An article titled "Compulsory Voting: Democracy at Work" by Greg Barnes, was posted on this forum on Wednesday 8 December 2004. http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=2807 In the article the author says: "Australia was the first English-speaking country [to introduce compulsory voting] when the state of Queensland passed legislation in 1914. Ten years after Queensland's law was passed, Australia's national Parliament followed suit. Intriguingly, the law to make voting compulsory apparently passed through the Parliament in only 15 minutes. Where voter turnout had been below 50 per cent in elections before 1924, that number increased to more than 90 per cent in the 1925 election and has been 95 per cent to 98 per cent ever since."

The author's statement as to voter turnout before 1924 being below 50 per cent is simply not true. Voter turnout as a percentage of electors enrolled at, for example, the 20 December 1917 referendum was 81.84 per cent. This is clearly stated on page 812 of the Commonwealth Year Book for 1922, in a table showing the voter turnout for the 1917 referendum. That is about as official a figure as you could get. Voter turnout for the 1922 Federal elections was 58 per cent of total enrolments, and this was the worst for many years. These claims to turnout rates of less than 50 per cent in the absence of compulsion are huge errors of fact upon which conclusions, and online opinions, have been based. Clearly it is time for this whole subject to be properly revisited, notwithstanding the chorus from (taxpayer funded) academe to the effect that compulsory voting is absolutely desirable. And all the more so when it is considered what perfunctory consideration compulsory voting was given by the Parliament when it was introduced!

It is a shame that voting has to be made compulsory. Everyone should realise that voting is the only power the ordinary people have. In every government system in the world whether it be communist or democrary there is always a group of people who grab power and make sure they get more wealth and benefits than anybody else.
This domination of the wealthy is also true in Australian society but at least the vote of the people does put some brakes on this as the politicians do have to pay some attention to mass public opinion if they want to stay in power.

I know the vote in Australia doesnt really give voters much choice when it comes to parties and the politicians are skilled at smoke and mirrors but the right to vote isnt very common in history and it was hard won from the Kings and ruling groups. The people should never surrender that power by not voting.

I’m in favour of compulsory voting.

But we’ve simply gotta have a box on every ballot form for the donkey. In other words, if we feel that none of the candidates/parties deserves our vote, then we should not be obligated to vote for them.

Stuff this notion that it is ok to vote for the lesser or least evil. We have to feel that they deserve our vote!

We should require every citizen of voting age to make the effort lodge a vote. But we need to legitimise the donkey vote!!

I think Snout is right; voting is not just a right, it’s responsibility in a democracy.

Pericles;

“The good thing about non-compulsory voting is that it gives you an immediate measure of voter disaffection with the system, as opposed to disaffection with a particular political party.”

I don’t think this is true. Apathy or laziness or better things to do on the day become significant factors if we are not compelled to vote. Also, the feeling that you are one amongst several million voters (for federal elections in Australia) and therefore your vote doesn’t count for diddly squat anyway, would mean that many people just wouldn’t bother voting if they didn’t have to.

We would get an immediate measure of disaffection if we legitimised the donkey vote.

Banjo;

“Actually one is only required to attend a polling place, verified by having your name crossed off the roll. You may do as you wish with the ballot paper.”

Effectively this is true, but technically it isn’t. You are required to mark one or more boxes in the optional preferential system or every box in the compulsory preferential system.

“My biggest decision is what major party to put last.”

Ah yes. And this is all-important in the compulsory preferential (totally undemocratic complete rort of a) system, that we have at the federal level and in some states.

Ludwig,

Good to see you on this thread. Very interesting idea to formalize the donkey vote. You have given concrete form to the heresy that electors should be able to express disapproval of the general state of the political and electoral process in a secure and formal manner. The ballot paper so marked is safer than an unmarked ballot paper, which can be unlawfully filled in later if scrutiny at the count is lax.

An interesting consequence of this idea is that it would provide a basis for denial of public funding to political parties at the discretion of the individual elector. If you used the 'none of the above' box, then no political party would get the $1+ per primary vote payable under the present formula. Wouldn't that be good! But more important, it would offer the prospect of denial of the carte blanche legitimacy falsely claimed by governments on so many occasions.

You might be interested to know that the Constitution itself effectively endorses exactly this principle. Section 128 of the Constitution, which deals with the manner and form of effecting change thereto, in specifying how the vote is to be counted at a referendum states that informal votes cast must also be taken into account in determining at what point any 'Yes' vote obtains a majority of ALL the votes cast thereat.

By giving expression to such potentially useful ideas you place yourself at profound risk of breaking out of the lockstep of the phalanx of academe on this issue. It worries me that serious mis-statements of fact such as the one I have highlighted in my post above may have been the bases for argument of the pros and cons of this issue. I fear we march on in the shadow of Godwin, but even the unmentionable subject of His law got his start in the ballot box.

I have been ambivalent about compulsory enrolment and voting. I still am. But I agree heartily with Snout and others that voting and concern for the integrity of the electoral process constitute a responsibility for all.

To seek to answer the question that is the topic, perhaps it would be helpful to first determine what the need was for the compulsion. The inference able to be drawn from Greg Barnes' paper referred to in a previous post is that voting was made compulsory because of voter turnout below 50 per cent in the years between 1901 and 1924. Yet this claim can be shown to have been incorrect: voter turnout in 1901 was 56 per cent, in 1903 47 per cent, in 1906 50 per cent, in 1910 62 per cent, in 1911 (at a referendum alone without an election) 53 per cent, in 1913 74 per cent, in 1914 73 per cent, in 1916 (at a referendum) 83 per cent, in 1917 78 per cent, later in 1917 (at a referendum) 82 per cent, and in 1919 71 per cent. All these figures come from the Commonwealth Year Books of the day. These, by the standards of the day, and even internationally to this day, were good turnout figures.

So was it that the level of enrolment as a percentage of population eligible was poor? Professor Marian Sawer, head of the Australian Research Council funded ANU Democratic Audit of Australia, has stated in a paper "Election 2004: How Democratic are Australia's Elections?" that 96 per cent of the eligible population was enrolled on the first Commonwealth electoral roll in 1903. If she is correct, then it looks as if enrolment was not merely good, but excellent, better than today's standard, so far as the official figures were concerned.

What was the need for compulsion in the circumstances? No wonder the private members Bill took the Parliament by surprise! Voter turnout, much less enrolment, simply had not been an issue. With nothing seemingly wrong with compulsory voting, perhaps the Parliament just viewed the proposal as a 'motherhood' issue that could not be opposed, and passed it accordingly.

But what if the high level of enrolment had been achieved otherwise than by genuinely eligible persons enrolling in accordance with law? You know, 'padding the rolls'.