A lesson from Australia where voting is a requirement

A successful democracy is one where people vote and their vote has meaning. In 2008's presidential election, the US voter turnout was about 57%, the highest in 40 years yet much lower than most other democracies in wealthy countries. The fact that Americans don't vote is the number 1 symptom that America's democracy is struggling.

Australia, with its 95% voter turnout, has solved the question of how to get people to vote by making it the law. Yes, you must vote in Australia though about 5% of enrolled voters still skip this obligation resulting in a small fine. Failure to pay the fine can trigger a court hearing.

I am certain that some Americans reading this statement will think, "Choosing to not vote is an expression of my freedom of speech." I'll let the constitutional scholars debate that question knowing that this argument is little more than intellectualized apathy or laziness. Apathy stems from believing that elections aren't important or that their vote won't have any impact. Apathy needs to be addressed in other ways, but requiring people to vote would certainly change the dynamic of politics in America.

The main positive of requiring the vote would be that the government would reflect the voices of the vast majority of Americans rather than skipping the opinion of over 40% of the population. The main negative is that many of those who would now vote solely due to legal obligation will either make uninformed choices or that alternative candidate Mickey Mouse might get elected.

When I teach, some shy students complain that class participation is part of the final grade. I tell them that the rest of the class might benefit from hearing their ideas, but that we don't read minds.

As for compulsory voting in Australia, it has existed for over 80 years without any serious attempt to eliminate it. Maybe that's a good enough reason to give it some consideration here, in the land of over 40% voter no show.

 

 

 

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Comments

[kyc]

02:31 PM on 05/28/2010

Excellent discussion going on here about the Aussie election system. I think with all the discussion about voter turnout (compulsory vs voluntary), one thing that is lost is the preferential voting system itself. Candidates are eliminated one at a time (by lowest vote count) with those votes then redistributed to the voters' next preferences.

I think adopting the preferential system in the US would encourage more voters to show up. In fact, such a system tends to minimize the chances of the most unfavorable candidate. To put it simply, the winner may not necessarily be the most popular candidate, but certainly won't be the most unfavorable candidate. Since the preferential system requires a majority of votes to win, it always ensures that the elected person is not the last choice of the majority of voters (i.e., not "most unfavorable"). However, this person may not have had the most first preference votes (i.e., not "most popular").

[ZeraLee]

11:51 AM on 05/25/2010

The Democrats spend a great deal of effort trying to get people to vote, and the republicans spend a great deal of effort trying to keep people from voting.

We have seen that the level of turnout can affect the outcome of an election. An official pushing for a full turnout would marginalize the fringe, as it should be, but I am not sure that I would trust a republican administration to be non-partisan in this regard.

[Howard Steven Friedman]

11:26 AM on 05/27/2010

ZeraLee I understand your concern but I think any system that tries to maximize the voter turnout is better than one determined by who has the better press agents and internet media plan. If you require everyone to vote then it would be more difficult (but of course not impossible) to have the voter cleansing that was performed in 2000's election. Many major elections have some dirt in them but the more light that is shone on an election the more difficult it will become.

[marcusade]

12:54 AM on 05/25/2010

Being Australian (and having lived and worked in both the US and UK) I find compulsory voting(attendance) a very practical way to ensure a healthy democracy. I feel the state has (and should have) an expectation of it's citizens to participate at least in this very minimal way - otherwise you’re just not a good citizen. Having to attend means we can focus on the issues rather than just getting people motivated to go the polls. There is less chance for fraud and people can't be 'paid' to turn up. There is less chance the extreme views become over represented. We also have proportional representation - something else we do well.

[GHarry]

10:34 PM on 05/24/2010

I'm glad David Horton provided details about how the Australian system works. In America our problem is not low voter turnout, it's that our system is designed to ensure that voters are ignorant and confused about the issues. Campaigning is done mainly with 30-second TV commercials that usually distort or exaggerate. And, most important, our system is dominated by the Democratic and Republican parties, which are arguably two faces of the same establishment. Voters have a choice of Establishment View 1 or Establishment View 2, which leaves many people discouraged and angry. The Tea Party sprang up as a response to this lack of choice and, if it weren't so mean-spirited, its existence would be a good thing. In any case the Tea Party's success so far should prompt a wholesale review -- and eventual overhaul -- of our Tweedledum-Tweedledee election system.

