People will argue that democracy involves rights and responsibilities, and if you have the right to vote, then it is your responsibility to do so. Personally I believe that it is not fair to force people to vote for candidates they don’t know or care about or even want to support.
Here in Australia, compulsory voting means eligible voters must attend a polling place, have their name crossed off the list of voters, accept ballot papers and lodge them in a ballot box. They do not actually have to fill out the ballot papers and if they are filled out incorrectly, they are set aside as ‘informal’.
History of compulsory voting in Australia
¥ Compulsory enrolment for federal elections was introduced in 1912
¥ Compulsory voting for state elections was introduced in Queensland in 1915
¥ Compulsory voting at federal elections was introduced in 1924.
Australia’s first nine federal elections were held under voluntary voting, with compulsory voting first introduced in 1924.
“In Australia, with compulsory voting, elections are won or lost often on the most irrational of reasons.”- Olympian Ron Clarke, head of the Council of the Encouragement of Philanthropy in Australia.
Around the World
Compulsory voting is found in more than 20 other countries. What I would like to ask is – what does Australia have in common with Argentina, Ecuador, Fiji and Greece? How about Mexico, Nauru, Singapore and Uruguay? These are some of the nations that, along with Australia, have compulsory voting in national parliamentary elections and enforce it through fines, sanctions and other penalties.
Around the world non-compulsory voting is quite common. Only 10 of the 30 nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have compulsory voting, Australia being one of them. The rest recognise that democracy is about choice, including the choice not to vote. It is also stated that most of the democratic countries, such as Australia, that adopted compulsory voting laws in 1924, did it less for the idealistic reasons of increasing turnout and more to increase the vote share of their particular governing parties.
“It is not compulsory in any other Western country – not the US or Canada or Britain or, across the ditch, in New Zealand. Why are adult Australians treated like children?” Derryn Hinch, Melbourne Broadcaster
I believe we should not engage in compulsory voting and my particular argument rests on these premises:
Compulsory voting is Undemocratic
It is undemocratic to force people to vote, as it is a violation of a person’s freedom of choice. Citizens have the right to choose whether they want to vote and compulsion is part of a slippery slope to totalitarianism. In a democracy, one has a right to vote, but does that right also imply an obligation? Are not rights and obligations almost opposites? A right is something you are privileged to be granted; while an obligation is something you are required to do. It is therefore unlikely that the two go hand in hand.
You might also say that Voting is a civic duty but even though it might be true, we must be careful to discriminate between doing something which is for the country and something which has no tangible benefit for the country but in effect would only advantage certain politicians.
Voter Turnout
This refers to the percentage of eligible voters who actually vote on Election Day. Voter turnout would undoubtedly be lower in Australia without compulsory voting. You might say that each vote counts and one person’s vote is of value to the state and yes of course it is but I feel the vote by itself is meaningless if the person who made it had no knowledge about the choice they were making. In countries where it is not mandatory to vote, many who do not vote could be intelligent enough to know the impact of their input into a decision making process relating to a subject they have minimal knowledge of would be useless and probably harmful. People can still be diligent, productive members of society while taking next to no interest in government.
“whether made compulsory in law or through social pressure, it is doubtful that high voter turnout as such is a good indication of an electorate’s capability for intelligent social choice.” Encyclopaedia Britannica
Ill Informed / Legitimate Representation
Compulsory registration and voting reduces the legitimacy of elected representatives. The majority of votes in Australian elections include the votes of many uninterested and ill-informed people who vote just because they are required to. Australian people seem to be no more politically educated than citizens of comparable countries such as New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom that use voluntary voting.
The Senator responsible for the 1924 private member’s Bill predicted that within “a short time” of the introduction of compulsory voting there would be a “wonderful improvement” in the political knowledge of the Australian population. A national survey conducted in 1994 by ANOP Research Services indicated that compulsory voting has singularly failed to achieve this aim. The report stated that the survey results indicate widespread ignorance and misconception of Australia’s system of government, about its origins and about the way in which it can serve the needs of citizens.
Some of the specific survey results were:
• only 40 percent could name the two Federal Houses of Parliament;
• only 24 percent knew that Senators are elected on a State-wide basis;
• only 19 percent had some understanding of federalism;
• only 18 percent knew something about the content of the Constitution; and
• 60 percent did not know how the Constitution can/could be changed5.
