Voting: Compulsory or Optional?

[Andrew]

Which do you feel is the better system when it comes to voting: compulsory or optional voting?

While Britain and the United States do not make voting compulsory, Australians 18 years or older are required to register and vote in elections at all levels of government - local, state and federal.

Personally I think it's a good idea to have compulsory voting. While you could argue it isn't necessarily democratic, going against the idea of freedom of choice, the truth is we human beings are quite lazy creatures. If we don't have to do something, most of us will opt not to do it. While optional voting has its merits, it usually results in a minority of the public making a choice that affects everyone. I feel if you waive your right to vote, essentially you waive your right to complain about the outcome of an election.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, as well as which countries have compulsory and optional voting in government elections.

[Colin]

I don't think compulsory voting is a good idea. There's the freedom of choice issue, but mainly not everyone knows what is happening in politics. I have a friend who said she wished she could vote, only because she wanted to vote for a candidate with the same name as her. Not to say everyone is like that of course, but I would rather have 45-50% of the population, that probably knows what they want and has some knowledge, voting as opposed to 99% with most of them not knowing what they were really voting for.

[Andrew]

That's all well and good, but that 50% that declines to vote because they either don't want to or don't really follow politics generally aren't above complaining about the government, their policies or the outcome of an election. Like I said, to me waiving your right to vote is essentially waiving your right to complain about either party. After all, if you have no interest in politics and don't care about the outcome, you shouldn't have any complaints. Especially if you have the opportunity to influence that outcome.

[AlwaysWhat,NeverWhy]

Well, it all really depends about each country's constitution. If there is a loophole or it is straitforwardly allowed, compulsory voting is applied most of the time. But should the General Constutution consider it a violation of one's 'freedom of choice' rights, then it will be easily deemed unconstitutional and, therefore, discarded.

Here in Greece, voting is compulsory only in name, as you can easily sit on your butt the while day and nobody will come asking you for the reason. My personal opinion on the matter, is that if you cannot get the average citizen motivated enough to get up from his chair and come vot efor you, then you haven't won his vote, so you're worth what you're getting...

[Andreas Dahl]

^I thought you were in Minneapolis.


I think having it compulsory would, in the end, be for the better.
Sure a lot of people don't really put any effort onto their voting; people vote just for the kicks of it on someone/something, some people vote on someone/something just because it's what is expected and so on. It's like that now, and it'll be like that even more if it will be compulsory, but I think the amount of people that make 'good' votes will be proportionally larger than those that make 'bad' votes.

I remember a thing here in my school a few years ago, where we all had to vote for our favourite political party; 'if we were to vote today, how'd we vote' kind of a thing. And we all pretty much considered it useless and thought why not have some fun, so a bunch of people from our class (there was both 'natives' and immigrant fairly mixed) decided to vote for a xenophobic (hostile towards foreigners, and extremely nationalistic) just for fun (I'll have you know I didn't tag along on it). It turned out a lot of people had thought the same thing in our school, and as we got the results back it showed that we had a 20%+ support for that party, which was the highest in the country we later were told...

[J@3]

Freedom of speech is all well and good until you wake up one day realizing millions of other people also didn't vote because of "freedom of speech" and someone you hate is running the country.

[FendeR`]

I don't think compulsory voting is a good system. Really, a lot of people who choose not to vote know very little about the government. Even some people who do vote know very little about the government. I don't know much about the government by any stretch of the imagination (I can't vote yet), which is why I wouldn't want people who know as much or less than me to necessarily have to vote. If you have an opinion I think you should vote, but I don't think it should be compulsory.

[J@3]

When it's compulsory to vote alot of people make more of a concerted effort to actually learn a bit about the people they're voting for, or against.

[AlwaysWhat,NeverWhy]

^I thought you were in Minneapolis.

I'd like to be, as I'm one of the few people left in this world who hates summer and loves winter, but, alas, no, I had to be born Greek...

[Indy]

Im against compulsary voting because I think it disallows different political theories. If a person disagrees with every candidate available, why should he be forced to go to the polls and vote for someone he doesn't agree with? I think that's wrong.

Also, I believe the basis of democracy is education. In this country we do a bad job of ensuring everyones education. Imagine what would happen if every single dumbass in this country (in the high millions) went out to the polls and voted. That's scary for me to think about. We don't have compulsary voting, and millions of dumbasses already come out and vote for this idiot we have for a president right now. I think there are a lot more very, very stupid people then smart people who don't vote.

