ANyone have any realistic ideas on how to increase voter turnout

[DAVOUT]

Forget the voters; they are not really interested in voting, and they are so difficult to count!

And make a random draw with the candidates names.

[MrBaggins]

1) Remove the exits on the voting stations, so you can enter but not leave, and set up a positive pressure ventilation system.
2) When the end of the regular voting period has drawn near, employ a nerve agent with a limited active duration, over residential neighborhoods.
3) Keep the voters til its safe to leave, and then send them home with some antidote just in case
4) Employ some extra santitation workers to clean up the bodies... some of those probably won't have voted.

[Nubclear]

Pardon me if anyone else has suggested this:

Next election, anyone that hasn't voted gets their children killed. If they have no children, then they die.

Within three election cycles, everyone WILL be voting.

[Kyle]

and the minor parties can't win diddly

....

There's good reason for that.



Either give people the day off for election day (making it a holiday) or move the day to the weekend. The first one would be easier, no pesky constitution to change.

[Q Classic]

for every vote they cast, promise an orgasm.

[Imran Siddiqui]

for every vote they cast, promise an orgasm.

Hookers in the booth? Or election tables in the strip clubs?

[Dinner]

Hmm, a blow job for every ballot? This might encourage voter fraud as youngsters try to vote more then once.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Make it mandatory. It works for Australia.

Yes it's mandatory
But it's plagued by making uninformed (or drastically underinformed) people vote.
So it doesn't work so there. :P

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
So what? Don't they have a right to decide who their leader is? Or do you believe only that smart people have the right to a democracy?

I believe that decisions should be entrusted only to those who desire to make them.

Why can't we have a two-levelled democracy? People could vote for how much they think other people's votes are worth.
Or would that just -increase- the value of thoughtless idiot votes?

[Q Classic]

Hookers in the booth? Or election tables in the strip clubs?

well, i figure you'll have to deliver on some of them, otherwise they won't come again...

as for the actual mechanics of it... i'll leave that for other, bigger heads to figure out.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
Do you want people who are too lazy to research voting records and actual positions voting? We have too many lazy voters who just vote party line or vote based on attack ads already. I'll never forget one election, when I lived in Ohio, where they have elected judges.

Since the race was non-partisan, nobody ran any info on the judges. In desperation, on election day I went to both party headquarters - Democrat and Republican. Neither had any concrete data on their candidates record as judges or even lawyers. They looked at me like I was an alien - all I wanted was facts!

I think the lottery mentioned earlier is the only one that would work. Make it a check-off on your tax return, and voting enters you in it. Make the pay-off at least 100 million, and you will lets lots of people who are too lazy to vote knowledgably out in droves. What an improvement.

And then they say America is an all-democracy nation

Hold election day on sunday. Most people can make it that day.
Also the fact that there are basically just 2 parties (democrats and republicans) that you will vote for, doesn't really give me the impression of a solid democracy... If I lived in America I would have to choose between 2 evils, of course one of them more evil than the other

[rah]

Republicans don't care since they always pray for a lower turnout.

But really, if you're too lazy to vote, I don't think your opinion deserves to be counted. The same could be said for those that have to be given extra motivation to vote. Having a say in things should be motivation enough.

[Stefu]

Yeah. It should be made harder to vote. Reinstate the literacy requirement and the poll tax, require all the votes to be cast between 02:00 and 03:00, have one voting location for every 5 million citizens and have those locations staffed by ninjas who attempt to cut up everybody who tries to cast his vote. That, by God, would truly separate the wheat from the chaff and the committed voters from the non-committed ones.

Back in the good old days candidates saw to it that liquid refreshments were available to voters at the polling places. It was such a great idea. I have no idea why it was discontinued.

Were those refreshments served before or after the voting?

[Kuciwalker]

If we passed a law require people to vote, people would just elect someone on the platform that he would repeal that law

[Imran Siddiqui]

have those locations staffed by ninjas who attempt to cut up everybody who tries to cast his vote.

Ninjas .

Were those refreshments served before or after the voting?

Both, dammit