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March 3, 2006 | 0 comments
Constitutional Opinions
A Case Against Mandatory Voting
Government should not force people to be free.
Big government “solutions” for every social problem under the sun are all around us. I thought I’d seen them all — until recently, when I found myself debating a statist proposal to cure apathy. Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and I recently debated mandatory voting. He argued in favor and I in opposition. Ornstein brought up many interesting points, however, and I feel compelled to present my thorough responses below. I have always held the expansion of liberty as the most important goal of public policy, but it cannot be achieved through forceful regulation. The use of force to encourage freedom, I believe, is self-contradictory and practically and morally wrong.
Mandatory attendance at polls is still mandatory voting.
Ornstein was quick to point out that he doesn’t necessarily support mandatory voting, but rather, in accordance with the system currently in place in Australia, “mandatory attendance at the polls.” To me, this is just an attempt to deflect attention from the “mandatory” part. Poll “attendees” are still required to cast a ballot, and in Australia those who fail to do so — even if they showed up at the polls — can be prosecuted. Even choosing “none of the above” or “X,” as is possible in Australia, involves casting a vote.
Ornstein touted as a success the fact that, under Australia’s compulsory system, only about three percent of voters write in “X.” Meanwhile, in America, over 40 percent of eligible voters don’t even go to the polls in any given election. So Australia is better off, right? If Ornstein’s goal is to get only three percent of eligible American voters choosing “none of the above,” then he will also have to deal with 37 percent of uninformed, disinterested, and apathetic Americans being forced to cast ballots for candidates about whom they know little, if anything at all. What good could come of that?
Consensus is not a democratic value.
In his previous writings on the topic, Ornstein argues that mandatory voting will bring America to the center and eliminate the “polarizing” effect of partisan politics, especially in primary elections. His theory is that elective voting creates an environment where parties stir up their bases, leading to the election of increasingly more liberal Democrats and increasingly more conservative Republicans. With all of these radicals in office, he argues, “valuable Congressional time is spent on frivolous or narrow issues (flag burning, same-sex marriage) that are intended only to spur on the party bases and ideological extremes. Consequently, important, complicated issues (pension and health-care reform) get short shrift.”
Who decides which issues are important? Shouldn’t politicians respond to what their constituents tell them is important? I chided Ornstein for trying to make everyone play “nice,” as if politics could somehow lead to consensus through a utopian deliberative process. The Australian system he cites has not produced a placid political process by any means — and it’s already been in use for decades.
Jury duty and voting duty serve different purposes.
The most common argument put forth by supporters of compulsory voting is that, just as Americans have a civic obligation to perform jury duty, they should face a similar obligation to vote. This seems like a tempting argument, but it is based on a fundamentally flawed understanding of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The Sixth and Seventh Amendments to the Constitution specify that both criminal and civil defendants have the right to a jury trial by their peers. For you to enjoy that right, your peers — and you in turn — must serve on a jury. This is one of the few instances where the Constitution compels citizens into service. There is no constitutional right to serve on the jury — it is a constitutional requirement on all voting citizens. This compelled service is correctly called a civic duty.
Voting is very different. No less than five constitutional amendments mention the right to vote, but nowhere in the Constitution is voting defined as a civic duty. As such, jury members are required to listen to both sides and then carefully deliberate before reaching a decision. Voters cannot be forced to listen to hours of campaign speeches before voting.
Most importantly, jury trials and elections serve different purposes in the American system of government. Juries act as a check on the power of the state, by shifting some of the judicial decision-making power to private citizens. Voting, by contrast, is the process by which citizens delegate power to government. Therefore, compulsory voting would entail forcing large numbers of people to make an uninformed decision on a matter of crucial importance.
Ornstein eventually conceded that compulsory voting would require “trivial” enforcement costs and would constitute a “trivial” loss of freedom. Yet the cumulative impact of past “trivial” costs has created today’s huge budget deficit. And even “trivial” losses of freedoms over time move us in the direction of tyranny. Opinions may differ on whether greater voter turnout is a good thing, but no one should support policies designed to force people to be free.
(Mr. Smith’s research assistant, Jacqueline Otto, contributed to this article.)
About the Author
Fred L. Smith is the Founder and President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
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alice moore| 7.25.11 @ 6:52AM
Didn't the Soviet Union have the compulsory vote?
