scholarly journals Mandatory Voting: The Wrong Response to Low Voter Turnout

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-26
Author(s):  
Jared Burton
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Wrong Response ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
Registered Voter ◽  
Do So ◽  
Mandatory Voting

The trend of declining voter turnout across the western world has led some in Canada to call for mandatory voting. Australia is often cited as a successful example of compulsory voting in a Westminster system. While the aim to increase voter turnout is noble, there are many non-coercive methods of improving democracy and voter turnout that Canada ought to adapt before resorting to mandatory voting. Assessed methods include electoral reform, lowering the voting age, and instituting online voting; all are non-coercive ways to improve public satisfaction with the political process in Canada. Additionally, mandatory voting reduces Canadians’ ability to abstain from participating in the political system should they choose to do so which could have important philosophical implications. Furthermore,voter turnout data for Australia does not take into account important differences between registered voter turnout and voting age population turnout. Importantly, when analyzed these numbers indicate that compulsory voting in Australia is not as successful as many believe. Despite its ostensible attraction as a clear way to increase voter turnout, a legal requirement to vote is not a panacea to the issues of political distrust, dissatisfaction, and disengagement in Canada that are the root causes of low voter turnout.

scholarly journals Compulsory Voting, Identity, and Nation Building - The Importance of the Compulsory Vote

Federalism-E ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-49
Author(s):  
Joel Holdaway
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
National Election ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
The World ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
Registered Voters ◽  
Registered Voter

One hundred twenty five euros. This is the fine that Belgian citizens are liable for if they abstain from voting more than once in a national election.1 Not surprisingly, voter turnout in Belgium is one of the highest in the world and amongst the top three in industrialized liberal democracies. Between 1978 and 1999, the average voter turnout for registered voters in Belgium was ninety-three percent and the average turnout for those of voting age was eighty-seven percent.2 This marks a clear departure from regimes such as France, wherein the registered voter turnout for the legislative elections during the same period was seventy-one percent3 [...]

Independent Candidates and Political Representation in India

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 678-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
SACHA KAPOOR ◽  
ARVIND MAGESAN
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Vote Share ◽  
The Political ◽  
Standard Deviation Increase ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Independent Candidates

We estimate the causal effect of independent candidates on voter turnout and election outcomes in India. To do this, we exploit exogenous changes in the entry deposit candidates pay for their participation in the political process, changes that disproportionately excluded candidates with no affiliation to established political parties. A one standard deviation increase in the number of independent candidates increases voter turnout by more than 6 percentage points, as some voters choose to vote rather than stay home. The vote share of independent candidates increases by more than 10 percentage points, as some existing voters switch who they vote for. Thus, independents allow winning candidates to win with less vote share, decrease the probability of electing a candidate from the governing coalition by about 31 percentage points, and ultimately increase the probability of electing an ethnic-party candidate. Altogether, the results imply that the price of participation by independents is constituency representation in government.

scholarly journals Citizens local political participation in the Czech Republic: rural-urban comparison

2008 ◽  
Vol 53 (No. 1) ◽  
pp. 21-29
Author(s):  
J. Cmejrek
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
The Public

The Velvet Revolution in November 1989 in the former Czechoslovakia opened the way to the renewal of the democratic political system. One of the most visible aspects of the Czech political development consisted in the renewal of the essential functions of elections and political parties. On the local level, however, the political process - as well as in other post-communist countries - continued to be for a long time influenced by the remains of the former centralized system wherein the local administration used to be subjected to the central state power. Municipal elections took hold in these countries, however, the local government remained in the embryonic state and a certain absence of real political and economic decision-making mechanism on the local level continued to show. The public administration in the Czech Republic had to deal with the changes in the administrative division of the state, the split of the Czechoslovak federation as well as the fragmentation of municipalities whose number increased by 50 percent. Decision making mechanisms on the local and regional level were suffering from the incomplete territorial hierarchy of public administration and from the unclear division of power between the state administration and local administration bodies. Only at the end of the 1990s, the public administration in the Czech Republic started to get a more integrated and specific shape. Citizens participation in the political process represents one of the key issues of representative democracy. The contemporary democracy has to face the decrease in voter turnout and the low interest of citizens to assume responsibility within the political process. The spread of democratising process following the fall of the iron curtain should not overshadow the risk of internal weakness of democracy. The solution should be looked for in more responsible citizenship and citizens’ political participation. The degree of political participation is considered (together with political pluralism) to be the key element of representative democracy in general terms, as well as of democratic process on the local and regional level. The objective of this paper is to describe the specifics of citizens local political participation in the Czech Republic and to show the differences between rural and urban areas. The paper concentrates on voting and voter turnout but deals also with other forms of citizens political participation.

Unequal Participation: Democracy's Unresolved Dilemma Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1996

1997 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arend Lijphart
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The Other ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

Low voter turnout is a serious democratic problem for five reasons: (1) It means unequal turnout that is systematically biased against less well-to-do citizens. (2) Unequal turnout spells unequal political influence. (3) U.S. voter turnout is especially low, but, measured as percent of voting-age population, it is also relatively low in most other countries. (4) Turnout in midterm, regional, local, and supranational elections—less salient but by no means unimportant elections—tends to be especially poor. (5) Turnout appears to be declining everywhere. The problem of inequality can be solved by institutional mechanisms that maximize turnout. One option is the combination of voter-friendly registration rules, proportional representation, infrequent elections, weekend voting, and holding less salient elections concurrently with the most important national elections. The other option, which can maximize turnout by itself, is compulsory voting. Its advantages far outweigh the normative and practical objections to it.

