100% Turnout

[True Democrat]

What if there was 100% turnout from every ethnic group, what would the map look like?  Please include percentages.

[True Democrat]

BUMP

Maps people, maps

[The Dowager Mod]

[Defarge]

overwhelming democratic victory?

[The Dowager Mod]

Since the poor and minorities are usually the ones who do not vote and they would probably go democrat.

[minionofmidas]

...in most states. It`s not that simple.
What is certain is we`d see a higher share of third party, protest, votes.
Questions of citizenship and voting rights also need to be addressed for an assessment of this, I guess.

[Speed of Sound]

this map seems relatively fair. I wil concur.

[Alcon]

Democrats would be helped in nearly every state.

I'm not sure why you have South Dakota as becoming more Republican.  The Native American vote increase would make it reasonably close, maybe 54-46.

[A18]

If this is due to some coercive law, GOP landslide.

[Alcon]

If this is due to some coercive law, GOP landslide.

Why?

[M]

Because of the reaction to the coercion itself.

[Alcon]

Because of the reaction to the coercion itself.

Which would send them to the GOP?

[George W. Hobbes]

Assumption being that the Democrats propose the law, since they're the ones who are supposed to benefit from said law. 

Actually, like has been said, independent candidates would probably do rather well.

[A18]

Because of the reaction to the coercion itself.

Which would send them to the GOP?

The GOP would promise repeal. Since they don't appreciate being forced to vote, they obviously go Republican.

[ag]

Because of the reaction to the coercion itself.

Which would send them to the GOP?

The GOP would promise repeal. Since they don't appreciate being forced to vote, they obviously go Republican.

Look at existing examples. Australia has had compulsory voting, at least for whites, since about 1918. I might be wrong by a couple of years, and it was first introduced in some states, then federally, then in other states. Actually, they first implemented mandatory voter registration, and only then mandatory vote. It changes nothing.

It works like this. There are zillions of opportunities for postal vote, early vote, etc. If you don't avail yourself to them and are physically present in the country on the day of the vote you have to pay a small fine (I think about AUD$20). You may choose, instead, to submit a written explanation why you couldn't vote. If the judge decides it is valid, you get off free, if the judge decides against you, you have to pay a larger fine (I think about AUD$50). This results in usual turnout of about 95% (about 90% in some state elections). I don't think there has been any recent election with a turnout of 85% or less - since the cost of dropping by the polling place is low (lower than AUD$20 for most people), few people bother not to vote. Since registration is also compulsory, the numbers are pretty much the same if you count "all voters" or only "registered voters".

In some other countries (notably in Latin America), non-voters are not fined, but might have difficulty getting government contracts, or access to social programs, or passports for foreign travel.  I guess they do it this way since for most people it is easy not to ignore a ticket, so that they can only impose the fine when the individual needs something from the government.  But in a law-abiding society like US or Australia, it is the Australian version that is the easiest to implement.

It is believed the system helps Labour in Australia. Remarkably, it is reasonably popular and not even (the ostensibly hurt Liberals) have proposed to scrap it. When Aboriginals were given voting rights (was it in the 1960s?) for the first few years they only could vote, but didn't have to. This was regarded as discriminatory against them, and, eventually, they became subject to the same compulsory voting laws as everyone else. 

The reason this might be fairly popular even among the non-voters is that even though each individual would prefer not to vote, a lot of the same people would prefer others to vote.  Thus, even though they would be hurt by having to vote themselves, the benefit they'd get from others voting might be a lot larger.  Since most non-voters are presumed here to be latent Democrats, they would be better off on balance even if they would rather shirk themselves.  It is no different from traffic laws: everybody hates not being able to make a U-turn right in front of one's house and having to go on a 2-mile detour instead, but everybody likes others not being able to do the same.

The likely beneficiaries would be Democrats, since even if the number of third-party and spoiled ballots goes up, Democrats, would, probably, in most states, get more new voters than Republicans (and the third-party numbers, while up, would still not matter).  For one, NYC would so completely dominate NYState, that it is likely that the only Republicans elected statewide would be the Bloomberg-Giuliani type: former Democrats, registered as Republicans to avoid dealing with the Dem primary. 

