Australia's electoral system is unique in being probably the fairest and least open to manipulation of any in the world. An independent Electoral Commission, redistributions conducted under judicial scrutiny, a system of preferential voting, the operation of the secret ballot, no age barriers preventing electors from seeking election as candidates, public funding of campaigns, the random listing and identification of party affiliation on ballot papers, and a number of other local practices ensure this. One of those unique local practices which contributes so much to the fairness of Australian elections is compulsory voting.
The people most likely not to vote are those who are least aware of their rights, the most disadvantaged and the ones most likely to be exploited by rich and powerful political and financial interests.
Keeping these people away from the polls is something which corrupt sectional interests always try to do. For example, in 1993 the Democratic Governor of New Jersey (USA), Jim Florio, was defeated in a campaign in which there was strong evidence that his Republican opponents had run a deliberate campaign (including actual allegations of bribery) to keep poor black voters (traditional Democrat Supporters) away from the polls.
Compulsory voting keeps down the cost of campaigns. The most expensive part of a campaign where there is no compulsory voting is having to 'turn on the vote'. A Senatorial campaign in the United States costs from $3 million to well over $12 million. The very act of having to raise large sums of money leaves candidates and political parties potentially beholden to their financial backers and thus keeping down the costs of campaigns reduces the potential for political corruption.
In the United States politics is characterised as 'the struggle of pressure groups versus the public interest'. Powerful lobbies such as the National Rifle Association dominate political life because they can motivate their members to get out and vote in numbers disproportionate to their real strength in the community.
Assume that pressure group X has the support of 5 per cent of the population, then in a compulsory voting situation it is likely to be able to influence 5 per cent of the vote. But if the number of people voting falls to 30 per cent and all the members of pressure group X vote, then their electoral strength is now 16 per cent. I believe pressure groups are proper and legitimate in our democracy but they should have no greater power to determine electoral outcomes than they actually possess in terms of real community support. Compulsory voting ensures this, while voluntary voting increases the disproportionate power of pressure groups. This again puts a premium on money. The richer and the more powerful can both better organise and better skew the outcome of elections to their sectional advantage than can the poorer, the less articulate and the less educated.
When opponents of compulsory voting characterise these people as 'apathetic' they reveal only their own class (and often racial) prejudices. There are as many 'apathetic' rich people as poor people, but those at the bottom of the socio-economic heap are the ones most likely not to know that it is by their participation in elections that they can best ensure a government that will not feel free to ignore them entirely. Similarly the proposition that only the 'educated and informed' should vote is a clear first step on the road to imposing qualifications on electors against which true democrats have always fought, and with good reason.
I am very proud of Australia's electoral system and while I favour regular review of all its aspects, I would not destroy any of them currently in place and to my mind functioning well. I believe compulsory voting is a major pillar which gives strength to one of the fairest and most democratic electoral systems currently practised.
