Preview

Compulsory Voting In Australia

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
967 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Compulsory Voting In Australia
“Voting should not be compulsory in Australia”

Popular participation is often cited as one of the fundamental principles of democracy.
The right to vote being a freedom that has, and continues to be, sought after by people all over the world. Despite the value of many political systems’ movement toward universal suffrage, the few countries that have confused the right to vote, with a requirement to, have arguably deteriorated the significance of this achievement. Australia is part of a considerable minority that implement obligatory voting laws, and of an even smaller subset that enforce them. Although the proponents of mandatory voting will be considered, the incompatibility of compulsory voting with implied freedoms, with broad theories of democracy and the overall inefficacy of producing a more engaged public, serve as perspectives that substantiate the notion that voting should no longer be compulsory in Australia.

The Australian Constitution raises a number of questions about the constitutional validity of mandatory voting. Given this evaluation
…show more content…
Whilst in theory this is conceivable, its practical limitations make the alleviation of indifference a distant reality. In support of this, a 2007 experiment conducted by Peter Loewen et al. in a Quebec election found that required voting had “little or no effect” on the knowledge and engagement of its participants. In the Australian context, despite the assumption that the problem of participation is solved by mandatory laws, in the last election around one-fifth of eligible Australians failed to cast a usable vote. It is argued that candidates and parties rely on these laws to get voters to the ballot. If this is the case, perhaps the solution is to abandon compulsory voting and thus force parties to organically incite a politically active populace through enticing and innovative

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Frank Brennan’s informative book No Small Change: The Road to Recognition essentially looks at the prospect of potentially having a renewed referendum. Looking back at 1967, and the staggering amount of public support to both eliminate discrimination against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and to include Aborigines as part of the census, in essence ushered rudimentary human rights laws. That being said, Brennan observes the same opportunity to further the constitutions ongoing faults, issuing his respected opinion on how the country can push forward by delving into our failures and using them as a means of improvement. Though the prospect of a new referendum may seem far reaching on the outlook,…

    • 971 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mandatory voting has a possibility of leading to random votes. Mandatory voting has a possibility of leading to random votes because many citizens are either uneducated about politics or they are apolitical, meaning that they don’t care about politics. If there was mandatory voting then people would have to vote even though they don’t want to. In fact, this is because people who are apolitical just don’t care about voting and many other people don’t usually know about any other candidates, so they don’t vote. Stated in document 2, lines 24 and 25, Maria Gretschew wrote, “It has been proved that forcing the population to vote results in an increased number of invalid and blank votes”. This means that if citizens were forced to vote there would…

    • 218 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When a Canadian is asked to name their local Member of Parliament, we all can’t help but laugh at the people who literally don’t know anything about our political system. Unfortunately, the ignorance of politics has been divided into many groups of Canadians, which demonstrates why some people are not informed or interested in discussing political matters. Elisabeth Gidengil, writer of Citizens, explicitly repeats in her novel that Age, Material circumstances, education and gender gaps are factors of being politically engaged (Gidengil 173). Without a doubt, not everyone has those same components to become an active citizen and it’s unfortunate that some choose not to get politically involved. Consequently, the absence of political knowledge has a big effect on Canada because with more uninformed citizens, leads to more societal problems. In this paper, I argue the success of Canada’s democracy is heavily dependent on politically engaged citizens and by having more Canadians convey their concerns, the authorities can realize what political issues to extricate. The result of increasing civic engagement is both a sophisticated…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Disraeli OCR

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Compare these Sources as evidence for the views of Disraeli on extending the right to vote. [30]…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the nation stands, only about 30-50 percent of the United States has voted for a presidential candidate since 2000. A disappointment it is to only have at most about half of the US vote being that it has the third largest population in the world. However, to resolve this dilemma, the idea of mandatory voting could be used to help get the voice of the whole nation out. The need of mandatory is immense for it will better represent the population of America, level the playing field of candidate parties, and it will give the incentive for more informed voting causing the better quality of voters.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Corbin, Carole L. The Right to Vote: Issues in American History. New York: Franklin Watts, 1985.…

