Written by Classical Liberal
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(Read Part 1 here)
Following the 2004 federal election, at which the Liberal–National coalition government won a majority in both houses, a senior minister, Senator Nick Minchin, said that he favoured the abolition of compulsory voting. In Democracy and Disobedience, Peter Singer argues that compulsory voting could negate the obligation of a voter to support the outcome of the election. Voluntary participation in elections is deemed one of the sources of the obligation to obey the law in a democracy. In 1996 Albert Langer was jailed for three weeks on contempt charges concerning a constitutional challenge on a legal way not to vote for either of the major parties. Chong, Davidson and Fry, writing in the journal of the right-wing think tank the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS), argue that: Australian compulsory voting is disreputable, paternalistic, disadvantages smaller political parties, and allows major parties to target marginal seats and make some savings in pork-barrelling because of this targeting. Chong et al. also argue that denial is a significant aspect of the debate about compulsory voting.
A counter-argument to opponents of compulsory voting is that in these systems, the individual still has the practical ability to abstain at the polls by voting informally if they so choose due to the secrecy of the ballot. A spoilt vote does not count towards any political party and effectively is the same as choosing not to vote under a non-compulsory voting system. However, Singer argues that even the appearance of voluntary participation is sufficient to create an obligation to obey the law.
In the 2010 Australian election, Mark Latham urged Australians to vote informally by handing in blank ballot papers for the 2010 election. He also stated that he feels it is unfair for the government to force citizens to vote if they have no opinion or threaten them into voting with a fine. An Australian Electoral Commission spokesman stated that the Commonwealth Electoral Act did not contain an explicit provision prohibiting the casting of a blank vote. How the Australian Electoral Commission arrived at this opinion is unknown. It runs contrary to the opinions of Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick, who wrote that voters must mark the ballot paper and deposit that ballot into a ballot box. And Justice Blackburn believed that casting an invalid vote was a violation of the Act.
Tim Evans, a Director of Elections Systems and Policy of the AEC, wrote in 2006 that, ‘It is not the case, as some people have claimed, that it is only compulsory to attend the polling place and have your name marked off and this has been upheld by a number of legal decisions’. Yet, practically, it remains that having received a ballot paper, the elector can fold it up and put it into the ballot box without formally marking it if he or she objects, in principle, to cast a vote. However, the consistently low number of informal votes each election indicates that having attended, had his or her name marked off, very few electors then choose not to vote formally.
Compulsory voting has also been promoted for its collective benefits. It is hard for coercion to prevent disadvantaged people from voting. It is also difficult to put obstacles in the way of ethnic minority groups, either through registration requirements or placement of voting booths, as often happens under other voting systems. The compulsion requirement also needs to be kept in proportion: jury duty and compulsory military service are vastly more onerous citizen’s compulsions than attending a local voting booth once every few years. Perhaps the most compelling reason to use a system of compulsory voting is a simple matter of logistics, that is, to facilitate the smooth and orderly process of an election.
Every year in countries that do not have compulsory voting, election officials have to guess at the numbers of voters who might turn out – this often depends on the vagaries of the weather. Often voters are disenfranchised in those countries when voting officials err, and not enough voting booths are provided. Long queues can result in voters being turned away at the close of polling, not having had their chance to exercise their democratic right to vote.
Quite clearly, we have to make a stark choice here. We can dramatically increase the number of people who vote, but at a cost to civil liberties. Or, we can recoil from the distaste of forcing people to vote at the expense of accepting apathy. Perhaps this should be put to a referendum. Let the majority choose what they prefer; or, more realistically, what they dislike the least. If there is a nice way to significantly increase voter participation under a First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system without any nasty side effects, I can’t think of it.
A new political party that appeals to the silent majority might thrive under Proportional Representation (PR). It would be squashed by the two major parties under FPTP. UKIP’s successes in European Parliament elections and failures at General Elections are evident proof of this. After all, according to Make Votes Matter, in the 2015 UK general election, UKIP came in third in terms of the number of votes (3.9 million/12.6%) but gained only one seat in Parliament, resulting in one seat per 3.9 million votes. The Conservatives, on the other hand, received one seat per 34,000 votes. But, if the silent majority was compelled to vote, maybe they would vote for an Independent party, and given time it could break the stranglehold that the Conservative and Labour Parties have over us.
Photo by nodigio 
Not convinced that compulsory voting would improve the lot of the challenger parties.
What would improve the chances of challenger parties/independents gaining traction is if government reduced hugely the legal amount of election campaign allowance expenses. For example, Independent candidates cannot in any way match the huge level of monies spent by Lib/Lab/Con/Green on personalised posting of leaflets to households. Postal voting also plays to the interests of the main parties. These drop through the door(and returned) long before the election date and long before Independent and challenger parties have had time to get their campaigns into gear.
A very interesting article. To me the questions it raises are, would compulsory voting provide a more accurate result based on the will of the people or would it provide better governance? I don’t personally think so.
As to giving the silent majority a voice, well they already have it but choose in many cases not to use it. There is nothing to stop anyone registering, if eligible, to vote and then using that vote, their voice. I think that apathy could in a certain way be regarded as a proxy vote as in ” I don’t care who wins so I’ll leave to those that do vote to decide”.
To introduce compulsory voting I think would need some kind of payback, and not the freebies and promises of Utopia the present favoured methods. I am a member of a large club and in our voting system for office bearers there is the facility for voting against all candidates as well as voting for. I am not sure of the origins of this and would never use the facility for the elections of unpaid volunteers unless I felt really strongly about a candidate(s). There would be of course be pitfalls with this system if applied generally not least of which would be that the results could depend entirely on the apathetic being made to vote, but I think there is some merit in that a vote for those you do not want to represent you could be just as valid as a vote for those you do.
I think there are many other issues surrounding voting of a much more pressing concern than compulsion, besides which asking the government to introduce compulsion in anything is dangerous.
I agree with Jim.
Compulsory voting in the situation where anybody can obtain a postal ballot paper on request would not serve to discourage the abuse of postal ballots for political purposes.
Freedom not to vote is still a freedom, which should not be taken away under normal circumstances, and certainly not for any unproven theoretical argument put forward by those pundits who presume to know best.