Should voting be compulsory and does voting make a difference in 2024?

By Barrington Roy Schiller (#BarringtonRoySchiller)

 Today, shortly before elections in the UK, France, the US and a host of other countries, it is apt and appropriate that we should discuss the impending elections and ask the 2 part question.

“Should voting be compulsory, and does voting make a difference? ”

To do this, we can look to see if there are precedents, look at the pros and cons and discuss our rights here in the UK before proceeding to look at what differences voting makes and to whom.

I believe this should allow us to conclude whether compulsory voting would make a difference.

On 7th May 2015, David Cameron, a Conservative, was elected with a 12-seat majority.

The turnout was 66.1%.

On 8th June 2017, Theresa May, a Conservative, was elected with a minority government of −5 and 650 seats in parliament.

The turnout was 68.7%.

On 12th December 2019, Boris Johnson, a Conservative, was elected with an 80-seat majority.

The turnout was 67.3%.

The parliament of our country is convened in accordance with the wishes expressed by the votes of the British electorate, but now, in 2024, the counting of votes is being called into question more and more, and in particular, the validity of “postal votes”. In the past, the minority respected the decision and accepted the majority of voters as reported, but slowly, democracy is being threatened when the minority refuse to accept the majority, feels cheated, claims “foul play”, and threatens insurrection. Rather strangely even some of those who didn’t vote feel cheated.

Some of the population, therefore, did vote, and some didn’t.

Some could and some couldn’t, but none were forced or coerced to vote despite everybody in the country being forced to live under the executive orders of the elected party.

However, up to 32 countries have some form of compulsory voting on the statute books, even though most do not enforce it.

Due to the constraints of space and time here, however, I will focus on the UK, but before I do, it seems relevant to mention that those who are “pro-compulsory voting” speak of civic duty, more communal stability, more political legitimacy and a genuine mandate to govern.      

They say it prevents disenfranchisement of the socially disadvantaged.

That results in Less extremism, so fewer special interest groups get themselves into power. They claim a better-informed population in which the role of money in politics decreases. They even claim that there is also a correlation between compulsory voting when enforced strictly and improved income distribution as measured by the Gini coefficient and the bottom income quintiles of the population(1)

And then there are the Arguments against such as:-

Those who claim that voting is a civic right, not a civic duty, see an infringement of other rights, such as those of the Jehovah's Witnesses who believe that they should not participate in political events and those who interpret  Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as supporting their views. This guarantees freedom of political opinion and, thus, the right of citizens to believe in a political system other than a democratic one.

These opponents believe that the freedom to speak necessarily includes the freedom not to speak, and they deduce from that that the right to vote necessarily includes the right not to vote.

I am not here to convince you of one side of the argument or another, but some countries  (and one Swiss canton) that enforce compulsory voting…for at least part of their population may surprise you:----

Argentina –      Australia –   Brazil[20] –  Cyprus - Ecuador – Liechtenstein

Luxembourg –   Malaysia -   North Korea –   Peru[22] –  Singapore – Uruguay –

And

Schaffhausen is the only canton in Switzerland which has compulsory voting.

This surely sounds draconian in a country where we pride our freedom. Yet even here in the UK, 1) if you’re 16 or over and 2) If you’re British or a national of a Commonwealth country, you must register to vote on the electoral roll (but not forced to vote), and if you don’t do so, you could be fined.

For students of politics,   such political debate will not be new, so being presumptuous, I rather assume that upon hearing the question “Should voting be compulsory?   Does voting make a difference?” you may already have started to form an opinion, and you would be quite rightly offended if I told you what that opinion should be or even to what conclusion you should come to after this article. I assume that you would use words similar to the fact that I don’t have a right to do that!

So there we are !!!!!!!!!!!!   

Smack bang in a conversation about what these questions are really about. Rights!

We often talk of rights,     

we already know that there are different types of rights.

Legal rights, those given to us by the State

and Human rights,  those universal rights which are not dependent upon society

We also know that there are positive rights, which oblige action

 and that there are negative rights, which oblige inaction, but as well as Rights and obligations, ours is also the subject of Suffrage. The Definition of suffrage in the Oxford dictionary  is  “The right to vote in political elections”

Where universal suffrage exists, the right to vote is not restricted by sex,  race,  social status, or wealth. However, distinctions are frequently made regarding citizenship, age, mental capacity or criminal convictions.  

It is about your rights. because unless you are THE  King or Queen (I said the Queen and not a queen because sexual preference does not affect anyone’s right to vote in the UK?)

-          unless you are a member of the House of Lords, now known as the Supreme Court, since 2009

-          unless you are a prisoner, detained at her Majesty’s pleasure

-          and as long as you are a British citizen, you have the right to vote in the UK that those who came before you fought hard to obtain.    And to whom you should be grateful.

