The Correlates of Support for Compulsory Voting

Chapter 4 empirically probes the relationship between attitudes toward democracy and support for compulsory voting. In doing so, it makes use of a range of public opinion surveys which ask questions about attitudes toward compulsory voting. Results demonstrate variation in the average level of support for compulsory voting across countries. They are also indicative of a systematic, negative effect of dissatisfaction with democracy, which is used to capture orientations toward democracy, on support for compulsory voting. This effect can be discerned even with controls for political interest, ideology, and a slate of demographic variables. This supports the uncomplicated but foundational expectation of the theory in Chapter 3: that those who are democratically disenchanted are also unsupportive of mandatory voting.

The Consequences of Compulsory Voting

This chapter reviews the growing literature on compulsory voting’s consequences. Compulsory voting has an unsurprising upward impact on voter participation, which lessens the impact of many socioeconomic and demographic forerunners of turnout, thereby making the composition of the voting population better reflect the distribution of eligible voters. Further, invalid balloting tends to be more common under compulsory voting. Compelled voters are also less likely to cast ballots that correspond with their preferences. Many studies indicate that mandatory voting has an educative effect and can socialize people into political engagement, with others casting strong doubt on this possibility. A small number of studies have assessed whether compulsory voting shapes attitudes, election outcomes, the behavior of political parties, policy characteristics, and income growth and inequality, with few clear patterns yet established. Compulsory voting laws have the greatest impact where sanctions for abstention are enforced and meaningful.

How Compulsory Voting Affects Parties

This second theoretical chapter lays out expectations about the impact of compulsory voting on the ways in which political parties seek votes. It argues that compulsory voting’s influence depends on whether parties are situated inside or outside of the political mainstream. It first proposes that parties’ reduction of get-out-the-vote tactics under mandatory rules will be stronger if they belong to the political mainstream. It then develops expectations about mandatory voting’s influence on the ways in which parties position themselves to attract support. The chapter puts forth the hypothesis that compulsory voting incentivizes mainstream parties to move toward the center of ideological space in an effort to appeal to voting populations that are broadly reflective of society as a whole. For non-mainstream parties, alternatively, mandatory voting incentivizes vote seeking at the extremes in order to appeal to those who are cajoled to the voting booth against their will.

Research Insights: Are Young Latin American Voters Politically Engaged?

Data on political engagement of newly eligible young voters in 34 countries during 2004-2016 indicate that voting eligibility is associated with higher political engagement, casting doubt on the view that voters are rationally ignorant. Voting eligibility is associated with higher political interest, more discussion of political issues and attendance of political meetings, and more political knowledge. These effects are stronger in countries with enforced mandatory voting. The increase in political engagement is larger closer to the prior election, and it is driven by the engagement of eligible voters, implying that young voters acquire political information in anticipation of elections rather than ex post.

E-voting w wyborach parlamentarnych w Belgii

Belgium has been a federal state since 1993, divided into linguistic communities, regions and language regions. The cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic differences of the inhabitants of Belgium led to the adoption of the federal structure of the state. The federal parliament consists of two chambers. The composition of the Senate reflects the diversity of Belgium. The ethnic and linguistic distinctiveness of the Belgians are also included in the electoral system of the federal parliament of Belgium. Worthy of note is the pioneering attitude of Belgium with regard to the introduction of mandatory voting throughout the country in 1893 and electronic voting in the early 1990s.