Why Compulsory Voting?
Low turnout in elections is a major problem for democracies, and one that is particularly acute in the UK. Not only does low turnout undermine the legitimacy of elections, but it is in practice unequal turnout, with some groups voting in far greater numbers than others.
Here in the UK, the rich vote more than the poor, the old more than the young, and the secure vote more than the marginalised. This has left us with an unrepresentative electorate – one that is richer, older, and more secure than the UK population as a whole.
This unrepresentative electorate creates bad incentives for politicians, pushing them to disproportionately prioritise the interests of high-turnout demographics. This in turn contributes to high inequality, low economic growth, and rising dissatisfaction with democracy.
The result is a vicious spiral, in which these bad socio-economic outcomes only deepen political disillusionment, further driving down turnout, and so making the incentives for politicians even worse.
We believe that compulsory voting can break this cycle. By making voting a legally-enforced civic duty, we can drastically drive up turnout in elections and all but eliminate turnout inequality.
Our belief is that this will force politicians to pay heed to the interests of those they are currently able to ignore. Our campaign exists to make this argument publicly, and to build a broad consensus in favour of introducing compulsory voting for UK general elections.
FAQ
How does Compulsory Voting work?
Compulsory voting makes it a legal obligation for eligible voters to participate in elections by casting a ballot. It is generally enforced by issuing non-voters with a small fine.
Crucially however, compulsory voting does not mean that voters are obliged to vote for a party: should they choose, they remain fully entitled to cast either a blank or spoiled ballot. In addition, non-voters who can provide a good reason for their failure to vote are generally exempted from having to pay the fine.
Which countries use compulsory voting?
Compulsory voting is currently used in 22 democracies: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Honduras, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Mexico, Nauru, Paraguay, Peru, the Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, and Uruguay. It has previously also been used in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Cyprus, Guatemala, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain and Venezuela.
Where compulsory voting is used, it is applied and enforced to a variety of different extents and through a variety of different mechanisms. The model of compulsory voting most relevant to the UK is that used in Australia, where non-voters are contacted after elections by the electoral commission, and asked to either pay a small fine (AUS$20 – approximately £10) or to provide a valid excuse for their failure to vote. Although only relatively small numbers of people are ever fined, the result of this system is that turnout in Australian elections is typically over 90%.
What evidence is there for the impact of compulsory voting?
First and foremost, compulsory voting has been shown to drastically increase turnout in elections. In Australia for instance, the introduction of compulsory voting saw turnout increase from roughly 60% to roughly 90%, where it has remained ever since.
This higher turnout also has an equalising impact on elections: countries that use compulsory voting see much smaller gaps in turnout levels between demographic groups – such as between rich and poor or between young and old. This in turn has socio-economic implications, since studies find that countries with compulsory voting have lower levels of both income inequality and wealth inequality.
Finally, studies also find that compulsory voting boosts partisanship, trust in institutions, satisfaction with democracy, and voters’ sense of civic duty.
For more information on the evidence for compulsory voting, please see our report.
Wouldn’t compulsory voting be authoritarian?
Some people object that it is authoritarian to force people to vote. But this is a strange argument, since it is widely understood that democratic politics inherently involves some level of coercion, and that living in a liberal democratic society brings with it certain obligations.
In the UK for instance, we already make it compulsory for people to pay taxes, educate their children, register their vehicles, fill in the census, and serve on criminal juries. There is no reason to treat an obligation to vote as something fundamentally different.
Moreover, under compulsory voting there is no obligation to actually vote for any party: all that voters are forced to do is cast a ballot – hardly something that should be considered a major imposition on personal freedom.
Finally, the penalties for compulsory voting tend to be very small – in Australia for instance, the non-voting penalty is roughly a tenth of the average UK parking fine.
What other reforms do you support?
In general, the Campaign for Compulsory Voting takes no official stance on other proposed democratic or electoral reforms. However, we do believe that the introduction of compulsory voting should be accompanied by Automatic Voter Registration (AVR), and the introduction of a “None of the Above” (NOTA) option on the ballot paper.
For more information on how we would envisage compulsory voting being implemented, please see our report.
Where can I read more?
You can download our report, which contains an in-depth discussion of compulsory voting and the issues around it here.
Earlier book-length studies of compulsory voting include:
- Sarah Birch, Full participation: A comparative study of compulsory voting (Manchester University Press 2009)
- Jason Brennan and Lisa Hill, Compulsory Voting: For and Against (Cambridge University Press 2014)
- Anthoula Malkopoulou, The History of Compulsory Voting in Europe: Democracy’s Duty? (Routledge 2014)