JP| 7.25.11 @ 7:21AM
Yes, Alice they did. And in places like Argentina, Venezuela, Greece, places were instability run high, voter turn out is sometimes as high as 90%.
It seems the good government types are as bad as many Progressivse. They wish to turn a civic virtue into a jackbooted obligation. What's next, paying people to vote?
Ken (Old Texican)| 7.25.11 @ 7:48AM
A lot of people vote (Democrat), just to get their gubmint checks.
I'ts getting late, folks.
Australian| 7.25.11 @ 7:58AM
Just one correction. In Australia "mandatory attendance at the polls" does not require voting. It requires a voter to go to the polling station and get the clerk to rule a line through the voter's name and adress. I have done this so I know it is true. I did note vote. I put the voting paper in the trash bin, to the dismay of the polling clerk, who has to account for all the voting papers. She had to retrieve the voting paper (at the end of voting) and put it in the pile called "informal". An "informal" means the voter did not make a vote which people could understand as being for one candidate or another. That pile had to be counted so that all the voting papers issued on the day were accounted for.
I have also worked as a polling clerk so I am quite sure that a person who does not vote cannot be identified, and therefore cannot be prosecuted. All that is needed is that the voter arrive at the polling station and get their name crossed out. By the way I strongly agree that compulsory voting is a bad practice. As a polling clerk I felt great sympathy for the young people forced to attend (and who did not know that they did not have to fill in the voting paper). It was a punishment for them. I could see they were not interested in politics but the Government insisted on spoiling their day.
I am also sure that the percentage of spoiled, invalid or "informal" votes is higher than 3%. It is usually closer to 7% or 8%.
PCC| 7.25.11 @ 8:50AM
The principal effect of mandatory voting is to increase the size of the Mouth Breather demographic in the electorate.
old white guy| 7.25.11 @ 10:41AM
just say no i won't go. we sure as hell aren't free if the gov can tell us we have to do anything they say. opps we aren't really free at all it is just an illusion. make a list of all the things you can do that does not have some level of control by some level of government.
Mark Holsworth| 8.28.11 @ 8:32PM
Australian's claim is not the whole truth, in Australia people are forced to at least pretend to vote. The nonsense about just having to attending polling stations is only half the truth. Australian voters must state that they intend to vote in their answer to a question about "if they have voted before in this election". They then have to take a ballot paper off an electoral officer and some in Australia people have been fined for not doing this, for throwing the ballot in a bin, etc. They are not allowed to encourage other people to leave the ballot paper blank to make it an informal vote. But Australians are allowed to make hairline distinctions that suggest that their system of voting is not an undemocratic farce.
In regards to compulsory voting in the USSR - under that system voter crossed off the names on the ballot of the candidates that did represented them. So the voters could reject all the candidates if they crossed off all the names and no one would win the election. This right to refuse candidates is a voting right that Australian certainly do not enjoy.
Ivan Ivanovich| 7.25.11 @ 8:16AM
Will we be allowed to vote PRESENT as Senator Obama did?
PCC| 7.25.11 @ 8:42AM
Belgium has compulsory voting and I'm disappointed that Mr. Smith failed to cite Belgium as a real world example of mandatory voting's pernicious effects.
In Belgium, successful political campaigns employ the basest appeals to the ethnic and linguistic prejudices of the huge swath of moronic voters who would otherwise stay home picking lint out of their belly buttons if they weren't threaten with a fine for failure to vote. The result is to target the big demographic labelled "stupid" and turn up the volume on hate-thy-neighbor politics and overall divisiveness. Belgium is literally on the verge of dissolution, in part because of its stupid voting system. Just what we need, eh?
Mandatory voting is idiotic and it doesn't work.
Sheila| 7.25.11 @ 9:07AM
The root of the problem is the universal franchise. Restrict voting, as the original colonies did, to male property owners over the age of 21. In this I agree with Ann Coulter - I would happily give up my "right" to vote as long as all the other air-head women couldn't vote.
Appleby| 7.27.11 @ 2:39PM
As a woman who is NOT an airhead, I dispute your "right" to give up MY right to vote.