    • 1958 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Compulsory voting would help citizens to become further educated about voting. In accordance to the George Mason University citizens with a lower education or are of a younger age, have a lower percentage of voter turnout(Doc. B). This would be caused by the fact that these citizens don’t have much knowledge of how to vote. Having compulsory voting would eliminate this due to the fact that…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The right to vote is one of the fundamental rights that serves as an indicator for freedom of a people, and can be seen in the history of every nation. Before Australia gained sovereignty in 1901, only male British subjects over 21 years of age were allowed to vote. In 1902, the Commonwealth of Australia uniformly passed into law the right of women over 21 years of age to vote, but deliberately excluded ‘native’ women and men from doing so. During this period, both indigenous men and women were excluded from voting in federal elections unless already registered within a state government, which was very difficult to do. In addition to the policy barring Aboriginal peoples from voting, there was a lack of inclusion in society that discouraged…

    • 184 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dean, lawyer for president Richard Nixon, compares compulsory voting to a “force of habit,” or doing something that is “second nature.” For example; like driving a car on the right side of the street. Dean places Greater value on what a citizen must do (civic duty) rather than Liberty. For example he said,” In sum, voting is the least a citizen can do for his or her country, and it is not unreasonable to ask US citizens to do this minimal thing.” In other words, citizens have no reason not to vote, it should be like going to work. This article expresses the thought that voting is easier than doing something that we have to by force, such as paying taxes or serving on a jury. It also expresses that voting is a…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Essay On Voting In America

    • 1525 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Voting in America is difficult. There are many obstacles the potential voter has to run through in order to have their voice heard, and even, their candidate of choice may not win. They have to struggle with paperwork to get registered to vote, which also registers them for the eligible list of candidates for the jury pool, a task nobody wants anything to do with. Then after the hard paperwork and jury duty comes Election Day. The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which leads to great confusion as to what day the elections are on. Even worse are the municipal elections which vary from town to town, and county to county, leaving masses of voters confused as to what day they have to go out and make their voices heard.…

    • 1525 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Nat Marshall draft notes for English course work 12th Jan Should the age at which people gain the right to vote be lowered to 16? The right to vote is a very important human right. It gives us an opportunity to participate in the way democratic countries are governed.…

    • 747 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    When the uninformed and uninterested people are forced to vote, the quality of their vote is questionable. “Social scientist have shown that higher quality government tends came high turnout. But high turnout does not cause higher quality government”(Gonchar). The rising amount of runout voters does not means a promotion of the government. “An associate professor of ethics, economics and public policy at Georgetown University who agrees, if we force everyone to vote, the electorate will become even more irrational and misinformed”(Gonchar). There are many non-voters do not participate in the political era of voting. “People who usually wouldn’t vote because they are uneducated or uninterested will flock to the polls to avoid legal issues” (Redlingshafer). The policy of mandatory voting would just make people to vote for what they don’t really care about or interested. Thus, the government should have a better way for the government to encourage people to vote, but not by forcing. Press people to vote is a worse way that the government might take in the…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In some countries, if people don’t vote they can get arrested, fined, and killed. This is called mandatory voting. I believe that mandatory voting is unacceptable. I believe that mandatory voting is objectionable because it makes indecisive people vote, it takes away a part of free will, and has to harsh of punishments.…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the many privileges of being a citizen in the United States is having the right to vote. We are able to show our concerns and beliefs when we vote for a political candidate. Whether you’re voting for the president of a club at school, or a town official, your vote is your voice. We live in a democracy which allows for us to have this right. Sometimes we can take it for granted and it may seem that it’s not that important to vote. However, it can be one of the most important things in your life.…

    • 271 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The voter apathy in Canada in the 2004 federal elections was so high, that politicians are now searching for a method to increase the turnout. One of the possible solutions is introducing the mandatory voting, where every voter is forced to participate in the elections.…

    • 440 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays