Pondering the lousy turnout even in Connecticut’s hot Democratic Senate primary, Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, suggests a radical remedy in a New York Times commentary: mandatory voting. In Australia, he notes, those who don’t vote and don’t offer a reason must pay a $15 fine, which escalates with multiple offenses. The result, he notes, is "a turnout rate of more than 95 percent. The fine, of course, is an incentive to vote. But the system has also instilled the idea that voting is a societal obligation. It has also elevated the political dialogue."
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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