And considering that most "property owners" today are simply renting from the bank instead of from a landlord, if you require the would-be votor to show a fully paid up receipt for his property to prove he "owns" it, voting will be restricted to the extremely wealthy with good common sense (who paid cash), people who live in trailers, and men over 60.
John McHarrison| 7.25.11 @ 9:08AM
As an Australian, forced unwillingly to vote for people who will run my country, I'm so glad that that these views are being aired!
Why doesn't my country leave it to all the real people who have done something with their lives, who make a lot of money and create wealth and jobs to do the voting? They would know best for people like me! Then I would not have to engage in the continual barrage of weighing one argument against another waged in the media and have to make a decision! I don't want to make a decision on something important!! Compulsory voting in Australia forces people like me - poor, uneducated and on the margins - to engage with what's happening - and that's just not right! We are so left wing over here, even our conservative party are called the Liberals! Big government - I hate it. It will be asking me to swear on a middle eastern text next, forcing some unnatural religion down my throat!!
I hope America never gets compulsary voting!!!!
Nancy in NC| 7.25.11 @ 9:28AM
Do I detect sarcasm?
POST American| 7.25.11 @ 9:29AM
----Didn't they have mandatory voting in the
Soviet Union? ---Yes, they did.
Hal G. P. Colebatch| 7.25.11 @ 9:35AM
I have been closely involved in many elections in Australia. I believe for many reasons that compulsory voting is a bad system and the US should have nothing to do with it.
Doctor Right| 7.25.11 @ 9:44AM
Pretty much anything that comes from the Government with the word "compulsory" attached is a bad idea.
I firmly believe that if one is not really interested in politics, and does not pay much attention to the issues, then one should VOLUNTARILY decide to NOT vote.
There are simply too many people - on both sides of the aisle - who care very much about politics to have their votes nullified by sloth-like blockheads who are more interested in eating cheese doodles and watching "The Bachelor" than in who they elect to high office.
The problem is that most of the sloth-like, cheese doodle-eating blockheads tend to vote leftwing...thus the Democrats endless "Get out da' vote" campaigns to move these human potatoes off of their couches and into the voting booths by any means necessary.
John| 7.25.11 @ 9:57AM
I believe for many reasons that compulsory voting is a bad system and the US should have nothing to do with it.
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skip| 7.25.11 @ 10:28AM
Ben Franklin, in response to a question asked pertaining to what had been created, stated:
A Mandatory Democracy, if you can keep it.
Look it up.
Kevin Compton| 7.25.11 @ 11:35AM
While it's often true that preparing to vote is a huge chore I do, almost 100% of the time vote. Most of the time it's a matter of trying to decide between the lesser of the two evils.
Al Adab| 7.25.11 @ 11:36AM
We are better served when the informed voters are the ones who cast ballots. Then it is up to the organizations (parties, unions, groups) to get out the vote. He whose voters show up is he who takes home the prize. Mass voting waters down the level of involvement and delivers unpleasant results. Ken notes above, all too many only vote their own checks into their pockets. Informed citizens can govern in a Republic, mass Democracy is another matter alltogether and one not to be desired.
George S| 7.25.11 @ 11:47AM
The Constitution only recognized House elections by popular vote; a democratic republic cannot survive by popular elections as tyranny of the majority sets in and people vote themselves the treasury. The President and the Senate were determined by the states, thus assuring the federal government's role as a servant to the states.
Forcing people to vote only encourages those to whom a democratic republic is an inconvenience to unbridled government power.
When you think about it, not casting a ballot has just as much of an impact on who gets elected. You are "voting" to let your neighbors make the decision for you.
Mike Hawk| 7.25.11 @ 12:15PM
Mandatory voting?? Next step is for the gummint commission to select suitable candidate and tell you which ones to vote for. They will supervise that too.
No thanks. Give me some healthy partisan debate and campaining so I can decide. BTW, I vote in every election, primary and general.
Cincinnaticl6| 7.25.11 @ 12:38PM
The people who push for mandatory voting also know that vast numbers of people are uneducated when it comes to the issues, the Constitution, or the workings of government. Sadly many of these citizens fall for slogans such as "fair share", "free", "your entitled", etc. An educated electorate is needed and not just a herd of people voting on something they know nothing about.
rendite| 7.25.11 @ 1:37PM
Another perspective:
Mandatory/required voting?
