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"Compulsory voting"
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Compulsory voting : for and against
\"In many democracies, voter turnout is low and getting lower. If the people choose not to govern themselves, should they be forced to do so? For Jason Brennan, compulsory voting is unjust and a petty violation of citizens' liberty. The median non-voter is less informed and rational, as well as more biased than the median voter. According to Lisa Hill, compulsory voting is a reasonable imposition on personal liberty. Hill points to the discernible benefits of compulsory voting and argues that high turnout elections are more democratically legitimate. The authors - both well-known for their work on voting and civic engagement - debate questions such as: -Do citizens have a duty to vote, and is it an enforceable duty? -Does compulsory voting violate citizens' liberty? If so, is this sufficient grounds to oppose it? Or is it a justifiable violation? Might it instead promote liberty on the whole? -Is low turnout a problem, or a blessing? -Does compulsory voting produce better government? Or, might it instead produce worse government? Might it, in fact, have little effect overall on the quality of government?\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
100% Democracy
A timely and paradigm-shifting argument that all members
of a democracy must participate in elections, by a leading
political expert and
Washington Post journalist
Americans are required to pay taxes, serve on juries, get
their kids vaccinated, get driver’s licenses, and sometimes
go to war for their country. So why not ask—or
require—every American to vote?
In 100% Democracy , E.J. Dionne and Miles Rapoport argue
that universal participation in our elections should be a
cornerstone of our system. It would be the surest way to protect
against voter suppression and the active disenfranchisement of a
large share of our citizens. And it would create a system true to
the Declaration of Independence’s aspirations by calling
for a government based on the consent of all of the governed.
It’s not as radical or utopian as it sounds: in
Australia, where everyone is required to vote (Australians can
vote “none of the above,” but they have to show up),
91.9 percent of Australians voted in the last major election in
2019, versus 60.1 percent in America’s 2016 presidential
race. Australia hosts voting-day parties and actively celebrates
this key civic duty.
It is time for the United States to take a major leap forward
and recognize voting as both a fundamental civil right and a
solemn civic duty required of every eligible U.S.
citizen.
eBook
Correlates of Early Voting
This article presents and tests a new approach to early voting that pays attention to its institutional, political and demographic determinants. Using Australia's compulsory voting system as our case, we can compare early voting and election-day voting without having to consider the possibility of voter abstention that arises in voluntary voting systems. The research uses aggregate-level data from six national elections (2004 to 2019), as well as individual-level data drawn from Australian Electoral Study surveys of 2016 and 2019. The results show that institutional factors (density of polling places), political factors (level of competition between parties) and socioeconomic factors (age) all contribute to variations in early versus election-day voting. Levels of early voting are affected not simply by the characteristics of individual citizens but also by the institutional and political contexts within which those citizens vote.
Journal Article
Mandated Choice Policies: When Are They Preferable?
Under mandated choice policies, people are free to choose whichever option they prefer, but \"choosing not to choose\" is penalized. In Australia, voting is mandatory, and abstaining is penalized with a fine. In New Zealand and several American states, it is mandatory for those who want to obtain a driver's license that they decide whether to register as organ donors. If they fail to do so, they will not receive a driver's license. Proponents of such policies stress that they may be the least autonomy-infringing ways of achieving some good and provide society with knowledge about people's preferences and are, partly for these reasons, preferable to employing defaults. This article compares mandated choice in voting and donor registration with respect to the ends served, how a mandated choice policy will serve these ends, the distribution of burdens, and the nature of the possible options. It is argued that mandated choice is more attractive in the context of donor registration.
Journal Article
Democracy and Compulsory Voting
In this article I aim to show that compulsory voting cannot be defended on democratic grounds. In pursuing this task, I first offer a generic account of the democratic argument in favor of compulsory voting, drawing on some of the most salient recent defenses of a moral duty to vote. I then offer an overarching objection that defeats both the generic form of the democratic argument for compulsory voting and its various operationalizations. The crux of the objection is that the democratic justification of a moral duty to vote is parasitical upon the existence of a moral duty to vote well. This decisively undermines the democratic argument for compulsory voting, since the latter can only be deployed as an enforcement mechanism for a duty to vote, regardless of the substantive content of that vote.
