Battalions of straw men sprung to life last week, conjured to defend the heretofore-unassailable political edifice known as Australia’s compulsory voting system.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard led the charge, tweeting:
Fight @theqldpremier’s plan to end compulsory voting. Don’t let the Liberals make our democracy the plaything of cashed-up interest groups.
Somewhat inconveniently, the ABC’s Antony Green pointed out that former prime minister Kevin Rudd had also encouraged a discussion on non-compulsory voting back in 2009.
The PM’s call to arms was followed by a flurry of similarly strident tweets. Many expressed horror at the thought of Campbell Newman oxymoronically taking away someone’s freedom by no longer forcing them to vote.
Almost any suggestion that non-compulsory voting could have merit was met with fervent and obdurate rejection.
Compulsory voting proponents vowed that a voluntary system in Australia would undoubtedly follow the US model, beset as it is with disenfranchisement and extremists, and not that of the UK or New Zealand, which is not. US-like ruination was apparently only a matter of time for the 20 other OECD nations that currently allow voluntary voting.
Some supporters defended the compulsion to vote as defence of a right, while others saw it as imposition of a responsibility. “People died so that we can vote,” said one. “Voting is a duty,” said another, “we might as well opt out of other ‘public good’ responsibilities like paying tax and wearing seatbelts.”
A few even tried to have it both ways, arguing that the compulsory vote is actually voluntary because one only has to turn up and not necessarily cast a vote. The Electoral Commission has (also inconveniently) challenged that argument as a common fallacy.
But if the partisan jibes and straw defenders could be set aside, it would become clear that the debate about whether or not a vote should be compelled is really one about political engagement. Many of the arguments raised against voluntary voting rely upon the resigned assumption that, given their druthers, most people could not be bothered voting.
This is the real issue that should be debated and resolved, not a scarecrow battle over compulsory versus voluntary voting.
Compulsory voting may have bestowed Australia with an admirable participation rate, but other statistics show we’re considerably disengaged from politics and becoming more so. As the Australian Electoral Commission rather euphemistically said in its analysis of informal voting at the 2010 federal election, “a challenge remains to maximise electors’ potential participation in the electoral process”.
In the 2010 federal election, the informal vote was the biggest it’s ever been since 1984, rising from 3.95 per cent at the 2007 election to 5.5 per cent. But unintentional informal votes – being those with incomplete numbering showing either a misunderstanding of what’s required or confusion with state election voting processes – actually decreased between the two elections.
It was the level of intentional informal votes that rose, now representing 48.6 per cent of all informal votes. The rate of blank ballots doubled, with more than a quarter of all informal votes cast in the 2010 election being left unmarked. The proportion of informal votes defaced with scribbles, slogans or other protest marks also increased, off a low of 6.4 per cent in 2001 to around 14 per cent in 2007 and 17 per cent in 2010.
Some might be tempted to dismiss this result as the work of Mark Latham, but that would ignore the fact noted by Peter Brent that the informal vote has been on the rise since 1993 with the exception of the 2007 federal election.
Claims that the compulsory vote makes Australians value their democratic choice are as insubstantial as straw man defenders. In 2010, almost a million of the 14 million Australians enrolled to vote simply did not bother to go to a polling booth. Another 1.4 million eligible voters were missing from the electoral roll altogether. And this number has since grown to 1.5 million.
So in 2010, within Australia’s supposedly optimal and indisputably preferable compulsory voting system, an estimated 3.2 million Australians or 21 per cent of eligible adults were either not on the electoral roll, did not turn up to vote, or lodged an informal vote. As Brian Costar and Peter Browne observed at the time, that’s equivalent to 33 federal seats. It also represents a whopping $7 million in electoral funding that never made it to political party coffers.
The compulsory vote may partially disguise Australians’ political disinterest at election time, but there’s no hiding our manifest disengagement at most other times.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has found that only 19 per cent of adults actively participate in civic and political groups. Alongside the 1 per cent who are active in political parties, 7 per cent participate in a trade union or professional/technical association; 5 per cent in environmental or animal welfare groups; and 4 per cent in body corporate or tenants’ associations.
Perhaps the starkest indication of all is a 2011 opinion poll which found only 10 per cent of respondents follow politics closely. This proportion was quite consistent regardless of political preference and age group, except for over 55s who had a higher level of interest at 17 per cent.
Is it any wonder then that our democracy is looking a little shabby? It’s dependent upon the vote, regardless of whether it’s considered or informed, of citizens forced to attend a polling station on election day. Surely the objective of any democracy should be for voters to value their democratic right enough to participate in political discourse and processes between elections and turn out in force on polling day to cast a considered, informed ballot.
We’re missing the point arguing over the merits of voluntary voting. We should instead be identifying and implementing ways to help Australians better understand and participate in the nation’s democratic processes. This would require more than a one-off civics course in school; it would involve comprehensive and longitudinal exposure to different forms of government, political philosophies and types of engagement; experience in negotiating and advocacy; and immersion in everyday political discourse.
Once our citizens were truly engaged, they would genuinely value their vote and vigorously exercise it. The straw man defence of compulsory voting would be dispersed in the wind. It’s hard to not also conclude that the more citizens there were who decided their vote on policy comparisons instead of fridge magnets, the better quality our politicians and governments would be. Another ancillary benefit would be that viewers and readers would demand better political reporting and analysis from the media too.
Yes, this approach to civil engagement would be challenging and something that no democracy has ventured before. Is that a reason not to do it? Or is it easier to not do something because the US does it badly?
If we can make better coffee and pizza than the Yanks, why can’t we make a better voluntary voting system too?
This post originally appeared at ABC’s The Drum. The comments are well worth reading.
