Greg asks a good question about the literature on compulsory voting in the comments. I hope someone knows the answer.
The Institute for Public Policy Research in the U.K. has published a report advocating compulsory voting, to counter the trend in recent British elections towards lower voter turnout. Turnout was around 60% in the last two general elections–the lowest since World War I.
This report comes just a couple of months after the Power Inquiry accounted for, among other things, the low voting turnout in the U.K., specifically blaming first-past-the-post voting and other institutional obstacles to voters’ sense of political efficacy.
In the USA, it is worth noting, 60% would be considered a high turnout and a sign that democracy had been reinvigorated. In fact, the nearly 60% turnout in the 2004 presidential election practically generated spontaneous celebration from the punditry class. But, in fact, American electoral turnout is among the very lowest of the established democracies.
Just today I had received the most recent Journal of Theoretical Politics, which happens to contain an article by Lisa Hill entitled “Low Voter Turnout in the United States: Is Compulsory Voting a Viable Solution?” Here is its abstract:
America’s turnout problem is among the worst of any of the established democracies. Even a reform as sweeping as the NVRA (Motor Voter Act) has failed to remedy it. Adopting an empirically informed normative approach, the author proposes and defends an ambitious solution: compulsory voting. Anticipating considerable resistance to this proposal, the article explores likely cultural, practical, political and legal barriers to its introduction and, in some cases, suggests strategies for overcoming them. It is concluded that most of the likely impediments are not technically, but rather, culturally and politically intractable. Yet, compulsory voting could have many benefits. Not only could it improve turnout more effectively than any other measure, but it could also close America’s yawning SES voting gap, limit some of the problems associated with campaign finance and break the cycle of low efficacy, alienation, non-participation and exclusion that characterizes American politics. Finally, compulsory voting can serve and protect such important democratic values as representativeness, legitimacy and political equality.
About thirty democracies currently have compulsory voting in elections for the lower house of parliament (and presidency, if any). Included among these democracies are Australia, Belgium, and Costa Rica.
The liberal in me recoils at the idea of governments telling citizens of a free society that they have to participate. The social democrat in me says there are certain things that citizens in a free society are not free to disengage from. Ultimately, the green in me says that voting is not enough, but it’s a good start, and it needs to be not mandatory, but meaningful, so that nearly all citizens will participate voluntarily.
A debate worth having–on both sides of the Atlantic.
More, including some good links on the debate, at Make My Vount Count (of course).
Is there evidence that compulsory voting decreases alienation, exclusion, etc.? I know Chileans who feel their vote does not matter, a sentiment that does not change as they do their legally bound duty. In the U.S., we would also have to make the day a holiday, a move that is bound to spark opposition.
Seed planted by Greg — 02 May 2006 @ 04:13
I think I mostly agree with the liberal in you (surprise, surprise). You can force a citizen to vote, but you can’t make him/her take it seriously.
I might like a compromise: compulsory voting with blank/spoiled ballots allowed and counted, and by-elections in districts where “blank” wins a plurality. This might make parties take alienation/apathy more seriously than with the vague signal provided by low turnout.
On the other hand, that sounds perhaps a bit too Soviet…
Seed planted by Mike — 02 May 2006 @ 09:23
Despite the ‘Soviet’ echo, I’m with Mike’s compromise. This raises another question, which might be answered in the literature that I do not know: Are rates of blank and spoiled ballots higher where voting is compulsory?
Two problems (at least) with answering that:
(1) We would also need to control for effects of electoral systems (and other factors) on blank and spoiled ballots. Presumably more choices–as with PR–gives more voters something to vote for if forced to go to the polls and drop a ballot in the box. Fewer choices, more likelihood that the “not serious” will cast a blank or spoiled ballot (by hpyothesis).
(2) Not all countries electoral agencies report blank or spoiled ballots. (Try getting that for the USA, for example.)
Seed planted by MShugart — 02 May 2006 @ 11:11
Thanks for the coverage
As for the question: “Are rates of blank and spoiled ballots higher where voting is compulsory?”
The simple answer is yes, but it’s hard to find by how much exactly. It’s not, as far as I know, anywhere near as high as the abstention count under non-compulsory voting, as when forced, most people vote for someone, even if they just pick the candidate with the funniest name or the person at the top of the ballot (incidentally, in some Australian states being at the top of the ballot can be the difference between winning and losing).
A lot of the time, people are simply unaware that they can leave the ballot blank.
One thing I did find was this, which contains the gem that: “While voting is compulsory, South Australian ballot papers are unique in including an instruction that informs the voter that they do not have to mark the ballot paper. This results in South Australian elections having the country’s highest proportion of blank ballot papers. At the 2002 state election, 42.3% of all informal [I believe this just means ones that aren't counted for whatever reason] ballot papers were left entirely blank, compared to only 21.4 per cent at the 2001 Federal election.”
Informal ballots still only make up a few percent of the total though.
In answer to Greg’s question: “Is there evidence that compulsory voting decreases alienation, exclusion, etc.?”
I would say it was impossible to tell, because compulsory voting just masks the problems of alienation and exclusion. There is no need to try harder to re-engage the excluded if you can just force them to engage themselves, in however spurious a manner. The case in the UK would be that the excluded groups (mainly poor and young) would be more likely to vote Labour, but have left the Labour party alone since it shifted rightwards. If forced to vote, most would vote Labour for the hell of it, but nothing would actually have changed.