[minionofmidas]

Belgium has laws similar to Australia. Luxembourg too IIRC. Italy has purely nominal compulsory voting laws. There's no fine whatsoever.
I seem to recall Brasil has compulsory voting for those 18-65 except the handicapped, and voting rights for everybody 16 and up.
Interestingly, Austria had Australian-style turnout rates for decades without compulsory voting.

[A18]

The reason this might be fairly popular even among the non-voters is that even though each individual would prefer not to vote, a lot of the same people would prefer others to vote. ... It is no different from traffic laws: everybody hates not being able to make a U-turn right in front of one's house and having to go on a 2-mile detour instead, but everybody likes others not being able to do the same.

LOL. What a dumb comparison. No, "ag," not voting does not hurt other people. Non-voters are, for the most part, not interested in the political process, and there would be a massive backlash against this if implemented in the United States. Of course, a federal law to that effect would also be unconstitutional, and struck down by the courts.

Looking at other countries is useless. Different nations have different attitudes. Socialized medicine is just one of them.

[ag]

The reason this might be fairly popular even among the non-voters is that even though each individual would prefer not to vote, a lot of the same people would prefer others to vote. ... It is no different from traffic laws: everybody hates not being able to make a U-turn right in front of one's house and having to go on a 2-mile detour instead, but everybody likes others not being able to do the same.

LOL. What a dumb comparison. No, "ag," not voting does not hurt other people. Non-voters are, for the most part, not interested in the political process, and there would be a massive backlash against this if implemented in the United States. Of course, a federal law to that effect would also be unconstitutional, and struck down by the courts.

Looking at other countries is useless. Different nations have different attitudes. Socialized medicine is just one of them.

I agree fully: it would be unconstitutional - very likely so. No argument here. 

Still, for some reason you seem to believe that people in the US are fundamentally biologically (?) different from those elsewhere. Not really true, and I've lived in at least 4 countries.  In fact, the reasoning behind my claim is the same as the reasoning underpinning the free-market economics.  So, let me put some orthodox economic theory into this.

The real puzzle is not "why people don't vote". The real puzzle is "why the hell anybody bothers to vote". Given the (negligible) probability of one voter swinging an election, the expected value of showing up is almost exactly zero. It follows that people who show up are the ones for whom showing up gives pleasure: they like the sense of performing "civic duty" for instance.

Of course, there are also people who hate showing up - or, for that matter, hate getting out of their apartment/ office on a November Tuesday.  Now, these people might still care very much about the electoral outcome - they just correctly realise that they won't affect the outcome, no matter what they do.  The cost of voting (positive for them) is not ballanced by the expected benefit of voting (really, zero).  Ideally, they'd force everybody who has the same party preference as themselves to vote, without voting themselves. True, there are also others who don't care about the outcome (e.g., the Communists who believe Democrats are capitalist scum, or Nazis, who believe Republicans are a Communist conspiracy, or simply indifferent sloths) - but there is no reason to believe that they are even a majority of non-voters.

So, if you believe that most people in the US (including non-voters) would prefer Democratic victory to a Republican one (or vice versae), than most of the same people would find the new system to be to their benefit. Of course, there would be people for whom the annoyance of having to show up would exceed their glee at winning the election. It's an empirical issue how many of them are out there, but, somehow, I think most of these people would be concentrated in the libertarian fringe of the  Republcan party, so they aren't natural Dem voters anyway.

Of course, if non-voters are equally likely to vote for either of the 2 parties, than no party would really want to do this, since  the annoyance motive would be the only one for thevoters. Perhaps, another reason for this not happenning is the actual uncertainty within the parties about who the non-voters would vote for.  Actually, since the non-voters, if they voted, might have shift the ideological composition of both existing parties, it might not be in the interests of either Democratic or Republican party activists to implement it.