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Week 4: Voter Turnout (Gray & Caul: declining trade unions change…

- - - - When voting is compulsory, voters are forced to think about their choices --> Transform the previously disinterested and uninformed electorate
      - Reduces the role of money: less money spent on getting people to go vote (non-partisan) <-> but then more money is spent of trying to persuade a larger amount of voters to vote for them (partisan)
    - - Violate democratic ideal of individual freedom <-> but turning up is compulsory, you can still submit an invalid vote --> choice to vote remains yours --> but then what is the point of turning up and not voting
      - Violate free speech <-> but US Supreme court has ruled that the vote is not a form of speech
      - Bad in instances like Nazi germany where bad decisions are made even though voter turnout is high <-> the key to maintain consistently high levels of turnout, not sudden high
      - Those who previously don't vote are uninformed voters <-> when they are forced to vote they will go inform themselves --> also, who says that those who previously voted are informed? they can be misinformed too (rebecca)
- - - - But (Rebecca): who says those who vote will vote according to these 2? what if they just wanted checks and balances? What if those who vote are misinformed as well (highly possible)? Who says those who didn't vote originally will not inform themselves if required to vote?