By L.F. Brown
2 September 2004
As polls show support for the Australian Democrats at around 1%, they are hitting back, labelling themselves as "The Lie Detectors," a catchy new name for their long standing self-described identity as the party that will "keep the bastards honest." One of their hopes is that those who usually vote for the major parties at the House of Representatives level, but are disillusioned enough with them to vote for another party in the Senate as some kind of insurance policy, will cast these votes for the Australian Democrats.
In time for the election campaign, which culminates in the October 9 general election, they have released an issue sheet booklet. One of the issues is Australia's system of compulsory voting. Let's take a look:
"The Australian Democrats fully support the practice of compulsory voting and oppose any proposal to introduce voluntary voting in Australia. Compulsory voting is an essential element of the democratic process and it has, since 1924, been the accepted practice in all Australian State and Federal Parliamentary elections. As a result, voter turnout increased from 57.9% in 1925 to 91.3% in 1992 and has not fallen below 90% since that time."
What this brief history of compulsory voting in Australia doesn’t mention is that there was almost no debate over its introduction and that it was rushed through both Houses of Parliament. But anyway.
Compulsory voting and participatory democracy
"Voting is a means of participating in the political process uniquely accessible to the largest number of citizens and for many, represents the only way they believe they can influence what the government does. Removing the obligation to vote is not simply a matter of freeing people from the performance of a duty. It represents a devaluing of the act of voting by the government and a corresponding devaluing of the peoples' role in the system of government."
If for the “many” voting “represents the only way they believe they can influence what the government does,” then surely they will go and vote if they feel this way?
But what of those who are not part of the “many”? Perhaps anticipating this question, we suddenly have a switch in tone and language. From a generally accepted belief, we go straight into talk of an “obligation” and “performance of a duty.”
"Compulsory voting helps to ensure the expression of choice at least by a majority of voters and to guard against the opportunities for improper or illegal electoral practices, such as multiple voting or bribing voters."
Never mind that New Zealand, where voting is voluntary, is nowhere close to dropping to a 50% participation rate. But more importantly, compelling someone to express a “choice” is just plain contradictory.
And how forcing someone to vote is going to restrict improper electoral practices is not elaborated on. Surely the electoral roll would be maintained as usual, except that no one is punished for not voting? How the chances of multiple voting occurring could be any different than under compulsory voting is not made clear.
As for bribery, if someone under voluntary voting doesn’t want to vote he/she is not punished. And if he/she wants to throw their vote, how can it be prevented? Under compulsory voting, if someone doesn’t want to vote he/she is punished, increasing the incentive to go to the polls to avoid the punishment and perhaps, once there, spoiling the ballot paper; or even taking money to throw his/her vote to make the trip worthwhile, it again being unpreventable.
Arguments for compulsory voting
"Voting is a civic responsibility of citizens in a democratic society. Each citizen must take responsibility for who governs them and how they are governed"
What is basically being said is that citizens are little kids. That most are able to raise families, go to work and live fairly good lives is one thing. But when it comes to elections, they wouldn’t know responsibility if it hit them in the head; so much for consent of the governed. And the irony is that when our political parents go off to work they are the ones who act like children.
"Compulsory voting ensures the expression of choice by all those eligible to vote and ensures, as far as possible, that parliaments are elected according to the will of all its citizens"
Surely it is up to “all those eligible to vote” to make the choice. What if the will of some of the citizens is to not vote for any political party or candidate to go forth to Parliament? And if a threat is involved, how can it be someone’s “will”? Or is the collective will more important than the individual will?
"Compulsory voting helps legitimise the electoral process and the parliaments chosen by it"
The political parties are the ones being legitimised, through coercion. Duress can in no way bring about authenticity.
"Social and political cohesion is promoted and alienation from the political process by the disadvantaged is diminished"
Obedience to the institution of government is the only thing being “promoted” here. What this is saying is that people cannot get along unless the State helps them do it, by force if necessary. And how exactly does forcing the “disadvantaged” (whoever they may be referring to here) to go along and vote, diminish their “alienation”? In fact, the “alienation” will probably only be exacerbated.
There is obviously a reason for this alienation. Yet how can forcing these particular people to go along and put crosses in boxes on a piece of paper do anything for them? They will walk away and nothing will have been done to address their alienation unless their disadvantaged situation has actually been addressed. And how do they know if people are feeling alienated anyway? How will forced participation reveal this?