Journal Article
If You Mobilize Them, They Will Become Informed: Experimental Evidence that Information Acquisition Is Endogenous to Costs and Incentives to Participate
Because non-voters are less politically informed than voters, some propose that increasing voter turnout would reduce the quality of information among the active voting population, damaging electoral outcomes. However, the proposed tradeoff between increased participation and informed participation is a false dichotomy. This article demonstrates that political information is endogenous to participation. A field experiment integrates an intensive mobilization treatment into a panel survey conducted before and after a city-wide election. Subjects who were mobilized to vote also became more informed about the content of the election. The results suggest institutions that encourage participation not only increase voter turnout – mobilizing electoral participation also motivates citizens to become more politically informed.
Journal Article
Compulsory Voting: A Defence
Turnout is in decline in established democracies around the world. Where, in the mid-1800s, 70–80 percent of eligible voters regularly participated in US Presidential elections, turnout has averaged just 53.7 percent since 1972. Average turnout in general elections in the UK has fallen from 76.6 percent during the period 1945–92, to 64.7 percent since 1997. Average turnout in Canadian federal elections has fallen from 74.5 percent during the period 1940–79, to 62.5 percent since 2000. For most democrats, these numbers are a cause for alarm. Compulsory voting is amongst the most effective means of raising turnout. However, compulsory voting is also controversial. Most of us think that coercion may only be employed against the citizenry if it is backed by a justification of the right kind. Opponents of compulsory voting charge that no such justification is available. This article resists this line of argument in two ways. First, I offer an argument from free-riding which, though gestured towards by others, and widely criticized, has yet to be defended in any depth. Second, I consider a range of objections to compulsory voting as such, arguing that none succeeds.
Journal Article
Invalid Votes as Protest: Compulsory Voting and the Democratic Context in Ecuador
Invalid votes are pervasive in many democracies and can threaten the legitimacy of elections. While often associated with factors such as choice complexity and disengagement, especially under compulsory voting rules, intentional ballot spoiling can also signal a political protest. We examine the argument that spoiling ballots as protest should occur under compulsory voting where voters perceive limited legitimacy to the electoral process and a lack of viable options. Using municipal elections in Ecuador, a context featuring both compulsory voting and a period of democratic erosion, we examine subnational variation in both spoiled and blank ballots. While factors related to sophistication and choice complexity explain variation in both forms of invalid voting, our results also reveal patterns consistent with the expectation that spoiled ballots reflect a protest of a lack of competition in the political system. Specifically, we find that areas opposed to Rafael Correa’s dominant party had a higher rate of spoiled ballots in the 2014 mayoral elections, a period when party dominance was consolidated and competition weak. This pattern declined in 2019 when the system’s competitiveness increased. A separate analysis of the 2019 elections for the Correa-era participatory governance body suggests continued use of spoiled ballots as protest by opposition voters, but primarily in higher connectivity areas where the online coordination on use of this tactic may have had greater influence. Overall, our study sheds light on factors shaping invalid vote patterns in compulsory systems and highlights spoiled ballots’ potential as a means to signal protest under conditions where some voters would perceive a decline in the legitimacy of democratic institutions.
Journal Article
Full participation
About a quarter of all democracies today legally oblige their citizens to vote, making this an important aspect of electoral systems in many settings. Moreover, numerous commentators and policy-makers in voluntary voting states are coming to view mandatory attendance at the polls as an attractive option in the context of declining turnout. Yet there has been a dearth of analysis of the way in which compulsory voting shapes attitudes, behaviour and outcomes of the political process. This volume fills that gap by providing a comprehensive description, analysis and evaluation of compulsory voting as it is practiced throughout the world. Specifically, the study systematically examines the history of the institution, the normative arguments for and against it, and the influence it has on a range of political phenomena. These include electoral campaigns, political attitudes, electoral integrity and legitimacy, policy outcomes and turnout. The book also considers the feasibility of introducing compulsory voting in a contemporary democracy, as well as variations on the institution designed to broaden its appeal.
eBook
Full participation
About a quarter of all democracies today legally oblige their citizens to vote, making this an important aspect of electoral systems in many settings. Moreover, numerous commentators and policy-makers in voluntary voting states are coming to view mandatory attendance at the polls as an attractive option in the context of declining turnout. Yet there has been a dearth of analysis of the way in which compulsory voting shapes attitudes, behaviour and outcomes of the political process. This volume fills that gap by providing a comprehensive description, analysis and evaluation of compulsory voting as it is practiced throughout the world.Specifically, the study systematically examines the history of the institution, the normative arguments for and against it, and the influence it has on a range of political phenomena. These include electoral campaigns, political attitudes, electoral integrity and legitimacy, policy outcomes and turnout. The book also considers the feasibility of introducing compulsory voting in a contemporary democracy, as well as variations on the institution designed to broaden its appeal.
eBook