Why do Liberals perpetually want to make you do things that may not be in your interest to do?
Today, former OMB director Peter Orszag made the case for mandatory voting laws - everyone must vote. His motivations are unclear; he doesn't really say why we would be better off if that were the case. I think it's just part of the psychological make-up of Liberals. When they have a preference, they believe all people must share that preference and be forced to enjoy it.
His argument is extremely weak. First he notes than mandatory voting increases voting. Frankly, this is so obvious, I wonder why he even frames it as though it's unexpected. Then he gets to the real arguments.
He suggests that compulsory voting will change the role of money in elections. Money spent on turn-out-the-vote efforts would likely fall. No argument with that. But would the amount of money spent on elections in general fall? That's not clear, and he doesn't argue either way. I think it's likely that this money would just be moved to other categories.
He implies that there will be less negative advertising because the point of it is to discourage voting. Maybe, but this is just speculation. Maybe they'd need more negative advertising to push people from voting for their preferred candidate or encourage them to vote for a third-party. Who knows? If Orszag does, he gives very little information about how the money situation would change.
His next argument is that it would decrease polarization, which Liberals especially detest. Why? Because the people in the middle are less polarized. What exactly is the argument here? The political parties will have to moderate to attract voters? But which causes which? Do they not vote because they're moderate or are they moderate because they don't care about politics. It's not impossible that by forcing them to vote, they'll inform themselves and decide one party suits them better than another. Uh-oh, now they're polarized. Maybe the parties will double-down on polarization because they think it's more effective than moderation. Again, Orszag offers no evidence (other than for the fact that only the most polarized vote).
He then says that most evidence shows that compulsory voting has no effect on electoral outcome, but one study finds it did make a difference. Is this an outlier? How was their method different? Was it better than the historical studies? Orszag doesn't say.
In the last paragraph, Orszag summarizes the arguments for compulsory voting. 1) "It would make our democracy work better, in the sense of being more reflective of the population at large." and 2) "It could allow the first president in history to be elected by a majority of American adults."
1) Is there any evidence that the voting percentages would be different if everyone voted? Even the study he cited said only a handful of seats switched because of the law. So instead of Obama winning 52.9% of the vote, maybe he'd win 53.4%. That's not a big difference. He doesn't argue that it would change outcomes, only that we'd get a better view of what adults want in general instead of voting adults. Is this argument really the strongest one he could make?
2) Why should this be a goal? Who cares about this?
In summary, after reading this opinion, I'm bewildered. He has presented an extremely weak case for this issue, so weak, that it seems there must be something else motivating him that he doesn't discuss. Peter Orszag, I've been told, is a pretty bright guy, and generally his opinions are much better thought out than this. Maybe this piece is an outcome of a lost bet.
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