In Country A, voting is compulsory. Or, well, what the law really stipulates is that, on Election Day, everyone must show up to the polling location, get a ballot, and deposit the ballot in the box. You don’t have to actually mark it, but at the very least you have to go through the motions. (Let’s say there are measures in place to keep track of all this, while also ensuring privacy.) If you fail to go through the motions, you can be fined. If you don’t pay your fines, you may go to jail.
In Country U, a person votes only if he or she chooses.
Which system is more “democratic”?
Which system do you prefer, and why? (Optional: Indicate if you’re from an A-like nation, a U-like nation, or some other-like nation.)
Well, country A will probably get a lot of random votes. I voted as soon as I could without understanding a thing about Canadian politics or the parties involved. I was never taught about them in schools, and everything in the paper seemed complicated and boring. I wish there had been a dumbed-down summary of all the leader’s views on a variety of topics on one handy page. Anyway, I was the only one among my of-age friends who voted. had they all been forced to, my guess is that either prostitutes or potheads would be in charge right now.
Well according to my AP guv’ment teacher, and I tend to agree, that the reason that becoming a registered voter is somewhat complicated (and probably a roadblock to online voting, which in my idea is the worst idea ever) is that ideally you dont want people voting who dont care. You want the educated, concerned citizens voting. Id imagine this was part of the justification for having a “property owning” requirement in the original enfranchisement, you want only the people with an actual economic, physical stake in the country voting since the other people dont really own a part of the country.
For these reason, I really dislike the idea of compulsory voting. It doesnt bother me so much that voting rates are low, rather that people are apathetic. Id rather have 25% of people voting cause they care then 100% when 75% didnt care and dont know what they are voting for.
BTW it was partially through compulsory voting that the guy who ran as a joke got elected to student council, then again I dont think more than 5 people cared…
I’m against compusory voting because it’s true that some people simply don’t care. They’ll decide based upon whether they like the name of a guy rather than his pollitical views.
If one guy has a name which hasn’t been flashed around as much because he doesn’t have as much cash to spend but he has a great plan he will win in a compulsory vote.
The votes of the people who care will be outnumbered by those of the people who don’t care, which could very probably hurt the people who don’t care along with those who do.
As for which country would constitute more of a “democracy,” both would, technically, since all you need is democratically elected officials to constitute as much. The country in the first instance, however, would not be considered a democracy in the sense of being a “liberal constitutional democracy.” This is the very problem political science junkies are having with developing nations…which comes first, democratic elections or the trappings of a liberal constitutional republic?
An effective democracy, IMO, can seperate those with power with the public just enough not to be subject to the general stupidity and whimsicallness about specific issues while at the same time harnessing that “whimsicallness” to maintain steady transitions that reflect large scale transformaitons within.
Having lived and voted under the both systems mentioned, I will take voluntary voting any day.
At best, compulsory voting in a “free” country is an oxymoron. At worst, it is a government sleight-of-hand to perpetuate itself on the backs of the electorate – or more accurately IMHO, the bureaucracy’s and/or polititical parties desire for power and control (and corruption) while the voters are made to “think” they have the power and control.
Pishposh. Everyone who has to follow the laws has an interest in deciding what those laws are, and how they’re enforced - remember “No taxation without representation?”
As to the OP, I believe the freedom not to care who’s elected is at least as important as the freedom to burn flags or worship trees. “Country A” isn’t any less democratic, but its citizens are slightly less free.
If a voter doesn’t care enough (and thus hasn’t researched enough) to make an informed decision, then a forced vote is no better than no vote at all; why make him go through the motions of voting when you know his vote will be worthless anyway?
I agree: not owning property is not the same thing as not being affected by laws or even having to pay taxes to fund the government’s operations.
Personally, when voter turnout is low, I there is a much more plausible hypothesis as to why: things are otherwise good enough that people don’t feel that voting is necessary, because they’ll be okay regardless of who wins or what minor policy changes are enacted. It’s not worth it to them to vote. And that’s okay.