And Andrew, I totally disagree with you about not being able to complain if you don't vote. In the U.S we have a two party system, both parties are much more alike when you read in to their policies and see what both have done in the past. If a person thinks the whole system is corrupt, and didn't like Kerry or Bush in the last election, they can't complain??? That's ridiculous.

[J@3]

I think if you want the right to complain about the people running your country, you have to vote. Otherwise it's just hypocritical.

[AlwaysWhat,NeverWhy]

If a person disagrees with every candidate available, why should he be forced to go to the polls and vote for someone he doesn't agree with?

I don't know about the States' legislation about this, but most countries in Europe allow the voter to cast a 'blank' vote, essentially voying for noone.

[Indy]

If a person disagrees with every candidate available, why should he be forced to go to the polls and vote for someone he doesn't agree with?

I don't know about the States' legislation about this, but most countries in Europe allow the voter to cast a 'blank' vote, essentially voying for noone.

I would be for this. If you had the option of picking noone, then compulsary voting would not be a problem.

[cyanide]

There's pros and cons:

Pros for compulsory voting: We get the input from everyone for a potentially more reliable result
Cons for compulsory voting: Reliable results may not be so reliable, if votes were just guessed or randomized

Pros for optional voting: The ones who votes, usually knows who they want
Cons for optional voting: Potential imbalance, i.e. Republicans calling on all Christian conservatives to vote for them, boosting their chances of winning

[Jona]

I'm totally against compulsory voting.

If a guy has options and none of them represent his thought accurately, he should not vote.

[FendeR`]

Cons for optional voting: Potential imbalance, i.e. Republicans calling on all Christian conservatives to vote for them, boosting their chances of winning

I know you were just trying to use an example, but still, if certain people have an initiative to vote for any certain party, it's the same as any other reason someone would vote. That is my opinion.

[Jackal_]

I think it should be mandatory to vote, deffinately. Reason is because with all the issues goin on today we need 100 percent public input about the issues that surround a country. Every vote counts so it's important that anyone who's eligible votes.

[cyanide]

I don't really have a side, I mean, I really like the idea of compulsory voting, but the main problem is the votes one makes could be randomized or guessed, or biased toward whatever they hear or are exposed through media. If there was a check for "I don't care." or "I don't want to vote." on the ballot, then I'm all for compulsory.

[AlwaysWhat,NeverWhy]

I would be for this. If you had the option of picking noone, then compulsary voting would not be a problem.

Thre's a catch here. An insanely stupendous clause states that the 'blank' votes will in the end be added to the winner's tally of votes, helping him get more parliament members, therefore solidifying his chances of staying in power...

[Andrew]

And Andrew, I totally disagree with you about not being able to complain if you don't vote. In the U.S we have a two party system, both parties are much more alike when you read in to their policies and see what both have done in the past. If a person thinks the whole system is corrupt, and didn't like Kerry or Bush in the last election, they can't complain??? That's ridiculous.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I'm referring to the outcome of an election. If you don't care enough to vote, you shouldn't have any complaints about who wins the election. More to the point, if somebody didn't like Bush but couldn't be bothered voting, it's hypocritical for them to complain once he got re-elected because they had a chance to vote, to make a difference in the outcome but chose not to. That's my point: it's hypocritical to be upset with the outcome if you don't show the interest in affecting it in the first place.

Obviously, one vote rarely makes a difference. The problem is when everybody starts thinking "Oh, my one vote doesn't make a difference", that's when 50, 60% of the population doesn't vote. And when those folks abstain from voting, essentially they're saying they don't care who wins the election because they don't care for either candidate or have no interest in politics or for whatever reason. Which is absolutely fine, and I'm not saying they can't complain about a party or politician or the way a country is run. But is hypocritical for them to abstain from voting for whatever reason then turn around and be upset about the outcome, when they could have voted for/against either party.

About the "blank" selection in compulsory voting, I know plenty of Australians "donkey vote", intentionally messing up their ballot so it won't count. There's no penalty for doing that, so it's a way out for people who don't wish to vote for either party (or have their votes find their way to one of the two major parties via our preferential voting system). You get your name marked off, everything's fine.