[Howard Steven Friedman]

11:34 AM on 05/27/2010

It seems every 10 years we have a movement of people saying they hate the two party system (Reform party in the 90's, Nader in 2000 election, Tea party now) yet I think that America is unwilling to make fundamental changes to its constitution that are needed to enable more than 2 parties to succeed. On the subject of Australia, they have preferential voting which allows you to rank order your selections. This system allows someone to vote for a third party without thinking that their vote is going to be immediately discarded as it does here.

[David Horton]

10:05 PM on 05/24/2010

Howard, good to see a reference to the Australian electoral system, arguably the best in the world. But Australia doesn't have "compulsory voting" a common misrepresentation (especially by Australia conservatives who want to get rid of it - see http://davidhortonsblog.com/2010/03/25/hands-up/). What it has is compulsory response to an election, what I have described as the equivalent of putting the hand up in class during roll call, to say "Yes miss, here". Most people turn up on the day at the plentiful polling stations, get their name ticked off, and then they can vote or not vote (stuffing a blank or spoiled voting paper into the ballot box). They can also choose to vote (or not) by post, or by turning up in advance at "pre-polling" stations, or have the electoral people come to you (eg in hospital). So what is compulsory is having the opportunity to vote, not the voting itself. You would be stupid to turn up and then not bother to put a number against a name, but there are people who do that either through stupidity or because they theink "a plague on both your houses" and refuse to give anyone their vote.

Thee are many features of the Australian electoral system (an independent electoral commission who runs elections, draws boundaries, counts votes, for example) Americans could well consider.

[Howard Steven Friedman]

11:22 AM on 05/27/2010

David - thank you for the clarification and the excellent article you posted previously. I understand you are distinguishing between "compulsory voting" (where you have to actually cast a ballot) and "compulsory participation in the voting process" (where you have to go to a polling place or make arrangements to have you identified as participating in the voting process but could chose to submit a blank ballot). I think this is a very subtle distinction which hopefully doesn't get called to task too often though I understand you are trying to dissuade the use of the word "compulsory". As you put it, it takes a special person to show up to a polling station and then invalidate their own vote on purpose.

Here's a fascinating historical fact about the 2000 US presidential fiasco: In 2000, DC elector Barbara Lett Simmons decided to abstain, thinking that this would be an effective way to protest DC's lack of voting representation in congress. It didn't swing the election but was a good reminder of the many logical flaws in the Electoral College.

[anelder]

10:00 PM on 05/24/2010

Knowing that only fifty seven percent of eligible voters vote puts a whole new light on polls. Also on the comments one sees in HP.

When they say seventy percent of the people are against something, is that a percentage of those who vote? If not, then we can say that only forty three percent should be listened too. But which forty three? I'm all for saying "if you didn't vote", I dont' want to hear from you. Or asking whether they voted and if not not counting their opinion.

We are truly a nation of phonies. At least forty three percent of us that is.

[Visitant]

10:00 PM on 05/24/2010

It's not actually a requirement to vote in Australia. You do have to attend a polling place and have your name marked off the electoral roll, but you can do what you like with the voting papers.
If you're not happy with any of the candidates, you could draw another box, tick it, and write "none of the above" next to it. Or you could just write nothing on the paper.

Doing this means of course that the vote is rendered informal, and isn't counted, so technically you haven't voted.

[marcusade]

12:39 AM on 05/25/2010

informal votes are looked at (http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/Informal_Voting/) in detail and i think there is a % limit to the number beyond which the election is redone.

[David Horton]

01:04 AM on 05/25/2010

"i think there is a % limit to the number beyond which the election is redone." - not to my knowledge. They do look at "informals" to see if there is a particular problem (eg poor voting information) in a particular electorate, but I have never heard of anything resulting from that. Informals are almost always around 5% or less from memory.