THE 2005 GENERAL ELECTION AND THE 'NULL MP': A NEW APPROACH TO ELECTORAL REFORM -super-1 (original) (raw)
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Democratic Choice, Legitimacy and the Case Against Compulsory Voting
Public Policy Review responses, Sept. 2009
In the last issue of Public Policy Review Sarah Birch argued that Britain should make voting compulsory, and that the law should actively enforce legal duties to turnout at elections. She argues that ‘governments need to have democratic legitimacy to pull countries through difficult times’, and that low turnout threatens that legitimacy. Moreover, she claims, ‘economic stress exacerbates perceptions of social inequality’, and suggests that if alienated groups do not see Parliament as a means to improve their lot, they will turn to extra-parliamentary ways of doing so. These arguments rest an enormous weight on high levels of voting at elections, and overlook the fact that if enough people vote for the opposition, high turnout may undermine, rather than enhance, the legitimacy of a government. Fortunately, the crux of Birch’s argument is that commitments to political fairness, social fairness and procedural fairness require Britain to adopt mandatory voting, and these look more plausible. Nonetheless, as we will see, they fail to justify compulsory voting or turnout.
On the Justifiability of Compulsory Voting: Reply to Lever
British Journal of Political Science, 2010
Annabelle Lever's thought-provoking article rests on three broad claims that I dispute, partly on conceptual and partly on empirical grounds. Her first claim is that low and declining turnout is not especially worrying. This encompasses the implication that socioeconomic disparities in turnout are not significant and the claims that high turnout does not confer greater legitimacy on the outcome of elections and that abstention connotes consent and even participation. Her second claim is that there is nothing special about voting as a means for self-government. This encompasses the suggestion that 'the consequences of voting are too uncertain for voting to be a necessary implication of our duties'. Her third claim is that 'voluntary political participation' is a defining value of democracy that is 'undercut' by requiring people to vote. This encompasses the claim that the harms of failure to vote do not justify compelling people to vote and the assumption that there exists a 'right' not to vote. 1 I address each of these arguments in turn.
compulsory voting: a critical perspective
British Journal of Political Science 40.4 (2010) 897-915
Should voting be compulsory? This question has recently gained the attention of political scientists, politicians and philosophers, many of whom believe that countries, like Britain, which have never had compulsion, ought to adopt it. The arguments are a mixture of principle and political calculation, reflecting the idea that compulsory voting is morally right and that it is will prove beneficial. This article casts a sceptical eye on the claims, by emphasizing how complex political morality and strategy can be. Hence, I show, while there are good reasons to worry about voter turnout in established democracies, and to worry about inequalities of turnout as well, the case for compulsory voting is unpersuasive.
2014
Although it is practised fairly widely, the concept of compulsory voting strikes Americans as strange-on an occasion not long ago I mentioned the practice at a meeting of political scientists and was laughed at quite vocally by a senior colleague who insisted there was no such thing. In fact, however, compulsory voting is not only a well-known practice, it is a longstanding part of the Anglo-American discussion about modes of political activity. The arguments in favour of compulsory voting fall into three categories: improved representation of public opinion; benefits of increased levels of participation; and positive effects on the practice of electoral politics. (This last, I should mention, is my own: I have not seen this particular argument mentioned anywhere in the literature). The arguments against compulsory voting fall into two broad categories: that it will result in the wrong people casting votes, or that it infringes on the liberty of free persons to choose not to participate in political decision-making. These are essentially normative arguments-there are also instrumental arguments, such as the concern that compulsory voting will aid one party or one ideological position at the expense of another. It is important at the outset to recognize that compulsory voting and universal participation are overlapping but not necessarily coextensional concepts. Compulsory voting combined with effective enforcement mechanisms may, indeed, yield very high or even near-universal levels of turnout, but high turnout may occur without compulsion or efforts to compel voting may be ineffective. It is important not to conflate a policy of compulsory voting with a utopian assumption about the effects of such a policy in practice. This ticket is divided into three parts. The first part very briefly reviews something of the background of the debate. The second part looks at research on the likely effects of introducing compulsory voting in the United States. And the third part contains some rather unfocused musings about the normative implications of brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Digital Commons @ UM Law
Compulsory Voting: Elections, Not Referendums
Intractable debate about compulsory voting is waged on an axis between the egalitarian-instrumental (it increases turnout) and the libertarian-deontological (there's a right not to vote). Scant attention has been paid to the underlying nature of the voting choice itself.I argue that it is right to compel turnout at elections, but wrong to compel it at referendums. Electoral issues are multifarious, and government is for all: it is right that everyone's voice should be heard equally at election time. Referendums however are typically discrete topics, often of a legal form. It is wrong to demand that all citizens have an opinion on them.
Democracy's duty: The history of political debates on compulsory voting
PhD Dissertation, 2011
My doctoral dissertation examines the political and conceptual arguments on compulsory voting in French, Belgian and Greek parliamentary debates from 1848 onwards. The constitutional, legislative and scholarly discussions under consideration feature a mélange of ideological views and party interests, which bridge the gap between formal political thought and everyday political practice. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (1870-1926), growing electoral abstention, caused partly by the extension of franchise, led to the search of an effective tool of political inclusion. More specifically, compulsory voting was meant to integrate mainly the demotivated conservatives, but also to prevent forced abstention of workers, organized election boycotts and other problems specific to the historical context. Proponents of the reform in the three countries drew on ideas such as the organic principle of voting function, the ideal of 'mirror' representativeness (Belgium), the educative aspects of electoral participation, civic responsibility, political solidarity and the need for parliamentary stability (France), as well as the ancient ideal of participatory self-government (Greece). Opponents, on the other hand, emphasized the involuntary nature of such a binding obligation, their contempt for disinterested citizens and the manipulative potential of such a measure. Moving forward to the late 1990s, contemporary debates have underlined the tension between, on one hand, the individual freedom to abstain and, on the other, the need for democratic inclusiveness and effective equality of voting chances, especially with respect to disadvantaged groups in society. The question of compulsory voting remains a matter of endless political and ideological dispute: from a theoretical point of view it is linked with the inherent liberty-versus-equality paradox of democratic representation, while in practical terms it relates to electoral-system design and partisan interests, which are embedded in their specific political and social contexts.
Is Compulsory Voting Justified
2009
Should voting be compulsory? Many people believe that it should, and that coun- tries, like Britain, which have never had compulsion, ought to adopt it. As is common with such things, the arguments are a mixture of principle and political calculation, reflecting the idea that compulsory voting is morally right and that it is likely to prove politically beneficial. This article casts a sceptical eye on both types of argument. It shows that compulsory voting is gen- erally unjustified although there are good reasons to worry about declining voter turnout in established democracies, and to worry about inequalities of turnout as well.
Democracy and Compulsory Voting
Political Research Quarterly, 2019
In this article I aim to show that compulsory voting cannot be defended on democratic grounds. In pursuing this task, I first offer a generic account of the democratic argument in favour of compulsory voting, drawing on some of the most salient recent defences of a moral duty to vote. I then offer an overarching objection which defeats both the generic form of the democratic argument for compulsory voting and its various operationalizations. The crux of the objection is that the democratic justification of a moral duty to vote is parasitical upon the existence of a moral duty to vote well. This decisively undermines the democratic argument for compulsory voting, since the latter can only be deployed as an enforcement mechanism for a duty to vote, regardless of the substantive content of that vote.