Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Voting Incentive: get a tax credit for voting

By

Australia gives its citizens a fine for failing to vote on election day.  In my experience as a teacher, I find that carrots work way better than sticks in trying to change a student’s behavior.  Therefore I propose a law whereby a voter leaves the polls with a voucher for a $100 income tax deduction that they can file with their taxes.

Does anyone know if this kind of incentive (or any other kind) has been implemented in the US?

I HAVE heard of the (failed) Arizona bill that would register every voter for a chance to win a $1 million jackpot.  http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07…

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  1. And what happens when they get to the polls?   Do they just vote randomly?  If they don’t care enough to vote, I doubt they care enough to do any research into what they’re voting about.  I don’t know if I like this idea.

  2. I think we first need to exhaust all other proposals for making voting more convenient, including Election Day Registration (or better yet, Universal Registration) and either making Election Day a holiday or voting over the weekend. We have to make our elections more competitive with robust and diverse political dialogue with public financing of campaigns, Instant Runoff Voting, and using the National Popular Vote in place of the Electoral College. We need to also do more to ensure people’s votes actually count, by requiring our elections to have voter-verified paper trails that are routinely audited, using non-partisan election administrators, and implementing fair-districting that avoids gerrymandering.

    <

    p>If these common-sense measures were in place, as many are in democracies around the world, we probably wouldn’t have to resort to paying people to vote.

  3. … that the thing that would boost participation the most would be to spread voting over 2 or more days and declare one of them a holiday.  Also require by law that every employer citizen gets one of those two days as paid holiday time for full time workers or unpaid time off for part time.

    • And then the employee can choose which existing holiday they are going to give up in return, so that the cost of this silly goo-goo god for nothing policy need not be borne by employers.

      <

      p>Eight hours lost so someone can spend ten minutes to vote?  No thanks.

      • … schedule time off for their employees all the time.  What a chore to make sure that some of that time off is coordinated with a specific day or range of days.  Boo hoo poor employer.

        <

        p>Sorry, but there’s no argument there.

  4. I’m not sure I like the idea of election day being a complete work holiday.  Too many businesses would need exemptions because some places need to be open and some businesses would rather pay a fine than close.

    <

    p>Also I think that a lot of people would use that holiday as a holiday rather than for voting opportunity.  4 day weekends, trips to the Cape etc.  

    <

    p>I think we currently have a law where employers have to give employees up to 2 hours off to allow them to vote (I may be wrong about that).  I think it would be more effective to enforce and publicize that rule or perhaps increase it to 4 hours.

    <

    p>Or make employers give a half day off and employees can choose morning or afternoon.  

    <

    p>Being less restrictive on absentee voting would also be a huge help.

Archives