Mandatory

 


I listened to this podcast on compulsory voting. As usual, I don't (didn't) have a strong feeling about it, but it seemed to me like a vaguely bad idea. The government forcing you do so such as thing seems bad, presumably a lot of people would vote with no thought to it, and it would possibly make people resent elections and government even more than they do already.

(Aside: another common sign in the YYC marathon: "YOU RUN BETTER THAN THE GOVERNMENT!". Presumably directed mostly at Ottawa and anyone else who as promoting EV's and such. But I digress).

As for precedents, the fact that Argentina is a leading compulsory voting country does not exactly argue for it. On the other hand, so is Australia (and Belgium). In Belgium, it is not enforced; in Australia, it's a $20 fine, but you can get out of it easily (eg. by claiming religious objection). I think similar in AR.

Well, this podcast (with some expert whose position I forget, but we can probably assume he is credible, albeit, no doubt plenty of experts would argue the opposite) lays out a strong case for why compulsory voting is a great idea.

In brief, non-compulsory voting strongly favours older, richer and more conservative people at the expense of the young. He claims that there is good evidence that compulsory voting leads to more equal and stabler societies.

Super interesting podcast. I'm going to look for one from the same channel on PR, which was mentioned in passing.

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