Seed planted by Paul Davies — 03 May 2006 @ 01:08
The recent Thai election turned on a none-of-these option. Voters used it in sufficient numbers to defeat government candidates despite the opposition boycott.
Incidentally Australia has a history of informal referendums with campaigns to write messages like ‘No dams’ on the ballots and the electoral commission has to report them.
It seems to me that a none-of-these option answers the liberal qualm.
Seed planted by Alan — 04 May 2006 @ 00:32
The Australian Electoral Commission has just released an information paper (pdf).
Seed planted by Alan — 04 May 2006 @ 00:54
I know of one case of an informal referendum having impact: The Colombian constitutional referendum of March, 1990. At the time, voters voted by acquiring the sub-party lists of their (or their patron’s) choice before going to the polls and placing them in a ballot envelope. There were, in that election, six different ballot papers that a voter could deposit (two houses of congress, departmental assembly, local offices, Liberal presidential primary, etc.). A campaign for calling a constitutional assembly (not something recognized under the constitution then in effect) created a movement called the septima papeleta (the seventh slip of paper), calling on people to deposit a slip calling for the convocation of a constituent assembly. These informal ballots were printed in newspapers by the supporters of the referendum, and voters could cut them out and add them to their ballot envelope. The response was overwhelming, and under an executive decree, they were counted and officially reported, eventually leading to the new constitution of 1991. (There was some quasi-official support for the whole thing, as the president at the time had tried to get some reforms through congress and failed.)
Seed planted by MShugart — 04 May 2006 @ 06:33
Pacific Beat (audio only) has some interesting stuff on informal voting by the EU Observer Mission for the Fiji general election.
The election is on Saturday.
Voting is compulsory in Fiji and the system is STV.* An older article by the Australian Parliamentary Library summarises the country’s somewhat troubled constitutional and political history.
Fiji is notable as the only Pacific Forum nation to have suffered military and civilian coups.
[* Actually, alternative vote (STV's single-seat-district equivalent), right?--ed.]
Seed planted by Alan — 05 May 2006 @ 09:19
I think it is the duty of people who do not understand who they are voting for and why, to NOT vote. So, what is needed is not more voters per se, but more informed citizens, who are then more likely to vote. To tackle the turnout problem by mandating voting is to mistake the symptom for the disease.
Seed planted by WRY — 05 May 2006 @ 14:04
WRY, I tend to agree that tackling the turnout problem by mandating turnout is entirely the wrong way to go.
Seed planted by MShugart — 05 May 2006 @ 15:24
I think it is factually inaccurate and distinctly elitist to assume that non-voters are uninformed voters. My brother and his wife lived in England during one of the Euro-referendums. They disagreed on how to vote. They did a fairly precise calculation that since they were going to vote in opposite ways they would only cancel each other out and there was no point voting. So there are at least some cases of an informed decision not to vote.
The Power Inquiry found two large groups of non-voters. One was the traditional social exclusion group, although they showed only marginally less knowledge of electoral politics than the electorate as a whole. The second was a group who were extremely well-informed and often active in community groups and the like, but just did not identify with any party.
The real benefit of compulsory voting is that it kills dead the gap in socio-economic status between voters and non-voters, and that gap does survive the Power Inquiry’s empirical research, it just doesn’t translate into ignorance as a reason not to vote.
In Australia the (conservative) Liberal party is generally in favour of voluntary voting because their internal research tells them they’d gain a 5% advantage from the SES gap.
It’s obvious there is a problem with conscripting people to vote for existing parties. The solution to that is a none of these option, not counterfactual grandiloquence about the ignorance of non-voters. It’s hard to see how biasing the electorate in favour of parties of resistance is a splendid example of informed decision-making on electoral design.
Seed planted by Alan — 05 May 2006 @ 20:28
In Perú, voting is mandatory for citizens between 18 and 70 years of age; you can also get a dispensation for medical reasons (and a few others). It’s pretty well enforced: your identity card is marked when you vote, so you can’t use it for administrative procedures until you pay the fine, which is about US$40.
Turnout is typically around 85-90%, and there are generally a lot of blank and spoiled ballots. It’s hard to know how many of the spoiled ballots are actually incorrectly filled out rather than deliberately spoiled — probably most — but the number of blank ballots in the recent election was more than 10%.
Mandatory voting benefits political groups without much organizational capacity, because well-organized political groups are more effective at vote-pulling. In Perú, for example, I would expect that making voting non-mandatory would primarily benefit Apra. However, it would also benefit abstencionist campaigns (including those conducted with the threat of violence), which are an unfortunate and prominent feature of South American politics in general.
Seed planted by Rici — 11 May 2006 @ 09:37
As a young non-voter I would like to suggest my personal reasons for this action.
Who is there to vote for?
It seems to me like a tired two horse race around a seriously corrupted track purely fuelled by it’s investors. I’m don’t want to visit a race track like that, I’m blatently going to lose my money.
They say voting is to create freedom but that’s just spin. To control a child you don’t ask it what it wants to do. you say tidy your room or go to bed. To control a nation you say Labour or Conservative? Freedom in the west is propaganda.
Compulsory schooling and control on media has led to, in my humble opinion, a zombie world. My only response as a slave to the system is to try to ignore these other kids in the playground playing politics. Don’t make voting compulsory because I quite frankly can’t be bothered. I spend too much of my time accounting for myself and financing their fun already.
When you’re voting, I’ll be playing a round of cards with a spliff because that’s what I’ld rather be doing with my limited ‘freedom’.
Seed planted by Linsey — 01 October 2006 @ 18:29