Voting in Australia in all federal and state elections is compulsory, with fines issued to those who fail to vote without a valid excuse. Thus, parties do not have to ‘persuade electors to cast their vote by organising and managing ‘turnouts’. Under compulsory voting, the turnout of electors to vote is very high (often in excess of 90 per cent.) Organising turnouts for a political party is very time consuming and is, put simply, persuading electors to vote and if necessary transporting those electors to the nearest polling booth and home again.
Minor parties also benefit as they do not have to spend time and money in persuading voters to actually go and vote in the election. As the electors have to attend the polling booth to vote, itf they are dissatisfied with the major parties, the minor parties would gain the vote of those electors, unless the voter for whatever reason decided to vote informal.
Hill (2002:437-8) has argued that ‘the state –enforced compulsion to vote is a reasonable imposition on personal liberty.’ She goes on to defend compulsory voting ‘on the grounds that voting is a public good and therefore a problem of collective action which can be resolved only by collective means’. In this context ‘collective action’ can be defined as action by the
community or society and not solely by an individual. In Hill’s view voting is a collective action because it ‘yields a number of clear and important benefits to society and individuals.’
serves to protect the democratic desiderata, such as representativeness, legitimacy,
accountability, political equality and minimisation of elite power. In this way, compulsion could be said to engender good or at least better government.
Legitimacy in the context of this thesis means that minor parties are elected in an election where a majority of electors vote, due to the fact that they are legally required to do so. Voting is not the preserve of those citizens with property or citizens who are enthusiastic enough to make the effort to go out and vote. Parties themselves are not required to actually persuade voters to go and vote. Electors do not vote because they have been ‘herded up’ by party workers and transported to the polling booth. Minor parties win seats in the legislature because they were elected in an election where the majority of electors vote, not just the opportunistic few.
Kleppner (1982:5) stated that: -
Voting is the participatory act most accessible to the largest number of citizens and the political act in which most citizens engage than in any other. Voting remains the
mechanism that most believe to be the only one available to them for influencing what the government does.
In an environment of non-compulsory voting, Lijphart (1997:1) considered that low voter turnout was ‘a serious democratic problem’ because ‘unequal turnout is systematically biased against less well to do citizens’ and also ‘unequal turnout spells unequal political influence’.
In most countries voting is voluntary, Australia is one of the very few countries in the world to have compulsory voting. Hughes (1966:81) constructed a cumulative list from the
parliamentary debates (Hansard) giving the reasons for and against compulsory voting. The reasons given for compulsory voting include: -
voting is an important civic duty with a very light burden, once or twice very three years;
voting is analogous to other civic duties such as giving evidence in court and jury service;
democratic government means majority rule and the expression of an opinion by a majority of electors; and
the right to vote has been fought for, and therefore should be used.
The reasons against compulsory voting include, compulsory voting cannot ensure a formal vote or an intelligent vote and further, compulsory voting is an infringement of liberty.
Hill (2002:438) argued that:-
voting itself does not appear to be compulsory; instead it is registration and attendance at a polling place that is really compulsory. In this way, it is the opportunity to participate rather than the participation itself that is being actively sought.
In the minds of many electors having had to make the effort to participate, the next logical step then is to in fact participate and make a valid vote.
In that light, the electoral rules in Australia (compulsory voting) significantly account for the success of third parties by restraining the behavior of disaffected voters. Further, major established parties may come to be perceived as unresponsive – increasingly detached from their electoral bases and from the population in general (Belanger 2004:1056). Compulsory voting means that a dissatisfied voter who does not wish to vote for either of the major parties still must vote, possibly for a minor or micro party as a ‘protest vote’ secondly as all squares on the ballot paper have to be filled out the voter must allocate preferences often from a minor or micro party to one of the major parties. In a marginal electorate, such an allocation of
preferences can decide the final result. This situation, or the possibility of it, places a minor party in a powerful position in deciding which major party to preference above the other.
Without compulsory voting those dissatisfied with the major parties might be inclined to sit out the election, however with compulsory voting, they might choose to vote for a minor party instead (Mackerras and McAllister 1999:229). Rather bluntly Hill (2002A:81) commented that ‘aside from its few critics, compulsory voting has never, apparently, bothered Australians.’ Pringle (2012:428) claimed that ‘the duty to vote requires electors to mark their ballot papers’. Pringle went on (at page 429) to observe that the focus should be on ‘voting as marking ballots, rather than on turnout, in measuring democratic vitality.’ As with the impossibility of ensuring that a formal vote is made, enforcing voters to actually mark their ballot papers and not leave them blank is an impossibility given the secrecy of the ballot. Perhaps the real offence is publicly inciting voters to place their ballot papers in the ballot box unmarked.
Pringle (2012:429) observed that the focus should be on ‘voting as marking ballots, rather than on turnout, in measuring democratic vitality’. Like providing a formal vote, enforcing voters to mark their ballot papers is very much an impossibility, given the secrecy of the ballot. The real offence would seem to be the inciting of voters to place their ballot papers in the ballot boxes unmarked.
A voter dissatisfied with the major parties can send a message to those parties by voting for a minor party. This message is largely lost by voting informal or not voting at all. An informal vote or not voting at all, could occur through dissatisfaction with the major parties. But informal voting is more likely occur, and indeed seen to occur, through negligence in numbering the ballot paper or an ignorance of the correct method of voting. There are numerous reasons for not voting at an election.