Gersh Neg

Democracy is best understood not as a set of institutions designed to aggregate individual preferences, but rather as a norm governing a process of inclusive deliberation over social choices. Young 2000 :

We can now…expressed as compatible with justice.23

  Iris M. Young [Prof. of Political Science, University of Chicago], Inclusion and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press (2000).AT

My criterion is protecting freedom of expression. Because democracy relies on the formation of popular will through inclusive discussion and debate, the unrestricted right to participate in public deliberation is a foundational democratic value. Weinstein 2011 :

If an individual is…. truly extraordinary circumstances.41
  James Weinstein [Prof. of Constitutional Law, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State U.], “Participatory Democracy as the Central Value of American Free Speech Doctrine,” Virginia Law Review, Vol. 97, No. 3 (May 2011).

Contention 1: Compulsory voting artificially raises turnout rates while stripping the right to protest by abstaining. Schafer 2011 :

The second normative… appropriate cure for the disease.

  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.

Contention 2: The need to construct political legitimation by forcing a sense of ‘consensus’ is deeply undemocratic, because it denies the dynamic of ongoing disagreement and debate that is intrinsically part of deliberative democracy. Young 2000 :

Although the ideal… struggle than agreement.
  Iris M. Young [Prof. of Political Science, University of Chicago], Inclusion and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press (2000).AT

Contention 3: Channeling democratic discussion into only orderly modes of expression marginalizes minority perspectives. Young 2000 :

None of the theoretical …them any hearing.

  Iris M. Young [Prof. of Political Science, University of Chicago], Inclusion and Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press (2000).AT