[More Cowbell]

I will disagree with everyone else and say that it should not be required. I have two main reasons:

First, like Beef said in the initial post, requiring everyone to vote would force people to make decisions on candidates that they have absolutely no idea about. Personally, I think uninformed voters are even more dangerous than those who don't vote at all. Would it improve the electoral process to have people go in there and randomly pick a name, or to go in and vote for whoever their parents/spouse/TV personality told them to?

Second, I do think it infringes on our personal freedoms to require the vote. I think that would be the government overstepping its boundaries yet again. So would you also be required to vote in every race you are allowed to, even if you didn't care who was running for State Sanitation Engineer or something like that? I always vote, but if I don't know anything about the candidates in a certain race, I skip that one. I don't think the government should tell me I have to hit a button for every office that is up for election.