We all know that in a democratic republic it takes voting during election to bring in new leaders, and citizens are expected to come out to vote for their desired candidates into offices to lead them through the next few years. However, the truth is that not all citizens have the idea of voting, and that's why you'll see some nations won't even have up to 20% of their citizens vote during an election, and the choice of the few who voted is what everyone has to make do with when the results are out. But is that ideal? Isn't all citizens supposed to vote? And since most usually choose not to vote, should a law be put in place to make voting mandatory for all, and when someone refuses, such would be trailed by law and treated like criminals? Find out my take on this below.
To be honest, it's worth knowing that there are two ways we can look at this voting situation, and it'll still feel right. To start with, talking about making voting compulsory, I did research on Google and realised nations like Belgium make voting mandatory, and these lead to them having massive engagement of their citizens during elections. And some of the reason why this feels right is because it leads to high turnout of the citizens; it also helps citizens of such a nation to be well informed about issues going on in their country. Results of such an election will also most likely reflect the choices of the entire population, and just from a few citizens, like in nations where voting isn't mandatory.
On the other hand, when we talk about why voting shouldn't be made mandatory, in that regard we can start by recognising that voting on it a how is considered a right, which simply means citizens have the right to vote or not to vote, and in that light it'll be breaching individual rights when you force them to do what they don't want to do, when we make voting mandatory, some set of people might decide to cast random vote or make their vote void, just so they can avoid facing penalties and in that situation, you'll just have many voters but fee valid votes, we must also understand that making voting mandatory is somewhat controversial and government intrusion into citizens personal freedom.
So what should we do? Should we make voting mandatory or let people choose to do what they want and leave the nation leadership position to be decided at the mercy of a paid group of people or citizens who put their tribal alliance above who the actual have the nation's best interests at heart? I think the way forward is to look for a middle ground that's more of a balanced approach that encourages citizens to participate in public issues, of which voting is among them; doing this will help citizens understand the need to vote.
One of the few ways to go about this is Incorporating it into our education subject like civil education, which teachers students and citizens all there's to know about voting, from registration, to getting their voters card, visiting the polling station and how to vote, also by creating awareness to help people stay aware and bring about inclusiveness, these I believe are a better approach than trying to force people to participate in elections.
All photos are generated using ChatGpt.
