Tournament: Greenhill Fall Classic | Round: 1 | Opponent:  | Judge:
I value Governmental Legitimacy.

Voluntary abstention is a form of democratic participation in the same way that not voting for a cause is. To cause an option to lack your vote is as equally important as adding your vote to another. If honest endorsement is prevented through lack of an option, than abstention becomes a valid course of participation.

Contention 1: Compulsory voting endangers the possibility of abstention

COMPULSORY VOTING ARTIFICIALLY RAISES TURNOUT RATES WHILE STRIPPING THE POSSIBILITY OF ABSTENTION.

Armin Schafer 11, ~Fellow at the Hanse Institute for Advanced Studies in Delmenhorst~, "Republican liberty and compulsory voting, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies discussion paper, No. 11/17, 2011.

The second normative argument against compulsory voting sees abstention as a valuable political act in

AND

to be a palliative move rather than an appropriate cure for the disease.

In addition to this, due to the lack of a presupposed secret ballot, the ability for an individual to cast an honest but antagonistic ballot is endangered. Without this protection abstention allows an individual a way of expressing his discontent without putting himself in danger

Contention 2: Abstention creates a safe method of dissent

Annabelle Lever ~Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method London School of Economics and Political Science~, "Compulsory Voting: A Criminal Perspective," British Journal of Political Science (December, 2008).

The idea that compulsory voting violates no significant rights or liberties, then, is

AND

equality, and therefore to reflect their duties as well as their interests.

Therefore, due to its danger to governmental legitimacy, you should negate the resolution.

CITIZENS SHOULDN’T BE REQUIRED TO VOTE TO PLAY THEIR PART IN DEMOCRACY.

Jason Brennan 09, ~Brown University~, "Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote", Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 87, No. 4, pp. 535-549, December 2009.

Citizens of modern democracies are not obligated to vote, but if they do vote

AND

is to have justified beliefs, e.g., about goodeconomic policy.