{"id":5017,"date":"2017-05-17T10:22:49","date_gmt":"2017-05-17T08:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/?p=5017"},"modified":"2017-05-17T10:22:49","modified_gmt":"2017-05-17T08:22:49","slug":"mandatory-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/increasing-voter-turnout\/mandatory-voting","title":{"rendered":"Voter Participation: For and Against Mandatory Voting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Mandatory\u00a0voting is a much-debated topic whenever elections roll around. There are a number of countries around the world that require their citizens to show up at the polls on election day. In this installment of our blog series on voter participation, we discuss the arguments for and against compulsory voting.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">In most democracies being able to vote is a hard-won civic right. However, in some countries voting is deemed a civic duty which must be carried out. The degree to which compulsory voting is enforced varies from country to country, with sanctions imposed on non-voters in some parts of the world. <\/span><\/p>\n<h4 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Arguments For Mandatory\u00a0Voting<\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The main argument for adopting a compulsory voting system is the boost it gives to voter turnout. Advocates point to waning voter turnout figures and see mandatory voting as the answer. It\u2019s pretty hard to argue with the raw data. The 2016 national election in Australia, where voting is mandatory, recorded a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aec.gov.au\/Elections\/Federal_Elections\/2016\/key-facts.htm\" target=\"_blank\">participation rate of 95%<\/a>. This is a far step from the 2016 US presidential election which saw <a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2016\/11\/11\/politics\/popular-vote-turnout-2016\/\" target=\"_blank\">just 55%<\/a> of voters turn out. It\u2019s no wonder then that former President Barack Obama described a shift to mandatory voting in the US as being potentially \u201ctransformative\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Such low turnout rates call into question the legitimacy of the entire political system. After all, what right does an elected leader have to govern if most of the electorate didn\u2019t vote for them? Surely in a democracy that is truly governed by and for the people, everyone should have their say in elections. Compulsory voting is therefore viewed by advocates as enhancing democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Other benefits that have been associated with mandatory voting include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">providing a political education and a more well-informed electorate<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">the elected body will more accurately reflect the will of the entire electorate<\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">it forces governments to take account of the entire electorate when formulating policies<\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">election campaigners can focus on policy issues rather than wasting their resources on encouraging participation in the election<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Arguments Against Mandatory\u00a0Voting<\/span><\/h4>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">On the other hand, opponents of mandatory voting insist that the policy goes against the fundamental democratic notion of freedom. Informed by libertarian thought, the act of forcing people to vote is seen as an undemocratic infringement on personal liberty. From this perspective, the democratic legitimacy of governments elected under compulsory voting comes into question. Proponents of this view argue that higher voter turnout doesn\u2019t add any democratic weight to elections if it is forced upon voters against their will.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Other negative consequences which have been linked to compulsory voting include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">it causes an increase in the proportion of invalid votes and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/electoral-research\/election-terms\">donkey votes<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">ill-informed and politically apathetic citizens shouldn\u2019t be forced to vote<\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">increasing the number of \u201csafe\u201d electorates, meaning political parties only focus their energies on marginal seats<\/li>\n<li class=\"p1\">the cost of enforcing compulsory voting can place an unjustified burden on public finances in poorer countries<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Next week we continue our blog series on voter participation taking a look at education and registration. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mandatory\u00a0voting is a much-debated topic whenever elections roll around. There are a number of countries around the world that require their citizens to show up at the polls on election day. In this installment of our blog series on voter participation, we discuss the arguments for and against compulsory voting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":274,"featured_media":4942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","ub_ctt_via":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[88],"tags":[840,797,1446,1444,1401],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Voting-Age.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Charles Harding","author_link":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/author\/c-harding"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Voter Participation: For and Against Mandatory Voting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mandatory voting is often debated in the lead up to elections. 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However, a relative low number of citizens use this method of influencing politics directly. Previous referendums have had a voter turnout of around 30%.\u00a0That is why the Swiss, as well as other countries, are thinking about introducing compulsory\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Voter-turnout&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Compulsory Voting: Pro and Con","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/compulsory-voting.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3827,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/increasing-voter-turnout\/compulsory-voting-foreign-countries","url_meta":{"origin":5017,"position":1},"title":"Compulsory Voting in Foreign Countries: Only in Authoritarian States?","date":"11\/12\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"In Germany, voting is a right which citizens can refuse to exercise. However, in other countries, it is compulsory. In the second part of our series, we present these countries and explain the consequences on society. There are currently 30 countries worldwide where voting is compulsory. These include Brazil, Turkey,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Voter-turnout&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3823,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/increasing-voter-turnout\/compulsory-voting-start-of-new-series","url_meta":{"origin":5017,"position":2},"title":"Compulsory Voting: The Start of our New Series","date":"06\/12\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Many years citizens have fought for suffrage - and still do. Suffrage is one of the highest commodities in democracy. A commodity, which many citizens see as natural. Therefore, some countries introduced compulsory voting, in some it is discussed. An example is Switzerland, which is on the one hand admired\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Voter-turnout&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5072,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/increasing-voter-turnout\/online-voting-political-elections","url_meta":{"origin":5017,"position":3},"title":"Voter Participation: Online Voting in Political Elections","date":"31\/05\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Voter participation and political engagement make up the lifeblood of our democracies. A general lack of participation can call into question the very legitimacy of our leaders and the decisions they make. Throughout this blog series on voter participation, we've looked at lowering the voting age, mandatory voting, as well\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Voter-turnout&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Online Voting Political Elections","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Voting-Age.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3533,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/increasing-voter-turnout\/non-voters-voter-turnout","url_meta":{"origin":5017,"position":4},"title":"Non-Voters: How Can you Increase Voter Turnout?","date":"27\/10\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Many studies have attempted\u00a0to find out who the non-voters are and what motivates them. All this information is gathered in order to find a solution to increase voter turnout. There is no ultimate solution for a high voter turnout. In Germany, for example, voters have the right to vote and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Voter-turnout&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"non-voters: part of democracy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/SeriesNonVoters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4939,"url":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/en\/increasing-voter-turnout\/lowering-voting-age","url_meta":{"origin":5017,"position":5},"title":"Voter Participation: The Case for Lowering the Voting Age","date":"03\/05\/2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Voter participation is the backbone of democracy. It gives leaders and governments the legitimacy they require in order to make policy decisions. On the flip side, when voters stay away from the polls, the foundation of democracy itself is eroded. In our next blog series, we cast our eye over\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Voter-turnout&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"Online Voting Political Elections","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Voting-Age.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5017"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5022,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5017\/revisions\/5022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.polyas.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}