If you are a woman In the UK, it would be impossible to discuss the rights or obligations to vote without mentioning  Emmeline Pankhurst. She was the British political activist ……and leader of the British suffragette movement who helped women win the right to vote. So much so that in 1999Time  Magazine named Pankhurst as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century,

Even today, one group of the population is still fighting for the right to vote but is excluded from participating in elections despite a reinstated ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that the UK’s blanket ban is illegal. These are prisoners serving a custodial sentence in the UK, and ex-Prime Minister Lord David Cameron is even on record as saying that it made him feel “physically sick” to think of giving prisoners the right to vote.

So, while some are not voting, others are fighting to vote.

In our case, though, how on earth do we classify something that our ancestors have fought and given their lives for as something that we may now wish to make compulsory? That is rather like making it compulsory for staff to pick up their salary at the end of the month. Shouldn’t they want to ??   so the difference seems worthy of investigation as to why one of our rights, the right to be paid for our work, comes naturally to people, yet the right to vote is treated with disdain and apathy by such a large portion of our population. Only 67.3%  of the 45 million registered voters voted in the last general election.

Whatever your view I personally believe that it is not for me or anyone to tell you that you are right or wrong. So my intention today has been simply to present you with a series of thoughts for your consideration in an attempt to provoke thought. 

It can surely be argued that not voting is in itself a vote, bringing us directly to the 2nd part of our question, where we ask if it makes a difference.

It seems clear that votes  CAN make a difference, but to whom or what? Your vote is a brick in the wall, the wall that keeps out fascism, totalitarianism, and Extremism. Does Power corrupt?

A wise man once said that Politicians and Baby’s nappies (Am: diapers) have to be changed regularly for the same reason.

Currently, you have the right to vote or not to vote to remove power-hungry politicians. 

Hitler and Stalin were elected, but if you do not vote, can you truly complain if you lose that right? If the British opinion polls are to be believed today, the UK Labour Party is likely to get a supermajority, yet they still want to give 16-year-olds the vote. It would be cynical to point out that younger people tend more to vote for Labour. However, such a supermajority will almost be equivalent to State capture already. In this case, disgruntled Conservative voters who don’t vote will absolutely make a difference to life in modern Britain for the next decades.

So, reverting back to our example of accepting wages, the difference is perhaps that if you don’t assert your right to collect them, it is only you that you affect, but when you do not assert your current right to vote, you can have an effect on the whole of the population and society.  

Elections have been won and lost by only a handful of votes

Together with your fellow citizens, you stand together when you vote!

Your vote is the finger in the Dutch dyke that prevents your State from being flooded by bigots, and those who create legalised corruption and crony capitalism and who appoint your judges, run your police force and occupy your council offices.

They decide whether to Send your sons, brothers and daughters to war

They decide what you can read, write or say.

If you do not use your vote to keep those in power accountable,  who will?

Your vote is your voice! And while it exists, politicians can be removed, as party leaders and Presidents have discovered, without one single shot being fired, unlike before the French and Russian revolutions.

I am sure that we all know the famous words of pastor Niemeier

First, they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

The statement was published in a 1955 book by Milton Mayer. It was called They Thought They Were Free.  

Presumably, most of you today also think that you are free, but it is your vote that makes the difference to keep you free. But not only for you but also for many others.

It makes a difference to the health care our workers receive

It makes a difference to the education our children receive,

Many vote as their parents did, and it makes a difference to the pension your parents receive

It may not be as immediate as the wages you collect, but it affects your family's income

To many, this most powerful right does make a difference

I will leave you to believe or not to believe whether or not it should be compulsory!

My only wish is that when or if, voting.

Let us not seek the Labour answer or the Conservative answer.  Let us not seek any political answer.  Let us seek the humanitarian answer and remember, “You can ignore Politics, but it won’t ignore you”, and “Bad politicians are elected by good people who didn’t vote”

There are those who believe in the importance of voting so much that they advocate making polling day a national holiday, and some Countries permit political parties to give voters gifts and food at the polling stations. It is said that “It’s easier to get someone to vote against something than to vote for something” so even if we seek the no-harm,  least selfish, principal we must be aware that if we don’t we are living under “the illusion of democracy”. 

 (1)'Gini Index' A measurement of the income distribution of a country's residents. This number, which ranges between 0 and 1 and is based on residents' net income, helps define the gap between the rich and the poor, with 0 representing perfect equality and 1 representing perfect inequality.

Quintiles: any of five equal groups into which a population can be divided according to the distribution of values of a particular variable.