Mandatory Voting: Let's Do It

President Obama has tried to make many things mandatory like health insurance, but he has finally come upon a proposal that warrants adopting — mandatory voting. It is truly an idea whose time has come. And I suggest you get behind this idea or you will find yourself on the wrong side of history.

We live in the greatest democracy in the world. We are the cornerstone of the movement to people having freedom on this planet. If we do not set an example by having our citizens turn out for elections then we will cede our heritage to other countries. After all, North Korea has elections where 100% of their citizens vote. Why can't the United States match that? A measly 57.5% of Americans voted in our last presidential election. Are we really going to let Kim Jong Un dung us?

We also have to modernize our election process. It just does not attract Americans anymore. Our voting procedures have not changed in 100 years ago. The only difference is at some polls they have machines, but those machines are primitive. If we want to attract the younger generation we should update those pathetically boring machines with video games machines.

Here is how it would work. When entering the ballot on your new HD screen you arrive at the office you are voting for — let's say U.S. Senator — a likeness of the two candidates would pop up. Then you would just blast away the one you don't want. When that happens the candidate you support will say "Thanks Dude" and your vote would be recorded. Then the next office would pop up on the screen and you would blast away again. Wouldn't that be cool to do to judges or better yet school board members? We would just have to get rid of those pesky initiatives because no one wants to read anyway and those things get so confusing like essay tests in school.

We also need to change the locations where we go to vote. Those polling places are so passé. We should move the voting to Starbucks. After all isn't there one in every neighborhood now? That would be perfect and convenient. People need to go there to get their morning wake-up caffeine shot anyway so they could kill two birds with one scone while listening to cool jazz. And now since the baristas are totally versed on social issues like race and the environment they would be more able to handle the entire process unlike the current volunteers. Really, who wants to go vote in the back of a real estate office with a bunch of gray-haired people sitting around? No wonder no one votes — that is as dullsville as you can get. They don't even offer pastries in those places like a Starbucks does.

Some people have asked how we can enforce this mandatory voting. That is easy and also productive for our society. There are hundreds of thousands of young adults graduating from college who cannot find full-time employment. We can put them to work with a new program. The can enter the Vote Americans Must Police (VAMP). Since they don't go into the armed services anymore this would be great for them to experience of fulfilling a duty for their country. We can get them nice uniforms; a blue pair of pants, a white shirt and a Red Blazer. They would have a snappy cap with a VAMP logo on it so they would look official. We could even give them cool badges. These Vampers would go door-to-door on Election Day rousting ne'er do wells not complying with our mandatory voting laws.

This would be wonderful in so many ways. First, it would get the Vampers out of their childhood bedrooms doing something constructive. They would be earning money to pay back their massive student loans and they could write tickets for laggards who had not gotten to the polls that would generate more revenue for the government to help to pay down the budget deficit and our $18 trillion national debt. It could be called a Shared Responsibility Infraction. This is a winner in all regards.

Our President has finally brought out a great idea. He did state the Aussie's do have mandatory voting so this has already been tried and worked well. In their last election 79.67% of voting age people voted. And they don't do what they used to do to non-voters which is shoot them. That is because they took away everyone's guns. What a great country that is -- mandatory voting and no guns. Let's be like them, Mate.

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Bruce Bialosky is the founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition of California and a former Presidential appointee.