[Clip] Why compulsory voting is unlikely to be adopted in the United States

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One Change in the World
[Clip] Why compulsory voting is unlikely to be adopted in the United States
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“You said I’m not so naive to think that in the U.S. such laws could pass. And why do you think so? Is it about politics, because people don’t have an advantage to have everyone allowed to vote? I think it’s more than just politics. I think Americans have a real sense of individuality and freedom from government dictates. You know, when Barack Obama was president and he passed, helped pass the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare for health care coverage, there’s a lot of resistance to people just getting health care coverage, even though the government was going to provide it. There’s this whole notion of the talking line was the government can’t make me eat broccoli, you know, can’t make me be healthier. So there’s just a streak of individuality. I do think the way to go about it in America would be to see if we could get a city to pass it in a state that would allow a city to enact its own voting rules. If a city were to pass it for its elections, we would have at least some good data about how it works, what the problems are, and hopefully a success story. That’s exactly what happened with ranked choice voting in America. Now, it started in San Francisco in 2002, spread to some other cities, Portland, Oregon, Portland, Maine, some places in Minnesota, St. Paul in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and now it’s being used statewide in the state of Maine, in Alaska, and Nevada voters will vote this November as to whether to adopt it.

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