In 2010, nearly 16 million registered electors did not turn out to vote. Is compulsory voting the answer?
In 2010, nearly 16 million registered electors did not turn out to vote. Next month a similar figure probably won’t make it to the polls.
Against this backdrop, some have called for voting to be made compulsory. One of those is Labour MP David Winnick, who has suggested that voting be made a ‘civic duty’. Similarly, the IPPR think tank has recommended compulsory first time voting, which it says could ’empower’ young people.
On the other hand, isn’t compelling people to vote a sign of democratic failure? Don’t politicians simply need to offer people an inspiring message which they actually want to vote for?
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29 Responses to “VOTE: Should voting (or actively abstaining) be compulsory?”
Tom Sheldon
You can’t force people to engage. Compulsory voting will just mean a load of people who probably don’t know much about what the parties stand for turning up and voting because they feel they have to, and probably voting either randomly (which may give more votes the the candidate at the top of the page) or for the party they’ve seen most on posters or in some other trivial capacity.
We need to encourage people to get engaged. An increased voter turnout should then result from that.
Norfolk29
Yes. Stalin used to get a 99 per cent approval rate.
DRbilderburg
No PR is the answer. Iv’e only for another party except labour once and that was in local elections, other than that iv’e voted Labour or spoilt my paper, and i am not young This year i won’t even bother spoiling my paper because by doing so i’d be giving credibility to our FPTP electoral system
How can 2 parties, both of whom have multi millionaires as leaders, with no real life Job experiences represent 60 odd million people, it’s absurd. They don’t
Norfolk29
The issue is that by not voting they ignore your needs. You can protest all you like that they do not know you, but they do. They look after pensioners, like me, because we have the highest percentage turnout of all groups. Just think if that group were the under 25′ or the disabled, or those on benefits.
Leon Wolfeson
Compulsory voting is a terrible idea. It’s not democratic, and it’s a distraction from voting reform – if we had PR, many more people would vote.
It would also need either i.e. registering to vote near your workplace (eliminating a large degree of anonymity), to change the entire voting system to allow far longer voting periods, for instance, or even access to postal balloting. Otherwise, contract workers would break the law if they needed to travel away that day for work.