However, I do think we should have voting day be a national holiday. It’s ridiculous that it’s not a special holiday when all sorts of other totally inconsequential days are federal holidays (who the hell cares which day a famous person had a birthday? What relevance is THAT to anyone?).
I’m curious whether those who live in nations where voting is not compulsory think that the day of the week on which elections are held has any impact on voter turnout.
Here, elections (whether local government, state, or federal) are always conducted on a Saturday and the polls are open from 8am to 8pm. Polling booths are generally set up at local schools; pre-poll voting is available for those who will be unable to attend a polling booth on the day, and transport to the polling place can be arranged.
There are strict regulations relating to the handing out of how to vote cards at polling booths and about conducting exit polls.
Would any of these factors influence your decision on whether or not to vote?
Does the fact that people in the US vote for a president and a vice-president who will maintain power for their full term of office barring something unforeseen and catastrophic affect your decision on whether or not to vote?
I’m somewhat disagree with the idea that it’ s necessarily better when only people who really care vote. Because I think there are actually four categories of non-voters :
Apathetic clueless citizens, who would vote for somebody at random depending on the candidate haircut. It’s better for everybody that these ones stay home, I agree.
Citizens who are rather satisfied with the status-quo, the main parties alternating in power, without strong feeling towards one side or the other. These are a significant part of the population. By making them voting, you get a better picture of the public opinion, because when vote is not mandatory, people who vote aren’t only the most informed and interested people, but also in a large part the most opinionated people. It tends to polarize the election and to give more weight than they should have to the more extremist voters.
3)Disgruntled citizens who dislike all the candidates/parties, distrust all politicians, etc…Whether vote is mandatory or not is unimportant in this case, since they would put a ballot without mark (or with insults or whatever comment on them, as it’s sometimes the case)
4)The rare case of citizens who refuse to vote for political reasons. For instance anarchists or royalists (yes, there still are some people holding for an absolute monarchy here). It’s the existence of this category which makes me think voting shouldn’t be mandatory, since you shouldn’t have to participate in a process you dissaprove (a little like consciencious objectors and military service). On the other hand, they’re such a little minority that this argument isn’t very pragmatical.
By the way I live in a “U” country where turn-up used to be very high, but has been very significantly dwinkling during the recent years, so it’s becoming a problem.
And by the way, the recent french presidential election was a good example of my point 2). Plenty of people (especially young people) were stating during the following days that had they guessed the right-extremist Le Pen would make it to the final round of the election, they would have voted (and then they participated in street protests which would have been unecessary if they have bothered to vote at the first place).
In this case, the (relatively) low turn up obviously favored the extremes (at the other end of the spectrum, trotskysts candidates got a large chunk of the votes too), and most of the non voters, though rather indifferent were nevertheless interested enough to know they would have wanted to exclude these extremes. With a mandatory vote, they would have chosen (perhaps even rather randomly) one of the mainstream candidates, and this would have resulted in a better picture of the real opinion of the population.
In answer to reprise:
In the US, elections are held on Tuesdays and I think the polls are supposed to be open from 7 am to 7 pm and employers are required to give you time off to vote if those hours conflict with your working hours. The polling places I’ve been assigned to have been local schools or libraries. There are regulations which ban campaigning within a certain distance of the polling place. On the other hand, one rainy Tuesday, there were people handing out leaflets at the door. If you’re going to be out of town on election day, you can request an absentee ballot in advance. During the last presidential election, there was a pretty big flap about these, as well, IIRC.
As far as being stuck with the people we’ve voted for for 4 years, I’m an independent. The odds of one of my candidates winning tend to be slim to none, although I suspect it would make Libertarian happy if one did. Since the president has to deal with Congress and the entire House of Representatives is up for election every 2 years, as is 1/3 of the Senate (6 year terms), I’d argue that we do have a certain sort of mid-term referendum.
