Lisa Young says YES
Professor of political science at the University of Calgary
On election day in Australia, everyone goes out to vote. They then enjoy a “democracy sausage”—usually a hot dog sold as a fundraiser for schools where voting is held. If it were up to me we’d import both traditions to Canada. I mean, who doesn’t love a hot dog and a functional democracy?
The reason most people show up to vote on election day in Australia is simple: they’re required to, and if they don’t, they pay a fine. This isn’t unique to Australia. Other democracies, including Argentina, Belgium and Switzerland, also require eligible citizens to vote.
Why mandate voting?
First, the act of voting connects citizens to government. We’re all affected by election outcomes, but many voters are content to let government happen to them rather than cast a ballot and take some responsibility for the outcome. This breeds cynicism and apathy, as a segment of the population sees government as something that simply happens rather than something they choose. Requiring citizens to vote reminds them of their agency and ability to hold politicians to account.
Second, mandatory voting gives more segments of society democratic influence. We know that the 60 per cent of voters who show up to cast their ballot are not a random sample of the population. Instead, voters are more likely to be older, better educated, more affluent and have a more stable living situation. Their interests are different from those of younger, more mobile non-voters. Not surprisingly, politicians offer policies that reflect a calculation about various groups’ propensity to vote.
Think back to the “affordability payments” the Alberta government announced before the 2023 provincial election. They were offered to families with children (who legitimately might be struggling because of inflation) but also to seniors, the group most likely to show up to vote. Individuals who might be in the greatest need—young adults struggling to establish themselves, or single individuals with low incomes—received nothing. It’s difficult to account for these policy choices without thinking about the predictors of voter turnout. Under a system of mandatory voting, governments won’t be tempted to tailor policies to the citizens most likely to cast a ballot.
Third, mandatory voting takes away one of the most noxious tactics of contemporary electoral politics: vote suppression. Knowing which segments of the electorate are least likely to support them, some parties discourage voting. This can take the form of requiring voter ID, so that citizens from diaspora communities who are less likely to have ID can’t cast a ballot, or sending misleading information about polling stations or other practicalities. In a political system that requires voting, suppression is less likely to be successful.
I don’t know how to institute the tradition of “democracy sausages” in Canada, but I can identify the policy tool that would markedly increase voter turnout: mandatory voting.
Paul G. Thomas says no
The professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba
Voting is not a moral duty of democratic citizenship. A refusal to vote in elections can be a quiet, safe protest by less powerful individuals and groups that denies the legitimacy of the actions of the political system. Indigenous friends of mine do not vote in federal elections, for this reason.
Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees eligible citizens the right to vote, implies the converse right to abstain. Similarly, freedom of speech doesn’t require people to make speeches. Mandatory voting would potentially infringe on the right to refrain from voting on religious grounds. The law could face a constitutional challenge, and the government would have to argue that compulsion was “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
Voting isn’t the only, or necessarily the most effective, form of democratic participation. Individuals can calculate that their vote won’t make a difference to election outcomes or government policies. They could view lobbying on specific issues as a better use of their time.
The main argument in favour of mandatory voting is that it would increase turnout and make the voting population more representative. However, how low must turnout be to justify imposing a mandatory duty to vote? Must it fall below 50 per cent over one or several elections before mandatory voting would be acceptable? And turnout isn’t the only or best measure of the health of a democracy. Low trust and weak confidence in the political process and in politicians is rife in most western democracies, including those which require voting. Parties are the least trusted of all political institutions. Mandatory voting might mitigate one symptom of our democratic malaise, but it wouldn’t address the underlying causes.
Mandatory voting brings more inattentive, “low-information” voters to the polls, who are more susceptible to personality-based and sensational messaging such as attack ads. Studies of Australia’s mandatory voting system document “random voting,” with disengaged people marking a X on the ballot for the first listed candidate. Poorly informed votes cancel out those cast by conscientious voters. Mandatory voting also leads to more spoiled ballots.
