Compulsion, Secrecy, and Paper

Abstract

In this article, we argue that anyone who accepts that (1) voting should be compulsory, (2) voting should be secret, and (3) voting should be done by paper ballot ends up with a morally problematic position. In electoral systems where compulsory voting is implemented and the secret paper ballot is in place, it is impossible for officials to check if an elector has cast a valid vote. Therefore, only those who fail to show up at the polls are penalized under the law of compulsory voting. Those electors who show up at the polls but do not vote are not penalized. We argue that this practice amounts to officially sanctioned unequal enforcement of a law, and that such a practice is morally problematic. We then argue that this problem should be solved by rejecting compulsory voting in favor of true mandatory attendance, that is, a regime where the law on the books requires only showing up at the polls on election day as opposed to formally requiring that electors actually cast a valid vote. This is so since only mandatory attendance can be enforced without infringing on the secret ballot, and the law on the books ought to reflect what is actually enforced in practice.

Nudging Voters and Encouraging Pre-commitment: Beyond Mandatory Turnout

“…For critical discussion, cf. Lever 2010, p. 898;Thaysen et al 2020. 2 E.g., compulsory voting alleviates the socio-economic bias in electoral turnout, thereby making governments more attentive to the needs of voters with low socio-economic status, which protects the central democratic value of political equality (Lijphart 1997;Chapman 2019;Hill 2014, p.…”