[EM] compulsory voting

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 12:29 PM 10/17/2005, Chris Benham wrote:
>I'm not sure how well compulsory voting would transplant to other 
>countries. The compulsion element could be viewed negatively 
>compared to the ideal voluntary voting system,but it is vastly 
>better than real-world voluntary voting in places like the US.

This is debatable. The U.S. systems have some severe problems, but 
they are not caused by voluntary voting. There is an increasing trend 
to make voting easy. In most places, you can simply state that you 
can't make it to the polls, and you can then vote by mail. In my 
state, Massachusetts:

*****
I can't get to the polls on election day. Can I vote?

Yes. You may vote by absentee ballot if you:
will be absent from your city or town on election day, and/or
have a physical disability that prevents your voting at the polling 
place, and/or cannot vote at the polls due to religious beliefs.
*****

Now, this may require the voter to file a statement that they (for 
the first case) qualify, I haven't looked at the application. It's an 
unenforceable provision. Some states have no special qualification at 
all, for example, South Dakota, California. Ask and you shall receive.

As a general principle, democracies are not fully democratic to the 
extent that they coerce their citizens. I'm not at all arguing that 
coercion is unnecessary or wrong; but it is not democracy, per se, it 
is the dictatorship of the majority or of whoever is in control. In a 
maximally democratic society, coercion is minimized.

So there should be a good reason for coercion. Requiring all citizens 
to vote, under pain of fine or imprisonment, is obviously coercive. 
Quite clearly, somebody (perhaps a majority now or in the past) 
decided that it was good if everyone voted. For one thing, it will 
help the voter turnout statistics, and everyone knows that higher 
voter turnout is a GOOD THING.

And it is. If it is not coerced. If it is coerced, it means nothing. 
Instead of coercing people, why not simply take steps to improve the 
political process so that people feel empowered by voting; at the 
same time, make it easy to vote. Having to stand in line to vote? 
That's crazy. But it is the norm.

How about this modest proposal? The government pays every voter an 
amount to compensate for their time, at the rate shown by their tax 
returns, or at a minimum rate for those not obligated to file returns.

It would be eminently fair. If voters are performing a public service 
by voting (the compulsory voting laws must assume that they are), 
then it would certainly be reasonable to compensate them. Yes, taxes 
would have to be raised, but the fact is that the public is suffering 
under a hidden tax by being compelled to vote. It is a tax on their time.

But I can tell you that there is no way that this would be accepted 
in most jurisdictions, for an obvious reason: it would actually 
increase the turnout of poor people. Showing up at the polls and 
waiting in line may be easy for some people: the wealthy, and those 
on the dole. But for the working poor, it can be a severe burden.

Some of the burden may already be passed off to employers, perhaps by 
laws requiring that employers pay employees for the time spent voting.

The fact is that most people probably should not be voting directly. 
There really is only one crucial "vote" which should be cast: "Do you 
consent to being governed according to the laws and procedures of the 
commonwealth?"

And it should be possible to cast this vote, as well as all others, 
by proxy. It is done in business, where billions of dollars can be at 
stake. Why not in politics?

As to arguments that proxy voting would not be secret, there is a 
proposal on the EM wiki for election by Delegable Proxy. This 
combines secret ballot with public proxies. However, as I mentioned, 
huge corporations conduct votes by proxy, with billions of dollars at 
stake, more at risk than is at risk in many public elections, until 
you get to a national scale. If secret ballot is not necessary for 
corporations, why is it necessary for public elections? Coercion 
seems to be rare in corporate elections; instead there is bargaining 
and negotiation. But I'll grant that procedures should exist for 
secret assignment of proxies; whether or not it is fully secret or is 
under seal I'll leave for those who put such a system together.

To my mind, democracy is government by *consent* of the people. To 
the extent that the people consent, it is democratic. Coercing people 
into voting is, quite simply, undemocratic. Even if the majority 
approve of the practice.

What is the harm of allowing people not to vote? What if a person 
considers himself unqualified to judge the candidates? "He can simply 
not mark the ballot," it will be said. But then you have coerced this 
person to coming to a room to exercise an act of futility.

The argument will be made that all citizens should be forced to come 
to the polling place, so that there is no difference between rich and 
poor. However, this will not erase the difference between rich and 
poor, it will merely make the poor a little poorer; rather than 
forcing all to come to the polling place, if you are going to require 
voting, why not make it very easy? Absentee voting is a right in many 
states in the U.S. Is it permitted in Australia? If not, why not?

If it is made simple and easy to vote in Australia, as by absentee 
voting, then the element of coercion would be trivial and the gain 
from allowing easy participation on a level playing field would outweigh it.

I live in a Town Meeting town, where much local government is in the 
hands of a Town Meeting, which consists of all registered voters who 
show up. Most don't. Unless something is scheduled -- and warrants, 
they are called, must be scheduled -- which seriously concerns them.

But one problem: if you are a single parent, for example, or ill, 
there is no absentee voting, and this is indeed appropriate, because 
Town Meeting is a deliberative body. So my proposals will hope to 
lead, eventually, to proxy voting at Town Meeting. It's the missing 
piece, an element which, had it been adopted two centuries ago, would 
have saved Town Meeting government, which otherwise became untenable 
as towns grew.








>If voting is voluntary, it is easier to bias the system against poor 
>people (and maybe some other
>groups) by making it more difficult to vote in some areas than in 
>others. If the state compels
>everyone entitled to vote to do so, then it is obliged (or at least 
>under much more pressure) to
>ensure that everyone gets the (realistic) *opportunity* to vote.
>
>Compulsory voting makes "mud-slinging" campaigns less effective 
>because their main effectiveness
>is to reduce the turnout of voters who would have voted for the 
>attacked candidate.
>
>Compulsory voting reduces the advantage of well-resourced candidates 
>because candidates/parties
>don't need to spend money just to convince potential supporters to 
>bother voting.
>(The net effect of this and the previous factor is that as a whole 
>the election is less expensive
>for candidates/parties.)
>
>Because there isn't a big pool of people who are entitled to vote 
>but normally don't, IMO compulsory
>voting makes certain types of electoral fraud more difficult.
>
>If the election is for seats in a legislature, different turnout 
>rates in different districts could
>compromise "one-vote-one-value". If the weather is worse in areas 
>where supporters of party A live
>than in areas where supporters of party B live, then if the worse 
>weather has the effect of reducing
>turnout party A will be unfairly disadvantaged.
>
>Some members of the current Australian government favour abolishing 
>compulsory voting, and recently
>raised that prospect. The Opposition parties have recently lost 
>their majority in the Senate (which
>has a lot of blocking power). It now looks like the government won't 
>try to abolish compulsory voting,
>but they will move to strip the vote from prisoners and to stop a 
>lot of young people from voting by
>closing the electoral rolls as soon as the election is announced.
>
>Left-of-centre Senator Natasha Stott Despoja in a newspaper opinion 
>piece here makes her case for retaining
>compulsory voting:
>
>http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16717614%255E5000423,00.html
>
>(I'll post the text in a separate message).
>
>
>Chris Benham
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