Should voting be Mandatory?

President Barack Obama on Wednesday suggested the U.S. take a page from Australia’s book and make voting mandatory. Speaking at an event in Cleveland, Ohio, the president said, "If everybody voted, then it would completely change the political map in this country,” and it would “counteract money more than anything.”
"Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield."
- President Lyndon Baines Johnson, August 6, 1965, at the signing of the Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States.