Should voting be compulsory?

ThePrettyDamned

I think an option to say 'none of the above' would allow a strong and useful message to government and increase participation a useful amount without needing to make it compulsory. Maybe idealist.

Nunogilberto

No, because that has a touch of dictatorship about it.

chillidoggy

Of course not. What a ridiculous suggestion.

crunchman

ThePrettyDamned said:

I think an option to say 'none of the above' would allow a strong and useful message to government and increase participation a useful amount without needing to make it compulsory. Maybe idealist.

At the moment, none of the above would almost certainly win by an overwhelming majority and we'd have a constitutional crisis on our hands.

hobbio

Choosing not to vote is a valid choice to make. It's not one I tend to make, but it's valid nonetheless.

Compulsory voting smacks too much of Big Brother for me.

Fretwired

merlin said:

If one believes in Freedom over Democracy, then there is no need to make voting mandatory. However, if one believes that Democracy can only be achieved if 100% of those eligible to vote do so, and one wants true Democracy, then it ought to be mandatory. 

Why? If there are 100 voters and 20 can't be arsed then democracy is still served by the other 80 voting.

If the 20 that can't arsed believe they have nothing to vote for then you have a different argument - that's why the Swiss have referendums. And they haven't turned into a bunch of rabid Nazis either.

Heartfeltdawn

Voting should not be compulsory whilst our ballot papers have no formal option for abstaining/none of the above. An MP can abstain in a Commons vote: the electorate deserve the same right. 

Obviously Australia is mentioned with their compulsory voting system. The turnout for Australia is high for registered voters but there is at least 10% of the country who are not registered voters and recent figures suggest that this number is increasing. 

Rocker

I don't believe that voting should be compulsory.  Rather inform people that lives were lost, wars were fought and suffragettes died to obtain the right to vote.

What could be changed is the method of voting.  First Past The Post is probably the worst election system imaginable. FPTP guarantees that a significant number of voters will be without representation in Parliament/Council etc.  Proportional Representation or PR is the only system that ensure that all or nearly all shades of opinion are elected.  PR is cumbersome and takes a long time to count so no declarations by 1.00 am, a few hours after the polls close.

FPTP is the only way that Referendums can be decided. 

snakemanStoo

I've said for years it should be with a "None of the above" option.

ICBM

Yes. It's a civic duty in my opinion.

Too many people have forgotten the struggles needed to gain universal votes, and don't respect it even if you remind them. It's actually more important at lower levels than national elections, in fact - turnout for these is often well under 50%, which allows one-party-state councils to develop more easily since they tend to be dominated by small highly-motivated groups who can get their vote out.

There does need to be a clear method of refusing to vote for any of the candidates, you can either have an official 'none of the above' box or simply put a line through all the boxes which you can already do now.

I'm also strongly in favour of some form of PR, and the one that looks best to me is STV. I'm not hugely keen on the constituency+party list system.

Snap

tricky question.

IMO, voting is a privilege, and one that we take far too lightly, BUT, and its a big but, coercing people into exercising the vote is again IMO, infriging on liberties.

Its one thing passing laws to prevent and regulate behaviours, but to force actions, a step too far.

Heartfeltdawn

Rocker said:

PR is cumbersome and takes a long time to count so no declarations by 1.00 am, a few hours after the polls close.

When I did the Bristol mayoral election in May, the voting was held on a Thursday and the mayoral count came on Saturday. Some of the bitching about the time taken to count was absurd. With three elections going on, there was a clear order that they had to be counted (geographical size order: PCC of Friday, Bristol mayor on Saturday, then locals on Sunday). A lot of people groused online that the London election was counted quicker (they used computerised counting but that costs a lot more than humans). 

I pointed out several times that a General Election is counted quicker but then takes a lot longer for people to be sworn in. For excample, it was around 10 days from GE to swearing in day with the MPs. Bristol mayor election: done Thursday, counted Saturday, sworn in on Monday. When I took part in local elections in 2009, it was over a week until the new councilors were sworn in as there is quite a lot of logistical work to do beforehand.

I really don't get this idea that we should do a count as quickly as possible. Accuracy over speed every time. 

Rocker

@Heartfeltdawn, I am not criticizing PR for being 'slow' to count.  Compared to FPTP is is extremely slow.  But that is the way it is.  It is also the fairest way to get more varied representation into our Parliament and Council chambers.  I agree with @ICBM about STV being the preferred option/method of voting.

