Compulsory Voting

Leading political theorists Jason Brennan and Lisa Hill debate the drawbacks and benefits of voter turnout.

Compulsory voting has operated in Australia for a century, and remains the best known and arguably the most successful example of the practice globally. By probing that experience from several disciplinary perspectives, this book offers a fresh, up-to-date insight into the development and distinctive functioning of compulsory voting in Australia. By juxtaposing the Australian experience with that of other representative democracies in Europe and North America, the volume also offers a much needed comparative dimension to compulsory voting in Australia. A unifying theme running through this study is the relationship between compulsory voting and democratic well-being. Can we learn anything from Australia’s experience of the practice that is instructive for the development of institutional bulwarks in an era when democratic politics is under pressure globally? Or is Australia’s case sui generis – best understood in the final analysis as an intriguing outlier?

It’s compulsory to vote in Australia. We are one of a handful of countries in the world that enforce this rule at election time, and the only English-speaking country that makes its citizens vote. Not only that, we embrace it. We celebrate compulsory voting with barbeques and cake stalls at polling stations, and election parties that spill over into Sunday morning. But how did this come to be: when and why was voting in Australia made compulsory? How has this affected our politics? And how else is the way we vote different from other democracies? Lively and inspiring, From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage is a landmark account of the character of Australian democracy by the celebrated historian Judith Brett, the prize-winning biographer of Alfred Deakin.

This Element examines citizens' perceptions, their knowledge of the system, and whether they support it. The authors connect this with information on citizens' reported turnout and vote choice to assess who is affected by mandatory voting. Each country has its own set of rules, and most voters are unaware of how they are enforced.

About a quarter of all democracies today legally oblige their citizens to vote, making this an important aspect of electoral systems in many settings. Moreover, numerous commentators and policy-makers in voluntary voting states are coming to view mandatory attendance at the polls as an attractive option in the context of declining turnout. Yet there has been a dearth of analysis of the way in which compulsory voting shapes attitudes, behaviour and outcomes of the political process. This volume fills that gap by providing a comprehensive description, analysis and evaluation of compulsory voting.

Beyond Turnout crafts a new theory that considers the downstream consequences of compulsory voting for both citizens and political parties. This theory is comprehensively tested through data from dozens of countries, with a particular focus on Argentina and Switzerland.

Compulsory voting is widely used in the democratic world, and it is well established that it increases electoral participation. Beyond Turnout: How Compulsory Voting Shapes Citizens and Political Parties assesses the effects of compulsory voting beyond turnout. Singh first summarizes the normative arguments for and against compulsory voting, provides information on its contemporary use, reviews recent events pertaining to its (proposed) adoption and abolition, and provides an extensive account of extant research on its consequences. He then advances a theory that compulsory voting polarizes behavior and attitudes, and broadens gaps in political sophistication levels, among those with negative and positive orientations toward democracy. Recognizing the impact of mandatory voting on the electorate, political parties then alter the ways in which they seek votes, with mainstream parties moderating their platforms and smaller parties taking more extreme positions. Singh uses survey data from countries with compulsory voting to show that support for the requirement to vote is driven by individuals' orientations toward democracy. The theory is then comprehensively tested using: cross-national data; cross-cantonal data from Switzerland; and survey data from Argentina. Empirical results are largely indicative of the theorized process whereby compulsory voting has divergent effects on citizens and political parties. The book concludes with a discussion of future directions for academic research, implications for those who craft electoral policy, and alternative ways of boosting turnout. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.