In Australia, we must vote in every federal, state or local election. It’s compulsory to register at the voting booths on election day (you can always put in an invalid ‘protest’ vote if you wish) or you’ll be fined a fairly pissweak amount by the government. Voting, or at least turning up, is a civic responsibility of the individual. So it always frustrates me that the US does not have compulsory voting. One of the arguments in favour of non-compulsory voting really gives me the shits: “If everyone had to vote, that would mean a lot of uninformed people voting in *my* elections!”
This sounds right, because if you’re talking about a civic responsibility of the individual, then surely it is that individual’s civic responsibility to be informed! So, ignoring for a moment the suboptimal level of education in the USA (because voting is also non-compulsory in the UK), is this true? Is the responsibility fully on the side of the individual? I don’t believe so, not for a moment.
Without compulsory voting, and using the US as an example, the “voting market” is well known, deeply researched and intricately analysed. It’s already a politically active market. No surprises. That’s why the media analysis always concentrates on “inactive voters” and “the undecided”. There’s no movement in the market. What’s the problem with that? Well, that means that the political process has no responsibility to the people! It is only responsible to the “voting market”, which is fraught with special interests, is a special interest group unto itself, and not representative of the society at large. The politicians and their spin-meisters have a tiny (30% in the USA) target market to work with. They don’t need to address the entire populace at all. The “voting public” is the “voting market”.
In Australia, politicians and lobby groups must address the entire populace to address the “voting market”. In some cases, that means the complexity of the conversation is scaled down a bit, but it can also scale up. The political process is answerable to everyone, and must address everyone to make an impact. If everyone in the USA had to vote, I believe more people would be annoyed that their third-party votes are wasted. I believe more people would be pushing for a viable multiparty process. I believe more people would be informed because the political process would have to address, and be responsible to, everyone.
Non-compulsory voting perpetuates a lack of responsibility on the part of voters and the political process. It perpetuates the special interests of the “voting market”. It perpetuates a system that is only one political party ahead of a fascist state.
