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Effects of Making Voting Voluntary - Coggle Diagram
Effects of Making Voting Voluntary
Short Term Effects
If Australia made voting voluntary many people wouldn't vote. This has been shown in many places where voting is voluntary, such as America where only 67% of the 240 million were able to vote. This is compared to Australia where 92% of voting population voted in past elections. This is evidence of the direct effect of making voting voluntary.
Compulsory voting helps the people in getting involved in the democratic system and can help fair political decisions be made.
Many people when are forced to vote are also forced to educate themselves on who they are voting for.
Making voting voluntary can create anarchy within society, but it can also reduce public disputes due to peoples political opinions.
Long Term Effects
The country could become a dictatorship due to less people voting. This could change the countries social and economic systems.
The economy could be effected by someone getting into power that lowers taxes and creates a less sustainable place to live. By lowering taxes too far people will not get as much government funding so the economy will go down and create a slump.
People not voting can cause the increase of ecologically unethical jobs, thus leading to global warming. Global warming is a major problem with carbon emissions higher then ever before in history.
For and Against
For
Voting is a necessary part of the duties of citizenship, just like jury duty or paying taxes.
Compulsory registration and voting increase the legitimacy of elected representatives. Candidates winning seats in parliament really do win a majority of the people’s votes. In countries like the United States, where the turnout can be low, candidates can win with much less than a majority of the eligible vote.
Compulsory voting increases the political education of the people. They will tend to pay more attention to politics if they know they have to vote.
Compulsory voting does not force a choice. People can always lodge a blank or spoiled ballot paper.
Compulsory voting means that candidates have to address the needs of all the voters. If voting were voluntary, the experience of countries like the United States is that poorer and less educated people would tend not to vote. This would skew the political system (further) toward the well off and well educated.
Compulsory voting keeps the Australian political system responsive to the people. New parties and candidates (like Katter’s Australian Party) who lack wealthy backing can contest elections without spending large sums of money just to get the voters to polling booths.
Against
Citizens have the right to choose whether they want to vote. Compulsion is part of a slippery slope to totalitarianism
Compulsory registration and voting reduce the legitimacy of elected representatives. Majorities in Australian elections include the votes of many uninterested and ill-informed people who vote just because they have to.
Australians seem to be no more politically educated (and are perhaps less so) than citizens of comparable countries (for example, New Zealand, the United States, and the United Kingdom) that use voluntary voting.
Compulsory voting does not force a choice. People can always lodge a blank or spoiled ballot paper..
Voluntary voting does not necessarily produce bias to the wealthy or well educated. In the United States, candidates like Jesse Jackson have shown that the poor and relatively uneducated can be mobilised in large numbers behind candidates who support their concerns.
Compulsory voting has made the Australian political system unresponsive. If voting were made voluntary, it would shake up the political system. Parties and candidates would have to do more to convince people of the merits of their policies in order to get voters to the polls.
History of Compulsory Voting in Australia
Compulsory voting was advocated by Alfred Deakin at the time of Federation although voting was voluntary until after the First World War. Enrolment was compulsory from 1911.
In 1915 consideration of compulsory voting arose in the Senate in connection with a referendum intended for later that year but never held.3 That year, too, compulsory voting for state elections was introduced in Queensland.
The significant impetus for compulsory voting came from a sharp decline in voluntary voter turnout from more than 71% at the previous 1919 election to less than 60% at the 1922 elections.5 As Table 8.1 shows, this fall-off in turnout was an abrupt reversal of the steady trend to increasing voter participation which began with the election of 1903.
On 17 July 1924 a Private Member’s Bill, based on the 1915 Senate proposals, was debated in the Senate. Five Senators spoke on the Bill and it was passed that day. In the House of Representatives only three members spoke. Significantly, for such a piece of far-reaching legislation, Mr Tony Smith MP, noted that:
there were only a few speakers on each side and it went through on the voices
Thus did Australia acquire a compulsory vote for Federal Elections.
Subsequently Victoria established compulsory voting (in 1926), followed by NSW and Tasmania (1928); WA (1936); and SA (1942)
Voter turnout increased well beyond the previous maximum of 78.30%. The Senate voter turnout of 91.31% in 1925 proved to be the minimum in the history of compulsory voting. Since then, the median turnout has been 95.1%, with a maximum of 96.31% (in the 1943 Senate election). The turnout for the 2004 Federal Election was 94.82% for the Senate and 94.32% for the House of Representatives.
