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Assessing Objections to Compulsory Voting in Australia

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A Century of Compulsory Voting in Australia

Part of the book series: Elections, Voting, Technology ((EVT))

Abstract

This chapter considers several objections to compulsory in Australia: that compulsory voting unacceptably abridges individual liberty; that it is unnecessary for high electoral turnout; that it is undemocratic; that it violates the ‘right not to vote’; that it has a detrimental effect upon the behaviour and composition of Australia’s political parties; and that it mobilises large numbers of disengaged citizens, with negative consequences for Australian democracy. The chapter provides a critical assessment of these objections and concludes that none of them comes anywhere close to showing that compulsory voting in Australia ought to be repealed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Minchin’s views are echoed by some in the scholarly literature. See e.g. Ciccone (2002, pp. 347–350), Swenson (2007, pp. 536–537), and Saunders (2017, 2018).

  2. 2.

    Some proponents of compulsory voting have sought to respond to this line of objection by appeal to non-standard conceptions of liberty. See esp. Lardy (2004), Hill (2014, pp. 190–191), and Elliott (2017). For a critique of these arguments, see Umbers (Unpublished MS).

  3. 3.

    Moreover, as Bonotti (in this volume) points out, compulsory voting may also help ensure that officials offer appropriate public justification for other liberty-abridging policies.

  4. 4.

    Many studies have found similar results. See e.g. Husted and Kenny (1997), Aidt and Dallal (2008), and Abou-Chadi and Orlowski (2015).

  5. 5.

    This evidence also constitutes a powerful riposte to the charge that compulsory voting leads political parties to be less responsive to the worse-off (see e.g. Barry 2013, p. 39).

  6. 6.

    Many studies have found similar results. See e.g. O’Toole and Stroble (1995), Mueller and Stratmann (2003), Bechtel et al. (2016), and Carey and Horiuchi (2017).

  7. 7.

    Others have argued that the wrongness of free-riding lends support to compulsory voting for other reasons (see esp. Wertheimer 1975; Lijphart 1997, p. 11; Engelen 2007, p. 32).

  8. 8.

    It is also worth noting that, in at least some cases, the abolition of compulsory voting has been associated with a steep decline in electoral participation. In 1988, for example, turnout in national elections in Venezuela was 81.7%. Penalties for abstention were abolished for the subsequent 1993 election, at which turnout was around 60% (Birch 2009, p. 88).

  9. 9.

    It is worth noting that liberty-based accounts of the value of democracy are highly controversial. See esp. Christiano (1996, pp. 15–46).

  10. 10.

    Interestingly, Lacroix (2007) has argued that compulsory voting is compatible with individual liberty on the grounds that political participation is necessary for citizens to enjoy positive freedom. For a powerful critique of this argument, see Brennan (2014, pp. 66–69).

  11. 11.

    See Umbers (2020b) for an overview.

  12. 12.

    This line of argument is echoed in other scholarly pieces critical of compulsory voting, more generally. See, for example, Blomberg (1995, p. 1023); Ciccone (2002, pp. 347–348); Lever (2010, p. 911).

  13. 13.

    Of course, for some citizens $20 may constitute a non-trivial sum of money. There are obvious reforms that would address this issue—e.g. making the fine proportional to citizens’ levels of income and wealth.

  14. 14.

    Though, of course, some political theorists have argued that such arrangements are, indeed, unjust. See esp. Nozick (1974). I think that there are powerful reasons to be sceptical of such arguments—though I cannot explore the issue in depth here.

  15. 15.

    See Engelen (2009, p. 220) for a similar response.

  16. 16.

    See e.g. JSCEM (1997, pp. 25–26).

  17. 17.

    Indeed, it is often argued that this at least partially explains why the major parties in Australia adopted compulsory voting in the first place. See e.g. Miragliotta et al. (2013, p. 147).

  18. 18.

    Others have voiced similar concerns. Don Aitkin (1982, p. 283), for instance, writes that ‘[s]ince the introduction of compulsory voting in 1924 the parties have ceased to regard the building of membership as a vital party function’.

  19. 19.

    Though there is, of course, a large literature on ‘distributive politics’, insights from which might plausibly be brought to bear on this question. For an overview, see Golden and Min (2013).

  20. 20.

    See also Gordon and Segura (1997); Berggren (2001); Shineman (2012, 2018‚ Forthcoming); Carreras (2016); Córdova and Rangel (2017).

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  1. University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia

    Lachlan Montgomery Umbers

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Correspondence to Lachlan Montgomery Umbers .

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  1. Politics and International Relations, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Matteo Bonotti

  2. Politics and International Relations, Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia

    Paul Strangio

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Umbers, L.M. (2021). Assessing Objections to Compulsory Voting in Australia. In: Bonotti, M., Strangio, P. (eds) A Century of Compulsory Voting in Australia. Elections, Voting, Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4025-1_4

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