for not voting in Australia is about $30.

This is...nothing in the grand scheme of things.

But it's enough.

And you don't even have to vote: you have to turn up, that's it.

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FireBeyond 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah, I've lived in Australia and the US. The fine isn't big, the attempts at suppressing voter turnout or inconvenience aren't there, and the privacy of the ballot box means that even if you turn up, and put a ballot in the box, no-one's stopping you writing "You all suck" and not casting any preferences.

	▲	Forgeties79 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		But at that point you are choosing to explicitly express your non-support of the candidates. That is still more meaningful than simply not showing up IMO

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Teever 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Here’s a better proposal: add none of the above to every ballot. If a super majority (say 80%) pick that the election is an automatic do-over and the people on the ballot can’t run for a period of say five years.

A couple cycles of this will flush the crap out of the system.

	▲	telesilla 8 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		"No Confidence" vote option exists in some countries.
	▲	r14c 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Ranked choice voting allows for instant run off elections. Should have a similar effect without requiring a full redo of the election.

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bell-cot 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

9 hours, 5 serious HN users replying...and nobody noting that "A Modest Proposal" might flag satire.*

Or that my "proposed" solution, in many ways, describes the current status quo. Tricks like California's Prop. 13 have created enormous gaps between the taxes paid by the old and the young. Warren Buffet has criticized how much lower his own (income) tax rates are than his secretary's rates.

Some days I feel really, really old.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

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throwaway173738 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

We could pay people to vote. Many states have unemployment insurance and that system could be repurposed to give people a wage for election day without making it political.

	▲	10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[deleted]

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egypturnash 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This would mostly end up punishing people who live in places where voting is deliberately made difficult due to having to skip an entire workday (and its pay, if you're paid hourly instead of salaried) to go to some out-of-the-way location to vote.

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NegativeK 11 hours ago | parent [-]

A not thoroughly thought out response:

Those people would heavily incentivized to protect their ability to vote.

	▲	hilariously 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		People in America die from preventable illnesses constantly because they cannot afford access to care but I guess they forgot to protect the ability to not die or whatever.
	▲	solid_fuel 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		No, they're already being suppressed. They'll take the easiest action possible to ease the pain, which means voting for whoever does away with the fines.