No way!
I mean, isn't it very presumptious on the part of the "State" to think that the final 2 candidates (one Dem/one Rep.) are actually worth voting for? Actually worth my time driving 21 miles to the polling station and losing that time in a day's work?
Usually the final two candidates who have the chance to "win" are pathetic, egotistical, attorney morons.
It is not much different in primaries.
rendite| 7.25.11 @ 1:40PM
The opposite is what we should be discussing:
As Sheila pointed out above, we need to be drastically restricting the vote.
An easy improvement that should be immediately enacted:
If you are on any form of government assistance (welfare, jobless checks, VA home, etc.), a person CANNOT VOTE.
DaveD| 7.25.11 @ 8:22PM
How 'bout this for a ballot:
President of the U.S _____________
(Fill in the blank)
At least this way the voter has to be semi-literate.
rendite| 7.25.11 @ 10:38PM
Yes, Dave, and E-X-A-C-T spelling counts.
But I want ALL persons on state or national government aid (subsidized housing, food stamps) UNABLE to vote. Period.
And no new adult American citizens able to vote until 16 years has passed since official US citizenship.
i.e. A new American taking the oath of citizenship on July 4, 2011 coming from Taiwan or the Ukraine unable to vote in any election until July 4, 2017.
Derek Leaberry| 7.25.11 @ 1:58PM
Dolts should be discouraged from voting. That's at least half the adult population.
Harry the Horrible| 7.25.11 @ 3:10PM
Hell, there are a lot of people who SHOULD NOT vote, who have that right.
We should be doing everything we can to discourage the lame, lazy, weak, and stupid from voting. The last think we should do is encourage them.
Ron| 7.25.11 @ 3:31PM
Funny, once again the left is hung up on wanting to force people to exercise a "right."
I have the right, if I choose to, or not to, exercise it, is NDBBM.."Nobody's Damn Business But Mine." I should not have to show up to not exercise it..
Clint| 7.25.11 @ 3:55PM
Originally,The Constitution left the determination of voting qualifications to the individual states.
Jason | 7.25.11 @ 4:12PM
This is our Facebook group dedicated to ridding Australia of compulsory voting. http://www.facebook.com/groups/125050437535199 It is amazing that compulsory voting has such support here. People are so brain dead on the issue and they don't even realise that almost no other country in the world has it. People here have been jailed for refusing to pay the fine for refusing to vote. This is why our politic has slid so far to the left which is why our government is introducing a carbon dioxide tax - the world's biggest, and even after the government said they wouldn't (6 days before the election). We are being run by socialists and we are in a real mess. The economy is still ok - a legacy of the Howard government and mining boom, but not for long. Australians have a warped and twisted concept of the meaning of the word freedom. If anything good comes of this carbon dioxide tax, it's to wake us (them) up to the tyranny of our socialist regime.
rendite| 7.25.11 @ 6:48PM
Jason,
Thank you much for the information and insights to what is happening "Down Under." Oh my.
So a person faces a fine for "freely?" choosing not to go vote and then this person faces prison.
Forget socialism. That sounds like a totalitarian society to me.
What, does Australia also have so many welfare queens (single women with 3-4 kids all spermed by different men, living in government subsidized housing), so many getting jobless paychecks also?
Our problem is that the homeless (usually "serial" alcoholics and drug addicts), the welfare queens, the jobless, etc. ALL get to vote. Thus, they vote for the liberal politicians who will continually grant them taxpayers' money support.
These societal leeches lose nothing by VOTING in numbers; they gain bigtime.
It must be the same there?
How sad. One often thinks of Australia fondly here. As it is, there are so very few good countries in the world.
Aarradin| 7.25.11 @ 7:17PM
I'd like to see the first Tuesday in November be a national holiday - Election Day. So, most people that actually work would have the day off.
I agree, terrible idea to force people to vote. Everyone should be free to choose not to vote. Everyone should also have the opportunity to do so.
Appleby| 7.27.11 @ 2:44PM
All withholding tax laws should be nullified instanter and everyone required to pay his taxes on April 15th, in cash; then Election Day should be changed to April 16th.
mikeinbelize| 7.25.11 @ 8:07PM
Lived in Australia through the 60's and 70's, so while my info may not be totally up to the minute I believe it may still be relevant.