Theoretically with FPTP, a party can get 49.9% of the vote and no elected representatives in Parliament or Councils.  Unlikely to happen but it could.  Actually it very nearly did, the UKIP vote does not accurately reflect the number of UKIP canditates elected to the House of Commons at the last General Election.

Heartfeltdawn

@Rocker. I know you weren't criticising it. I was just relaying some of the opinion I heard from all sides of the political spectrum over the May elections here. People from the big two parties right down to the local idiot sociailist dope party representative were complaining over the length of time it took for all results to come out, demonstrating a shared lack of knowledge about the entire process. I like STV. It throws up some interesting voting patterns. As I've said before on this forum, I am firmly against virtually everything UKIP stand for but it was a complete travesty to get that number of votes and to end up with a sole person in Parliament. 

jpttaylor

My dissertation in final year focused on compulsory voting - partly because it's an interesting political idea and partly because I couldn't think of anything better to do it on.

When I was researching it, there were studies that found Australians take more interest in the political system and current affairs, possibly because of compulsory voting, but it's hard to pinpoint it as a crucial factor. Likewise, Australians arguably see voting as more of a civic duty. However, this went against the data from Belgium, where the public showed little difference in interest from the U.K.

The research I conducted was centred on the question of whether it made governments more responsive to the public. If they had to appeal to the vast majority (ideally 100%) of the electorate, then in theory they have to be more democratic and can't follow divisive policies. There was some evidence to suggest it was true to an extent with governments mimicing how relatively left/right wing public opinion was, but again, it's hard to conclude it was purely because of compulsory voting. 

In both Belgium and Australia, the ballot paper always includes a none of the above option and turnout is typically above 85%, usually 90% and over in the latter. There is a fine imposed on people who don't vote unless they have a good reason, but the fines are seldom chased up by the police or councils.

Broadly I support compulsory voting because I do see it as a civic duty but my one reservation about implementing it over here is the FPTP system. I cannot see a democratic advantage to implementing compulsory voting, but then having peoples votes wasted in safe seats and seeing a situation emerge like UKIP in 2015. I loathe their party, but if they receive a percentage of national votes, then in a democracy that should be reflected.

ICBM

Rocker said:

Theoretically with FPTP, a party can get 49.9% of the vote and no elected representatives in Parliament or Councils.  Unlikely to happen but it could.  Actually it very nearly did, the UKIP vote does not accurately reflect the number of UKIP canditates elected to the House of Commons at the last General Election.

It also nearly did the other way round in Scotland - at the last Westminster election the SNP got exactly 50% of the vote, but came very close to winning *all* the seats… in fact they only narrowly missed getting the other three. Regardless of having voted SNP, I'm not comfortable with that - the saving grace is that the Scottish Westminster MPs have no direct power over Scotland. If the same system had been in place for Holyrood elections we would now have for all practical purposes an elected one-party state - very dangerous.

That's another reason why in my opinion compulsory voting is necessary - many people do give up bothering when they're in a more or less one-party area, which further reduces the chance of anything ever changing.

Dominic

Just,........leave people to do as they please ......its like governments ;they just keep on making all these laws to give themselves a job .......just unnecessary and making life more and more complicated.Life was so much simpler 40 years ago and none the worse for it.

Ultimately if apathy leads to loss of democracy then people only have themselves to blame .

Chalky

First comes compulsory voting.

Next comes compulsory testing of your knowledge of the issues to make sure you vote the right way.

Gotta love the way the way the anti-democratic arseholes lecture us on why we should vote. Then argue with what we voted.

ICBM

Dominic said:

Just,........leave people to do as they please ......its like governments ;they just keep on making all these laws to give themselves a job .......just unnecessary and making life more and more complicated.Life was so much simpler 40 years ago and none the worse for it.

Ultimately if apathy leads to loss of democracy then people only have themselves to blame .

The danger with that approach is what happened to the trade unions. Apathy allowed small groups of highly motivated political extremists to take them over.

If that happens in general politics when there are no minimum-turnout safeguards you can end up with extremists in power there too.

Saying people only have themselves to blame doesn't help when it's too late to fix the problem.

Chalky said:

First comes compulsory voting.

Next comes compulsory testing of your knowledge of the issues to make sure you vote the right way.

Sure, so that happens in Australia too…

Chalky said:

Gotta love the way the way the anti-democratic arseholes lecture us on why we should vote. Then argue with what we voted.

If everyone had voted, there would be no argument.

But don't let logic stop you.

fretmeister

I haven't seen a single objection in this thread that wouldn't be solved with a "none of the above" option.