Making the vote mandatory would require extra authority, staff and money for election agencies. And what sanctions or incentives would promote compliance? Would fines for non-voting be modest and seldom collected? This is the case in Australia, where the fine is roughly $20 and can be avoided by presenting a doctor’s note.
Before mandating voting, let’s try less drastic steps such as a lower voting age, online voting, a longer voting period and more outreach to citizens who tend not to vote. Rather than coerce citizens through the “quick fix” of mandatory voting, we should encourage parties to inspire citizens to be more attentive to public affairs and more motivated to vote.
lisa young responds to Paul G. Thomas
Although we disagree about the merits of mandatory voting, Paul G. Thomas and I share similar views about many aspects of the issue.
His observation that non-voting is a legitimate way to express protest is entirely valid and, particularly in the context of the potential application of mandatory voting to Indigenous people, compelling. The Canadian state has required many things of Indigenous people over the years. While I see merit in the idea of mandatory voting, I wouldn’t make a case that it should extend to Indigenous people, who have good reason to reject the legitimacy of Canadian democratic institutions. I will cheerfully concede this point and amend my imagined mandatory voting regime to apply only to non-Indigenous Canadians.
What about the rest of the electorate? In a liberal democracy, citizens most certainly should enjoy a right to abstain. A citizen who finds the choices available to them unpalatable or who rejects the legitimacy of the electoral system is entitled to express that view and act on it. Under mandatory voting, an elector should be entitled to decline their ballot, thereby registering their view. This offers citizens a way to clearly communicate displeasure with the system. In fact, I would go so far as to say that declining a ballot is a more meaningful form of protest than simply staying home on election day.
I also share Thomas’s belief that “we should encourage parties to inspire citizens to be more attentive to public affairs and more motivated to vote.” In fact, my strongest argument in favour of mandatory voting is that it would give political parties an incentive to engage with broader swaths of the electorate. I’m skeptical that parties could be convinced to spend their time and money encouraging voting as a public good. But if there were a good chance that non-voters would find their way to the polls on election day, parties would almost certainly respond by designing appeals to these segments of the electorate.
Political parties would engage with broader swaths of the electorate if voting were mandatory.
I also agree that there is much we could do, short of imposing mandatory voting, to increase voter turnout. After the 2021 federal election, Statistics Canada added questions to its Labour Force Survey to ask some 56,000 Canadians about whether they voted and, if they did not, why not. One finding from that survey was that some of those who did not vote experienced difficulties with the electoral process, were not on the voters list or didn’t know where to vote. Although voting has become more accessible in recent years, with advance polls open for days and mail-in ballots available, more can be done to ensure this access. But this assumes a political consensus that high voter turnout is a good thing. Governments that impose stricter ID requirements for voters or that prevent elections administration agencies from actively encouraging turnout hamper these efforts.
Thomas thinks of low voter turnout as a symptom of democratic malaise, and mandatory voting as a proposed remedy to low voter turnout. I look at the issue a bit differently. While some non-voters are expressing a principled rejection, most are simply not interested or could not find the time to vote. The Statistics Canada survey found that the most common reasons given for not voting were either not being interested in politics or being “too busy.” This speaks not to a democratic malaise so much as a willingness to ignore politics.
Mandating voting, in my view, is not a remedy for low voter turnout per se, but rather for the effect it has on parties’ strategies and public policy. Citizens are more likely to pay attention to politics if political parties are trying to capture their attention, and political parties are more likely to try to capture the attention of likely voters. Mandatory voting has the potential to motivate parties to try to reach the uninterested.
Finally, I don’t share Thomas’s concerns about low-information voters and random ballots. One of the most challenging aspects of liberal democracy is having to accept the legitimacy of others’ votes, even when you are convinced they are illogical and ill-informed. Some habitual voters come to the polls having carefully researched and reasoned their choice. Other habitual voters cast their ballot based on vague impressions or multi-generational family partisanship. Their votes are no more valuable than those of individuals who have not become habitual voters.
