Influence of Compulsory Voting

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The Idea of Compulsory Voting
After Australia, Singapore, and Switzerland implemented compulsory voting and the turnout of voters grew, other democratic countries began wondering if the idea should be implemented globally. Research began on how this implementation affected countries with compulsory voting in place and how it would affect other countries such as Canada (Twomey, 2013). The idea that Canada, or another similarly democratic country, should pass a policy of compulsory voting would be against the very foundation of freedom that defines a democratic state. It brings to mind three questions with it, is voting a right or duty, does it change the level of intelligent political participation, and does the compulsion goes against all that is democracy?

Voting: Right or Duty?
The question of whether voting should be a right or duty is a question that is integral to answering whether voting should be mandatory. To make voting mandatory would take away the freely elected portion of freely elected representatives (Barry, 2013). Although to be fair it is the attendance that is mandatory and it is admissible to submit a blank or spoiled ballot (Barry, 2013). However in court cases judges came to the agreement that not voting is a “violation of the Electoral Act” but few have actually been charged for the submission of a blank or spoiled ballot (Barry, 2013). Still the problem remain of that this is taking the ability to freely elect the representative of the majority population choice.
Unlike laws making education mandatory up to a certain age making voting mandatory is taking away the decision to make the decision of not voting as a way of protest, the protest being that none of the representatives are worth voting for, as it is...

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... A Quarterly Review of Politics and Public Affairs , 65 (1).
Delwit, P. (2013). The End of Voters in Europe? Electoral Turnout since WWII. Open Journal of Political Science , 3 (1), 44-52.
Fowler, A. (2013). Electoral and Policy Consequences of Voter Turnout: Evidence from Compulsory Voting in Australia. Quarterly Journal of Political Science , 8 (2), 159- 182.
Gagne, R. H. (2005). Voting on the Vote: Electoral Reform An Examination. Tomslake: D- Zyne Logo Publishing.
Hill, L. (2013). Public Acceptance of Compulsory Voting: Explaining the Australian Case. Representation , 46 (4), 425-438.
Jenson, C. B., & Spoon, J.-J. (2011). Compelled without direction: Compulsory voting and party spreading. Electoral Studies , 30, 700-711.
Twomey, A. (2013). Deliberate Democracy, Compulsory Voting and The Will of the People. Social Science Research Network , 13 (32).

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