Obama seeks ‘transformative’ mandatory voting, backs off after backlash
President Obama ired critics when he proposed the notion of mandatory voting, calling the idea “potentially transformative” while speaking to a civic group in Cleveland on Wednesday.
“If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country,” Obama said, calling it “potentially transformative” adding that universal voting would “counteract money more than anything.”
Many surveys claim that Americans who skip the polls on Election Day are younger, lower-income and more likely to be immigrants or minorities, Obama said. “There’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls,” he said.
Less than 37 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2014 midterms, according to the United States Election Project. And a Pew Research Center study found that those avoiding the polls in 2014 tended to be younger, poorer, less educated and more racially diverse.
Americans who skip the polls on Election Day are younger, lower-income and more likely to be immigrants or minorities, Obama said. “There’s a reason why some folks try to keep them away from the polls,” he said in a veiled reference to voter identification laws in a number of states.
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