Choice and Effect Upon Elections
Those who say Compulsory voting forces people to vote for someone even if they do not like any of the candidates on offer are wrong as compulsory voting does not force such a choice. People can always lodge a blank or informal ballot paper. Actually, the voting part of “mandatory voting” is a misnomer. All Australian citizens over the age of 18 must register and show up at a polling station, but they need not actually vote. They can deface their ballot or do nothing at all. In most elections, about a half-million registered voters do not come to the polls. Ninety-five percent of them offer a valid excuse, and the matter ends there. Five percent pay a fine.
In justifying compulsory voting, claims have been made that only the complete population’s vote can give an accurate picture of the electorate’s view. The irony of this claim is that in Australian elections, when votes are counted in marginal single member seats which are electorates where there is almost equal support for both parties, half the time the final tally gives a false result because of compulsory voting.
“[under a] voluntary system… all of those who voted, did so because they wanted to vote and had given consideration to their choices. ‘Quality is always better than quantity.’” Submission to the JSCEM
Policies / Taken for Granted
Compulsory voting has made the Australian political system unresponsive. If voting were made voluntary, it would shake up the political system. Parties and candidates would have to do more to convince people of the merits of their policies in order to get voters to the polls. Compulsory voting increases the number of safe, single-member electorates and political parties then concentrate on the more marginal electorates.
Convergence – Vote 1 for the Same Idea
Winning elections requires a focus on the “median voter”, those who sit at the exact centre of the political and policy spectrum and offers the best target for election campaigning. Median voters are assumed to be self-interested, short-sighted and conservative, but at the same time rational, family-focused and personally aspirational and this is common to many developed democracies.
In Australia, two additional and near-unique electoral institutions, compulsory voting and a preferential ballot make pressures for convergence very powerful. Compulsory voting drags 30% or so of the electorate to the polls who couldn’t care less about politics and who would not choose to vote unless they had to. This group essentially decides election outcomes, making it much harder for parties to adopt longer-term reforms that might alienate what political professionals call “low-information voters”. At elections compulsory preference marking catches the votes of these and other groups, including highly engaged voters who support minor parties. These votes are then funneled back to the two major parties, assuming that they can still gain sufficient first-preference support, in a process that encourages policy aggregation rather than differentiation.
Who profits from compulsory Voting?
In Australia the two major political parties have always supported compulsory voting and these parties themselves admit that they would lose seats with voluntary voting. They do not only profit electorally, but also financially. Any party with 4% of the primary vote, in any seat, gains electoral or taxpayers’ funding of $2 per vote. So after each general election, the winning party gets a huge windfall, but so does the loser. After the 2010 election, Labor received in excess of $23 million while the Coalition received about $21 million when they lost the election. These huge windfalls in funding then help the major parties fund their future election campaign. (exact figures are available on Australian Electoral Commission web site).
Bias
People say that compulsory voting prevents disenfranchisement of the socially disadvantaged. This might be a concern but compulsory voting in a duopoly means that rather than persuade people to vote for them, all the major parties focus on is persuading people from voting for their opponents. Compulsory voting offers an easy escape to get away with cheap rhetoric, blame games and mudslinging.
Finally
Looking at Australia, which has a history of leading the world in electoral reform, it is now only one of the exceedingly few democracies that still follow the highly questionable practice of compulsory voting. Defenders of the practice claim that voting is a duty and that only a full vote gives the correct picture but really no one is actually forced to vote and there are many who claim these defences don’t stand up to careful analysis and that the reason the major parties maintain this mandatory practice is of a less than noble motivation.
Conclusion
I believe voting should not be compulsory. It is an individual’s choice whether they wish to vote or not vote in an election of any kind. They might not like any of the candidates or may not be interested in the issues being voted for. There are a variety of reasons why they refuse to vote and they should not be forced to do so. Freedom and obligation do not go hand in hand. You are either free or you are not and if you are forced to do something, anything at all, you are not free. Then there is also the fact that it totally illegitimates the entire voting process by forcing people to go to the ballots and make decisions in the important election process, when they have no interest in the outcomes, but vote because they have been coerced to do so. We need to consider the fact that if we want fair and honest elections, it is of paramount importance to embrace the interested, eligible voters to cast their votes rather than focusing on individuals who have no interest in voting at all. So no, I believe voting should not be compulsory as it takes away the freedom of the people and has the potential to negatively affect outcomes of elections. Many people care about their duty to vote but do not necessarily go to the ballot box armed with much knowledge and I feel that in itself can in certain circumstances prove to be quite dangerous.