Drag0nista's Blog 
Trying to engage all of society in politics is much more easily said than done. What you’re suggesting is to completely restructure the deeply entrenched ignorance of generations of Australiams in a short period of time. I agree that this would be an ideal outcome, which would leave room perhaps to transition to voluntary voting. But in the mean time, our democracy is best served by having everyone’s voices heard – no matter how ignorant they may be.
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I’m not actually suggesting it should be done quickly – because it can’t be. It would take a generation to turn things around. But we have to start sometime….
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Yeah it’s definitely a generational shift that needs to take place. The whole purpose of my own blog is to put politics in a language that young people can engage with and understand. Perhaps if my own experiences had been more successful I would be a little more optimistic about the outlook of voluntary voting. How would you encourage the next generation of Australians to take an interest in political affairs?
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Education first – start in primary and then secondary school. Teach political philosophies, negotiation skills, logical thinking and debating (not just the province of word nerds). Teach campaigning skills. Then get kids involved in the real thing – not just at school but in the community. This will require the age-long fear that teachers will pass on their views to their pupils – because they already do in economics, history and literature. Not a good reason to avoid teaching politics, civics and engagement tools in schools.
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Hello
Do you have any participation rate stats for the other (not U.S.) countries that don’t have compulsory voting?
Did you think non-compulsory voting is better or do you just want to see more engagement?
Lanky
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Hi Lanky, no I dont have those stats but they shouldnt be hard to find. If I find them I’ll post a link here. In answer to your second question – yes I want more/better engagement. I’ll be happy with whatever voting system arises out of better engagement.
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Thanks!
I wondered this morning if disengagement is the natural end point for democracy, even a point of maturity.
The strong engagement I see often seems to be partnered with a lack of nuance. Fighting to save the planet from global warming, fighting to stop those who believe in global warming, stop abortion. Passion seems to pair with special interests, the people pulling the strings of emotion to their own ends.
Maybe what we have is an engaged but cynical population? Maybe dispassion is the appropriate response to the necessary pragmatism of democracy. It does seem to help with stability.
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If you click the link called “participation rate” in the main post you’ll find a paper that has a bit of info on other countries’ participation rates.
And I’m going to ponder your very logical explanation of why disengagement could be the natural end point for democracy. I find it a bit disturbing! Not that you said it, but that it does seem to make sense.
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Thanks again.
Glad I could give you something to ponder 🙂
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Plenty of people are not going to absorb political education willingly and already know which way they want to vote. Of this set, plenty of them would just as soon not vote. Make voting voluntary and you disenfranchise them. I don’t think that would be progress.
Conversely you can supply plenty of education to people willing to engage with the political system and voluntarily vote without necessarily getting an intelligent decision.
Sure you can possibly improve the result by throwing money and education at it, but that remains theoretical. I’d say a more sensible and safer result would be achieved by keeping voting compulsory AND putting (some) extra resources into political education. But remember there are lots of other things we want to spend on, so there won’t be unlimited funds available.
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I would have to agree with Lanky, but my view is slightly different. I do not not think that the population is cynical. My view is that for most people there is little reason to engage because there is nothing worth having a fight over.
Developed economies have the highest living standards of human history. There is no struggle, for the vast majority, for housing, sustenance or entertainment. There is no great class struggle between capitalists and workers, no race war and no economic war. Most things have been worked out.
So why would I spend any time I could otherwise spend on me, bothering to worry about these non-things? I’m pretty sure we pay someone in Canberra to take care of that.
Obviously for those that are passionate about certain things, global warming, animal rights, abortion, rent seekers etc they have their great war to fight and are engaged. This is why I think compulsory voting is important. We need the empathy of the majority to temper the enthusiasm of the few.
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What David said.
I think the other side of the coin is that the definitions of left and right exist mainly in the parliament and its only a convenience thing. As a kid, I remember mum calling Keating a liberal in labour clothes. Tony Abbott went to the last election proposing to tax business to pay for maternity leave. Both sides have left their archetype to fight for the middle.
It’s a faux fight! Who is going to get passionate about that! If Tony Abbott comes out tomorrow and says he’ll scrap the minimum wage and if Julia comes out wanting to raise taxes to to pay for education and NDIS, then we might see some passion…
But our political class has grown beyond that to try to achieve results for all constituents because it wins votes; hence the fight for the centre. Howard didn’t leave the blue collar to Labour, he made them his battlers.
The result is fights over nothing. The result is politicians pouring shame over their own heads to try and make a fuss about something (Eric Abetz, I’m thinking of you and there is a little bit of vomit in my mouth).
The disengaged middle sees all of this and sees if for the stinking pile that it is but they see everything else as well. I’m with Megalogenis; the Australian voter, who is still cynical in my mind, is smarter than they are treated by our politicians. We need the class that see through the junk to participate and vote, not for the causes they are passionate about but for the party that they think will best manage the country.
I can’t remember whether it was 13 or 30% – significant either way – but this is the number of people in the U.S who vote for a candidate on how they feel about abortion. Abortion, for Christ’s sake (no pun intended)!
My current position is that we need compulsory voting. Aussies are cynical but it helps us to see through the crap. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are a nation compelled to do things out of civic duty. I don’t want voting to be a contest between those that want to sick Japanese boats to save whales and flat-earthers who believe lobbyists over scientists. I see your point Dragonista, but nothing in the centre is contentious, so the only passion you’ll see is the passion felt towards individuals, the passion of vilification. Until these issues are resolved, I think we need compulsory voting.
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so you would be open to change your mind if we moved to voluntary voting and if so under what conditions?
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don’t know sorry – you can’t legislate for sensibility but I would want to see people fighting for the middle rather than abandoning it to corral extremists
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Thanks for the comments guys – the discussion has been very thought-provoking.
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