No mention has been made yet of the "preferential voting" system where one is required to list all candidates in the order of your "preference". If a candidate does not receive a plurality, these "preferences" are then taken into consideration, to the point where you must list a person you may viscerally detest on your ballot or your vote may be invalidated, and that preference may be applied to a candidate you detest equally, perhaps resulting in that candidate winning.
Result? The fruits and nuts factions can influence elections far beyond their numbers or political influence.
Also there is the syndrome of the "donkey vote"; calculated while I lived there at about 40% (who hopefully would have just stayed home had their attendance not been mandatory).
I have family there still and their reports tell me that the country is no less screwed up than it was when I left in 1976.
marshcope| 7.25.11 @ 8:55PM
Be careful when blasting the Masses for being too dumb to know what the issues are, and extolling some Elite group who might know how to vote the correct way (I almost typed "the Right way"). Joseph Storey in the 1830s ranted against letting the laboring classes vote in New York State. There is a youtube video of Hitler in '36 talking to his Old Fighters from the days in Munich, telling them that they were the ones to lead the clueless German people to the thousand-year paradise. Stalin said the same kind of stuff to the Old Bolsheviks, not long before he began killing all the Old Bolshies. Do not let Conservatism fall into Elitism. Accept that Americans are not Dumb. We know more than you think we do.
rendite| 7.25.11 @ 10:57PM
Marshcope, no one is talking here about just restricting the franchise (the ability to vote, decision-making) to just "elites." Whomever or whatever those "elites" might be. Most American Spectator readers here are not elite about anything.
In America we supposedly restrict the vote from felons, yet handfuls of them vote every cycle. We supposedly restrict the vote from the deceased. However, we don't for the homeless who declare a park bench in Akron, Ohio as their domicile.
Take home pay has nothing to do with it. I salute the 23 or 26 year old individual who is completely frustrated in this economy and only has presently a approximately $21,000 for total 2011 take home pay from his part-time job at Radio Shack.
But the serial welfare abusers who laugh working stiffs in the face while sitting on their cans for years on end, no, they should have no say/no vote/no decision-making for this nation. None.
And, sorry. Too many Americans are willfully dumb. They willfully neglect their own cerebral advancement to the point where they are indeed subject to gross manipulation. What exact percentage? I don't know, but it is much too high.
However, if the "willfully mentally self-negligent" openly choose this path in life YET pull their own weight in terms of work, income, and self-reliance, well, we've nothing to say.
Yes, people should also have the liberty to choose to be dumb. That's a precarious place to trust one's fate, however.
Cheese| 7.25.11 @ 9:16PM
I witnessed the Argentine presidential election in which both De La Rua and Cristina Kirchner were elected, the latter of which through a rigged election.
The only purpose mandatory voting serves is to give the appearance of a working democracy, nothing more.
If mandatory voting is ever instituted in this country our status as a banana republic will have been cemented.
Tired Taxpayer PRM| 7.25.11 @ 9:41PM
All systems, be they electrical, mechanical, biological or political, need positive feedback in order to function as intended (notice I did not say function well, just function). Allowing leaches to vote removes all positive feedback from our political system.
I believe that all net taxpayers (those who pay more in taxes than they receive from government) should be the only ones allowed to vote. This would necessarily remove the from the voting rolls all police, fire and military for example, but I think that would be a small price to pay to clean up the current mess.
When you don't have skin in the game you don't care how the game turns out. Only those who pay for government should be allowed to help decide how government is run.
marshcope| 7.26.11 @ 12:33AM
Washington and Madison both won elections in Virginia by taking barrels of whiskey to their local polling places. Re having skin in the game (paying taxes) sounds Hamiltonian, but the idea of letting there be some other reason than Citizenship to be allowed to vote sounds like Jessie Jackson's Stakeholderism; if I buy Nikes I should be allowed to go to the Nike stockholders' meeting and vote, since I gave Nike Inc. my money. Rambling on here--I once did poll watching at my local precinct, and we got a busload of elderly people from a local nursing home, many of whom were senile and very confused. A polling place honcho led them into the booths and pulled the levers for them. It was a very chaotic situation. I later asked a local election official if all those senile should have been allowed to vote. He said Yes, and that settled the matter.