Ele Ludemann: Voting too easy

Voting in New Zealand is easy – maybe too easy.

If you’re 18, a citizen who lives here, or has been in the country in the last three years, or a permanent resident and have lived here continuously for 12 months or more.

If you meet that criteria you can enrol to vote even if you’re on remand, home detention, serving a community-based sentence, or serving a sentence of imprisonment of less than 3 years in a New Zealand prison.

Gary Galles: Why Mandatory Voting Would Make Democracy Worse, Not Better

To enforce voting mandate an even more invasive government than Americans are faced with today.

The Washington state legislature currently has a mandatory voting proposal (S.B. 5209) under consideration, which would require registered voters to return ballots in each election. However, proponents try to soften the coerciveness of the proposal (which makes it very questionable in light of the First and Fourteenth Amendments) by saying it would allow citizens to opt out by filing a form with election officials or by not registering to vote. But in that case, they could not vote even if they decided they wanted to, which means it would not be long before the first voter suppression claims arise. People could also return a blank ballot to vote (which would “meet their civic duty,” according to the lead sponsor, Sen. Sam Hunt (D-Olympia), suggesting a very warped idea of civic duty). Further, there are no penalties for non-compliance, though one must wonder if the word “yet” should be appended to that claim.