The question of voluntary voting was raised again this week. This time it was the case of a Canberra man, Maxwell Smithies, who was prosecuted by the Australian Electoral Commission for failing that to vote in the 1999 referendum. He was fined $50 in the ACT Magistrates’ Court and ordered to pay $350 in costs. Mr Smithies is a crusader against compulsory voting, arguing that it was against his conscience to vote under such a regime.
The commission was rather stupid to rise to Mr Smithies’ bait, though the commission is in somewhat or bind. If it allows people who say their conscience is offended by compulsory voting to escape prosecution, anyone could use that excuse and de-facto voting would become voluntary, defeating the philosophy and purpose of he law requiring compulsory voting.
In fact, it would not matter too much if the commission allowed the odd case of conscientious objection to slip through. It would hardly open up a floodgate because, by and large, Australians are law-abiding. The commission has fallen into Mr Smithies’ trap, namely, to make a martyr of himself and to bring the question of compulsory voting into public debate.
Mr Smithies is determined to continue his campaign by refusing to pay the fine, if necessary going to jail. It would be foolish for the commission or the courts to fall into the trap of making him an even a bigger martyr. The debate about whether Australia should have compulsory voting is better conducted in the Parliament and the media than in the courts or jails.
As it happens, Australia does not have a system of compulsory voting. Rather, it has a system that demands attendance at the polling booth.. Thereafter, the legal protection for the secrecy of the ballot box ensures the that actual the voting is voluntary because any voter can just leave at the ballot paper blank. So the real issue is whether the law should require attendance at the polling booth on the election day.
By and large, Labor supporters and people on the left generally favour compulsory voting, whereas conservatives and small-l liberals frequently argue against it. In theory, Labor benefits from compulsory voting because people with lower education and lower socio-economic status tend to be more apathetic about voting. But this is an untested hypothesis. Equally, it may be that the “true believers” are more committed and hence more likely to vote. In any event, the question of compulsory voting should not be debated according to whether one side or other would benefit, but rather on questions of principle.
There is some argument in favour of forcing people to be engaged in the political process. The situation in the United States, where often fewer than half of the voters bother to take part, is deplorable. Some people quite wrongly think that if Australia had voluntary voting there would be a similar outcome. However, British and continental European experience suggests a far higher turnout. And given Australia’s history of engagement and involvement of voters with the electoral process it is more likely we would follow that rather than the United States experience. In any event, there is little to suggest that Australia’s political history would have been any different with voluntary voting.
That said, there is a strong argument for voluntary voting in referendums. Referendums are not a choice about who should be given a general mandate to govern us. Rather they are questions about specific, and often complex, questions of constitutional import. The danger of compulsory voting in these matters is that people ignorance and apathetic about the issue are asked to vote which seems to result in an unthinking No vote without detailed consideration of the issue at hand. That is a perversion of the democratic will.