I vote because I’m a political junkie and I love arguing politics. Also, as a naturalized US citizen, I had to put up with several months of bureaucratic hassle for the privilege. From what I know of people who don’t vote (not much, I admit), if they were forced to, they’d probably vote a straight party ticket thus reinforcing the stranglehold the Republicans and Democrats have on US politics. Also, they’d complain more, but not pay more attention, and the negative campaigning we have now would look like a tea party by comparison!
Thanks CJ. One thing I find most perplexing here is how much the people who don’t vote complain about the policies of whichever party gets in to power.
I’ve voted because I want a specific party to get into power. I’ve voted in order to prevent a certain party getting into power. At present, I don’t particularly like the policies of either of the two major parties so I tend to vote minor party or independent with the balance of power in mind.
While it’s true that no matter who you vote for at Federal level here ATM you’re gonna be eating political shit for the next term of office, you can be damned sure that on such a restricted political diet the one thing I’m not going to willingly surrender is my right to choose what flabour.
Here in Texas, “absentee” voting has been expanded to the point where I almost never vote on Election Day itself- I don’t have to! For several weeks before Election Day, I have opportunities to vote at malls, supermarkets, state office buildings, et al.
So, here in Texas, at least, NOBODY can legitimately claim that voting is too difficult, or that he doesn’t have time to vote. It’s easy to vote here, it’s never been easier.
And yet, voter turnout continues to dwindle, almost every election.
I don’t object to the expanded time for elections- heck, it’s made life much easier for me, so for the sake of my own convenience, I’m all for it. But the whole affair has confirmed my gut feeling: people may choose not to vote for many reasons, but none of the proposed measures to increase voter turnout is ever likely to work. If voting is important to people, they’ll do it even if it’s difficult and time-consuming. If voting ISN’T important to people, they won’t vote no matter how simple and convenient you make it.
Would you have any data to back up this opinion, ‘cause it’s demonstrably not true in the case of Australia. Donkey voting runs at 1-2%, significantly less than informal votes of 3-5%. I am not aware that this runs significantly higher than instances of incorrectly cast votes in other electoral system. We won’t mention chads.
I’m confused, are you saying this is a bad thing and you’d prefer elections to be won by the candidate who spends the most money? Isn’t that the old Willy Loman line “We should have bought the well advertised brand”?
There is a conflict in the notion of liberal democracy, specifically between the elements of representational democracy and civil rights. A true liberal democracy cannot be a full majority system. Of course, this is independent of whether voting is compulsory or not.
Duckster Any chance of you finding another forum to grind your axe? Your continual misrepresentations are becoming a crashing bore.
Stop me if I’m being stupid, but in U-style country, wouldn’t vocal minorities with rather strong veiwpoints get greater representation? I mean, you’d expect all the members of the Vegetable Rights and Peace Party or Kill a Jew For Jesus Party to have strongly held views. They’d be the ones who’d actually get off their arses to vote.
Also, IIRC, a donkey vote is one where the voter just numbers the candidates 1,2,3… straight down the page, regardless of who they’re voting for.
In addition to the Electoral Commission’s staff, candidates provide scrutineers who screen each vote from each polling booth. The magor party scrutineers do much more than simply watch the count. They are the real engine room politics on elector night. The information they gather about voting and preference trends is of very high accuracy and timeliness.
[aside] To locals, one of the more incredulous aspects of the US 2000 election was Gore’s original move to concede defeat, apparently based on the network TV electoral analysts opinion. Here the leaders turn first and last to their own “numbers men” who are in constant contact with the scrutineers. They don’t pay much attention to the main board of the tallyroom. [/aside]
As to counting donkey votes, well obviously if there are only two candidates it’s not possible. Once there are minor or novelty candidates on the ballot, particularly if they are drawn high on the paper, it can be noticed. Also the closeness of the order of voting for magor party candidates.
The scrutineers have a detailed knowledge of previous voting trends and if there is a variance they can identify the trends during the count and quantify it soon after.