If their situation has not improved, in a few years time there they will be again, at the ballot box, more alienated, because the likes of the Democrats promised them that things would be better by merely checking some boxes on a piece of paper and thus making them feel involved.
"Citizens develop a sense of ownership of the political and decision-making process"
How one develops a sense of ownership by being forced to be part of something is not explained.
"Compulsory voting contributes to civic education and the entrenchment of civic values"
"Civic" in this case is merely code for the State. What exactly these “civic values” are is not explained. As for “civic education,” the only lessons that can be drawn from this is that the State is to be obeyed and feared.
"Election campaigns focus on the issues and choices before the voters rather than concentrating on mechanisms to get people to the polls"
It is issues and choices that should be getting people to the polls.
"Compulsory voting diminishes the opportunities for the exercise of corrupt, illegal and improper practices during elections"
How it does this is not explained, although I attempted to address this earlier. And anyway, just because the politicians are unable to clean up their own electoral processes, why should the burden for this be shifted onto citizens who don’t want any part of the electoral process or at least want the choice whether to be involved or not? This implies that it is the fault of the citizen who wishes not to vote that improper practices occur and that the citizen concerned should be forced to do the government’s job for them.
"The involvement of all citizens in an election provides some protection against domination by minority interest groups, the economically powerful and other elites."
The only domination going on is between those who use force and coercion, and those who don’t. The former is certainly the State, and the latter are freedom loving individuals and those who they choose to voluntarily co-operate with.
Compulsory voting and individual liberty
"24 countries (17% of all democracies) with a total population of 606 million people (15% of the total democratic population worldwide) are partly or fully compulsory voting democracies."
These facts and figures were incongruously included at the end of the section on "Compulsory voting and individual liberty." They should have just left them out. If compulsory voting is “an essential element of the democratic process,” why would, according to their figures, only 17% of democratic countries (with 15% of the total democratic population worldwide) have it? 83% of democratic countries and 85% of their populations therefore do not have it. It seems rather inessential.
"Voting is a positive duty owed by each citizen to the rest of society arising out of the profound political and social significance it wields."
The only duty here is to the political parties. Making voting voluntary affects no other citizen in the rest of society, as it does not take away the right of other citizens to vote.
"It is argued that compulsion to exercise a right to vote infringes individual liberty. However, it is integral to our system of democracy that citizens possess and exercise both rights and responsibilities. The compulsion to vote is not unique. Other citizenship responsibilities accepted by governments and citizens include jury duty, giving evidence in court proceedings, compulsory education and payment of taxes. The compulsion to vote cannot be considered an unusual or especially onerous requirement of citizens. In the same way that the payment of taxes is accepted as a sacrifice citizens must make to obtain various social benefits provided by a democratic system of government, the obligation to vote is accepted as a necessary duty citizens must fulfill in order to maintain our system of democracy and the benefits that flow from it."
They are correct on one point here. The payment of taxes and the like is certainly accepted by governments. Yet if all of the above were “accepted” by citizens, and was not considered “unusual and “especially onerous,” why would there by any need for them to be compulsory?
If they are so confident that these so-called responsibilities are accepted, make them voluntary and let us see what happens. Clearly this is not going to happen and the reasons for this are very clear. Their whole argument would collapse like a rickety chair that had these politicians’ superannuation packages dropped on it.
All this condescending prattle that is enumerated in their platform is designed to conceal the fact that they have no respect for the individual and feel that citizens are so stupid and frail that they need government to control and legitimise their lives. Note how they admit that there is an argument that ”compulsion to exercise a right to vote infringes individual liberty” but then quickly dismiss it, without elaborating on it.
Individual liberty, an essential foundation of a free society, is instead treated as if it is some kind of old-fashioned, obscure “thing” that is irritatingly brought up, to be immediately dismissed and overridden by the collective. This is followed by talk of “rights” (read: duties to the State) and “responsibilities” (read: you know to whom).
In a free society, one has responsibilities to account for your own actions, respect the choices, property and freedom of others; not the State. A free society is a lot more important than what some politicians want for us, backed up by force. I’d like to see an issue paper of the Democrats answer that.
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