Mandatory voting is not a panacea; it will not cure all that ails our politics. Other institutional reforms, such as electoral system change, would have a more profound impact. But it’s an idea worth considering, if for no other reason than to focus our attention on the dynamics of “who matters” in contemporary electoral politics.
Paul G. Thomas responds to lisa young
Lisa Young says nothing beats a trip to the polls and a hot dog, at least in Australia, the most popular example of a country with mandatory voting. In the current cynical climate, some readers might think voting and hot dogs both involve a messy combination of unpalatable ingredients. For many disillusioned citizens a hot dog wouldn’t be enough to get them to vote.
The Australia example is meant to strengthen Young’s case. She might have mentioned that roughly 30 countries have mandatory voting. The list includes Brazil, Egypt and Turkey, none of them paragons of democratic virtue.
Proponents of mandatory voting tend to exaggerate the positive impacts arising from such laws and ignore the much greater importance of the traditions and political cultures of the countries in which they operate. I acknowledge that a relationship exists between these two factors: mandatory voting may help create a culture where voting is an entrenched habit. But when does the problem of non-voting become serious enough to warrant the use of coercion to require people to vote?
In some countries these laws are mainly symbolic because there is limited or no enforcement of the requirement to vote. Even in Australia the fine for not voting is modest ($20), and people can easily get an exemption by obtaining a doctor’s note. In a recent election, only 3,000 non-voting Australians (of 18 million eligible voters) were prosecuted and fined.
When voting is mandatory, exemptions must be made for people with disabilities or seniors who have mobility issues. The longer-term goal should be to make voting as accessible as possible, including online.
It’s true that mandatory voting increases turnout, but it also means more disengaged and uninformed citizens cast votes to elect officeholders and set the policy direction. Parties, electoral agencies, schools and community organizations need to do more to inform and motivate citizens, especially young adults, about the importance of voting.
When does non-voting become serious enough to warrant the use of coercion to require people to vote?
The argument that a broadened voter base including groups who traditionally don’t vote will reduce the influence of well-heeled and well-connected individuals and groups is unduly optimistic. Lobbying—negotiation and accommodations between private and public elites—will continue to trump elections as a way to set policy directions. As demonstrated in Democracy for Realists (2016), by Christopher Aachen and Larry Bartels, most citizens have little interest in policy and can’t tell which leader or party most closely represents their values and interests. Inattentive voters are easily influenced and manipulated by flamboyant party leaders.
People vote more based on their partisan backgrounds and increasingly on their identity as members of particular groups than on any deep policy knowledge. Election winners insist they have a mandate, but this claim is often dubious. Policy options seldom dominate election debates, and people vote mostly based on leaders’ personalities and their own personal circumstances.
One argument is that mandatory voting would reduce the tendency of governing parties seeking re-election to target policies mainly at the segments of society that reliably vote for them. But such strategies would continue even with mandatory voting, as governing parties will want to demonstrate responsiveness to their traditional base. Moreover, our first-past-the-post system creates a strong incentive for parties to focus their policies and messages on constituencies and regions where there are prospects for success.
Professor Young also argues that mandatory voting makes it less tempting for parties to employ tactics to suppress turnout by segments of the electorate that don’t support them. This may be true to some extent, but such tactics have sadly become part of election campaigns, which are now staged as warlike battles in which vanquishing “the enemy” is the goal.
Australia’s Liberal–National Coalition government, an alliance of centre-right parties, adopted ID requirements and other changes that it claimed were needed to deal with widespread voter fraud. In fact no evidence of a serious problem existed, and the new rules seemed mainly designed to discourage voting by disadvantaged groups such as Indigenous Australians. In short, mandatory voting isn’t guaranteed to deter unethical tendencies by gladiators in the political arena.
Ultimately I don’t favour mandatory voting in Canada. Turnout isn’t the only or most important measure of the vitality of a democracy. Countries with mandatory voting are experiencing the same public disillusionment with politics and politicians as those with no legal requirement to vote. Rather than a simple “quick fix,” we need to address the deeper, underlying sources of disengagement and dissatisfaction.
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