Written by Classical Liberal
~~~***~~~
In my previous article on ‘The Silent Majority’, I promised that I would set out some thoughts on how to give the silent majority a voice. This article’s main aim is to start a conversation. I don’t have anywhere near all of the answers. But, I believe that if enough of us come together and debate these things, the Hegelian Dialectic will move us forward in the right direction.
Compulsory voting, also called mandatory voting, is required in some countries to register and vote in elections. Penalties are imposed on those who fail to do so without a valid reason. According to the CIA World Factbook, 21 countries, including 10 Latin American countries, officially had compulsory voting in December 2017. But with many countries not enforcing it.
During the first two decades of the 21st century, compulsory voting was introduced in Samoa and Bulgaria. While Chile, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, Fiji and Paraguay repealed it during that same period.
Australia probably provides the best example of compulsory voting in action. The Australian electoral system has many distinctive features: including compulsory enrolment, compulsory voting, majority-preferential instant-runoff voting in single-member seats to elect the lower house, the House of Representatives, and the use of the single transferable vote proportional representation system to elect the upper house, the Senate. The Constitution and political conventions govern the timing of elections. Generally, elections are held approximately every three years and conducted by the independent Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).
Voting is compulsory at federal elections, by-elections and referendums for those on the electoral roll and State and Territory elections. Australia enforces mandatory voting. People in this situation are asked to explain their failure to vote. If no satisfactory reason is provided (for example, illness or religious prohibition), a fine of up to $170 is imposed. Failure to pay the fine may result in a court hearing and additional costs. About 5% of enrolled voters fail to vote in most elections. In South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia voting at local elections is not compulsory. In the other states, local council elections are also compulsory.
Compulsory voting was introduced for the Queensland state election in 1915, for federal elections since the 1925 federal election. Victoria introduced it for the Legislative Assembly at the 1927 state election and Legislative Council elections in 1935. New South Wales and Tasmania introduced compulsory voting in 1928, Western Australia in 1936 and South Australia in 1942.
The immediate justification for compulsory voting at the federal level was the low voter turnout (59.38%) at the 1922 federal election, down from 71.59% at the 1919 federal election. The introduction of compulsory voting was also a condition of the Country Party agreeing to ally with the then minority Nationalist Party. Compulsory voting was not on either the Stanley Bruce-led Nationalist/Country party coalition government or the Matthew Charlton-led Labour opposition. The change took the form of a private member’s bill initiated by Herbert Payne, a backbench Tasmanian Nationalist senator, who on 16 July 1924 introduced the bill in the Senate. Payne’s bill passed with little debate (the House of Representatives agreeing to it in less than an hour), and in neither house was a division required. Hence no votes were recorded against the bill. It received Royal Assent on 31 July 1924 as the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1924. The 1925 federal election was the first to be conducted under compulsory voting, which saw the turnout rise to 91.4%. The turnout increased to about 95% within a couple of elections and has stayed at about that level since. Compulsory voting at referendums was considered when a referendum was proposed in 1915. But, as the referendum was never held, the idea was put on hold.
It is an offence to ‘mislead an elector in relation to the casting of his vote’. An ‘informal vote’ is a ballot paper that does not indicate a clear voting preference, is left blank, or carries markings that might identify the voter. The number of informal votes is counted, but they are not included in the total number of (valid) votes cast to determine voter preferences. Around 95% of registered voters attend polling, and approximately 5% of House of Representatives votes are informal.
Compulsory voting was introduced in Victoria in 1926 for the Legislative Assembly. The turnout increased from 59.24% at the 1924 state election to 91.76% at the 1927 state election. Still, the informal vote rose from 1.01% in 1924 to 1.94% in 1927. But when it was introduced for the 1937 Legislative Council election, which was not held on the same day as the Legislative Assembly, the turnout increased from 10% to only 46%.
The requirement is for the person to: enrol, attend a polling station, have their name marked off the electoral roll as attending, receive a ballot paper, take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper, and place it in the ballot box. There is no explicit requirement for a choice to be made. The ballot paper is only to be ‘marked’. According to the Act, how a person marks the paper is entirely up to the individual. Despite the risk of sanctions, the voter turnout at federal elections is dropping, with 1.4 million eligible voters, or nearly 10% of the total, failing to vote at the 2016 federal election, the lowest turnout since compulsory voting began. At the 2010 Tasmanian state election, with a turnout of 335,353 voters, about 6,000 people were fined $26 for not voting, and about 2,000 paid the fine.
A postal vote is available for those for whom it is difficult to attend a polling station. Early or pre-poll voting at an early voting centre is also open for those who might find it challenging to get to a polling station on election day.
(To be continued tomorrow with Part 2)
Compulsory Voting? What a ridiculous idea.
Apart from the obvious point that it is another imposition against our personal liberty, there are other considerations.
How can it be imposed while maintaining secrecy? What mark is placed on the paper can only be checked if the vote is witnessed.
Definitely NOT a useful suggestion Classical Liberal.
Well I suppose it would give the silent majority a voice of sorts. NONE?
Ridiculous indeed; they would be better tasked with asking for proof of identity and eliminating unjustifiable postal voting.
” the obvious point that it is another imposition against our personal liberty”,
Exactly. And another chance for them to fine you if you didnt turn up to vote.
If voting were to be made compulsory, there would be a majority of people who would turn out to vote against the party that brought it in.
I have never heard anything quite so ridiculous as compulsory voting. If that were the case we could end with a situation where joke candidates like Count Binface might actually get voted in by people who have no interest in politics and just vote for anyone. One cannot say that there wasn’t a choice in the London mayoral elections with 20 candidates to choose from for instance. Laughably there was a member of our UKIP branch when it existed who was found not to be on the Electoral Roll. He attended several street stalls during the Referendum campaign and effectively requested people to vote to leave the European Union, and when asked whey his name did not appear on the Electoral Roll said quite proudly that he had never voted in his life, and at the time he was 55. Naturally he didn’t vote in the Referendum either. Having been found out and ridiculed, we never saw him again.
And that would be worse than Khan, LOL ?
Too narrow a view of society for my liking Harryagain, but I think in your first paragraph the second part largely accounts for the first part.
How many times have you heard people saying something like “it doesn’t matter who you vote for, they’re all the same, make promises they don’t keep, only interested in themselves” and so on. The real stupidity comes in when they (us?) keep voting for the same, time and time again. I feel in a rut at the moment because I feel I continually have to vote negatively to say keep Corbyn out and more latterly clip the SNP wings.
I don’t agree with your “bunking off at school” assessment, valid for some no doubt, but not all. One self confessed “bunker” (or “dogger” where I come from) married to my daughter is doing very well merely by dint of hard work and initiative as you acknowledge, things he never learned at school.
But yes life on benefits should not be a lifestyle choice, but one of necessity for some.
The reason people in the UK don’t vote is they can’t be bothered or they don’t believe their vote makes any difference.
It doesn’t help when there is no barrier to being as rich as you are prepared to work for. Nobody is starving.
The worst off are either idle or stupid. Idleness starts at school, bunking off and not doing homework (which leads to stupidity but something of a chicken and egg situation)
A very small minority have bad luck but when examined, it’s the luck they brought on themselves.
There is financial mismanagement too.
So we are in a state of apathy.