Educational level and wealth of a country is an important factor to consider, when looking at differating voter turnout levels. While the capacity to read and write does not necessarily equate to an ability to make coherent and informed political decisions, turnout does increase with literacy, before declining in societies where literacy exceeds 90 percent. Similarly, if we measure the wealth of a country against its gross domestic product and examine voter turnout performance a similar effect is seen, although it stays relatively static at the highest levels.
Another important factor, which highly affects the level o turnout is the electoral system used. Within parliamentary elections, there are nine major electoral systems in use around the world, as categorized in the International IDEA Handbook of Electoral System Design Alternative Vote which is used in the three Oceania countries of Australia, Fiji and Nauru leads with an average turnout of 91 percent, while the two countries with Single Non-Transferable Vote being Jordan and Vanuatu have an average of only 43 percent. The other systems do not have such a large deviation, with Single Transferable Vote at 80 percent and Two-Round System at 63 percent. An
Interesting result is the relatively small difference between the two most widely used systems, List Proportional Representation at 73 percent and First Past the Post at 67 percent. Thus the electoral system used can widely effect the voting turn-out.
The type of election can also be significantly influential, Participation at parliamentary elections is only marginally higher than at presidential elections, although it should be noted that the database contains more than three times as many parliamentary elections as presidential elections. The 1,175 parliamentary elections saw an average turnout of 75 percent.
However some countries have decided to enforce forms of legislation in order to force people to vote. This essay will now try to determine whether this is an appropriate way to increase turn-out Compulsory voting laws exist in approximately 30 countries of the world, with varying levels of enforcement. The enforcement of compulsory voting laws seems to have a strong influence on turnout, countries enforcing compulsory voting have on average a 10-15 percent higher turnout than other countries. Six of the top ten countries practice compulsory voting: Australia has an average turnout of 83%, Singapore, Liechtenstein, Belgium at 84%, Nauru and Austria with a slightly lower but still significantly, higher than countries without legislation at 79%.
All democratic governments consider participating in national elections a right of citizenship and a citizen’s civic responsibility. Some consider that participation in elections is also a citizen’s duty. In some countries, where voting is considered a duty, voting at elections has therefore been made compulsory and has been regulated in the national constitutions or electoral laws. Some countries impose sanctions on non-voters.
Compulsory voting is not a new concept. Belgium introduce compulsory voting in 1892, Argentina in 1914 and Australia in 1924 were among the first countries to introduce compulsory voting laws.
Countries such as Venezuela and the Netherlands practiced compulsory voting at one time but have since abolished it. However did see a rise in the level turn out while the law was enforced.
Advocates of compulsory voting argue that decisions made by democratically elected
Governments are more legitimate when higher proportions of the population participate.
They argue further that voting, voluntarily or otherwise, has an educative effect upon the citizens. Political parties can save money as a result of compulsory voting, since they do not have to spend resources convincing the electorate that it should turn out to vote. Lastly, if democracy is government by the people, presumably this includes all people, so that it is every citizen’s responsibility to elect his or her representatives. Yet the leading argument against compulsory voting is that it is not consistent with the freedom associated with democracy. Voting is not an intrinsic obligation and the enforcement of such a law would be an infringement of the citizen’s freedom associated with democratic elections. It may discourage the political education of the electorate because people forced to participate will react against the perceived source of oppression.
It has been found that many countries with limited financial resources may not be able to justify the expense of maintaining and enforcing compulsory voting laws. It has been proved that
Forcing the population to vote results in an increased number of invalid and blank votes compared to countries that have no compulsory voting laws. Another consequence of compulsory voting is the possible high number of “random votes”. Voters who are voting against their free will may check off a candidate at random. The cost of enforcement may lead some electoral administrations to lower their standards of enforcement.
Many countries offer loopholes, intentionally and otherwise, which allow non-voters to go unpunished. For example, in many countries it is required to vote only if you are a registered voter, but it is not compulsory to register, such as within Australia.
There is clearly a strong correlation between the level of enforcement of compulsory voting laws and voter turnout. The obvious theory supporting the positive relationship between compulsory voting and higher participation at elections is simple; each citizen’s desire to avoid being punished for not voting increases the likelihood of them making the effort to vote.
Enforced compulsory voting increases turnout by a little more than 15 percent, compared with countries where voting is voluntary. However, compulsory voting is not the only factor to increase
Turnout with in a country. Socio-economic, political and institutional factors have all been proposed as having an impact on voter turnout.
Therefore it can be concluded that there are a number of significant factors that influence the level of turn-out world wide. These include educational level, wealth, type of electoral system and type of election but a main significant factor is whether legislation is used forcing people to vote. Yet this has been found to have its advantages and also and significantly its disadvantages.
REFERENCES
- Administration and Cost of Elections Project (ACE) by International IDEA, IFES and the United Nations, www.aceproject.org.
- Gratschew, Maria, July 2001, Compulsory Voting, ARENA, Association of Electoral Administrators, Oxonian Rewley Press Ltd, United Kingdom.
- Hirczy de Mino, W. 1994. The impact of mandatory voting laws on turnout: a quasi-experimental approach.
- A. Heywood, politics, palgrave, 1997, chapter 11
- Rod Hauge and Martin Harrop, An introduction to comparative government and politics, palgrave, 1992, chapter 9
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