Switzerland—a paradigm for Europe?

1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 287-294
Author(s):  
Bruno S. Frey ◽  
Iris Bohnet
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
Information Cost ◽  
Tax Base ◽  
Constitutional Design ◽  
Small Communities ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Swiss Experience ◽  
Do So

Learning from the Swiss experience, this article argues that federalism and direct democracy are effective mechanisms for dealing with the diversity of interests, languages, cultures and religions in Europe. These institutions only partly harmonize economic, social and cultural politics. By far more important is that federalism and referenda foster competition between the various interests, but do so within a well-defined basic constitutional design so that competition produces beneficial effects. Federalism is not an alternative to referenda but rather a prerequisite for the effective working of a direct democracy. In small communities, the information cost of voters deciding on issues or judging representatives' performance are much lower than in a large jurisdiction. The more fiscal equivalence is guaranteed, the better the benefits of publicly supplied goods can be acknowledged and the corresponding costs be attributed to the relevant political programmes or actors. Thus, while federalism provides for cheaper information, referenda enable citizens to use this knowledge effectively in the political process. The interdependence of federalism and referenda also works the other way around: referenda improve the working of federalism. Besides the possibility of voting with their feet, citizens may also vote directly. This represents a double incentive for politicians to take their citizens' preferences into account; otherwise, they may lose their tax base to another jurisdiction or may be forced by referenda and initiatives to meet the demands of the voters.

TAXATION, THE STATE, AND THE COMMUNITY

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-234
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Schoenblum
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Tax Revenues ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

The paper is concerned with the relationship of taxation to conceptions of the state and the community. The paper contends that public finance theorists have focused little attention on what, precisely, the state is and the role of subnational and supranational communities, even though understanding the state and these communities is essential for grasping how tax revenues are really distributed. The failure of public finance to do so is explainable by the powerful faith in the expertise of theorists and bureaucrats and abstract models for social welfare, whether or not they work or would be agreed upon and implemented via the political process.

Youth Politics in Scotland

2020 ◽  
pp. 77-97
Author(s):  
Iain MacLeod ◽  
Jan Eichhorn
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
International Context ◽  
Local Council ◽  
Youth Politics ◽  
Scottish Parliament ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Key Questions

This chapter focuses upon key questions around efforts to include young people in the political process in Scotland. The two areas we choose to focus on are the commitment and subsequent efforts made by the Scottish Parliament to encourage and accommodate young people’s participation in its work. The second is the more recent decision to reduce the voting age in Scottish Parliament and local council elections to sixteen in 2015 (although the first manifestation of Votes at 16 was in fact the 2014 independence referendum). Both of these developments have, in theory, challenged prevailing notions of young people’s place in politics. We deal with each in turn, providing an overview of the Scottish experience, the impact of the initiatives in question, and the implications this has for questions around young people’s political involvement in a broader international context.

Do Majority-Minority Districts Maximize Substantive Black Representation in Congress?

1996 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
pp. 794-812 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Cameron ◽  
David Epstein ◽  
Sharyn O'Halloran
Keyword(s):  
Political Process ◽  
The Political ◽  
The South ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Black Representation ◽  
Minority Community ◽  
Minority Influence ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
Surrounding Areas ◽  
Minority Interests

Majority-minority voting districts have been advanced as a remedy to the underrepresentation of minority interests in the political process. Yet, their efficacy in furthering the substantive goals of minority constituents has been questioned because they may dilute minority influence in surrounding areas and lead to an overall decrease in support for minority-sponsored legislation. Thus, there may be a trade-off between increasing the number of minority officeholders and enacting legislation that furthers the interests of the minority community. Using nonlinear estimation techniques, we simulate the districting strategies that maximize substantive minority representation, and find that such a trade-off does exist. We also find that, outside of the South, dividing minority voters equally across districts maximizes substantive representation; inside the South the optimal scheme creates concentrated districts on the order of 47% black voting age population. In addition, minority candidates may have a substantial chance of being elected from districts with less than 50% minority voters.

Political Advertising

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy W. Fallis
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Media Exposure ◽  
Political Knowledge ◽  
Political Advertising ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Party Affiliation

Within the field of political communication, the study of political advertising has attempted to relate its content to posited effects. Most of this inquiry has been conducted using one or some combination of three methods: survey, experiment, and content analysis. As a result, a picture of what political advertising does and why and how it does it has emerged. This chapter synthesizes findings by suggesting that differences in spending on political advertising can affect vote choice; that advertising’s effect on vote choice are mediated by factors that include party affiliation, political knowledge and involvement, and media exposure; and that such advertising has a significant effect on the political process. “Negative” advertising is a messaging structure that affects the political process for ill and for good; it can both decrease and increase voter turnout but is misunderstood when conflated with informative “attack” and “contrast” advertising.

scholarly journals The Queer Agenda: Exploring the Political Participation of LGBTIQ+ Youth

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Brodie Fraser
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Political Efficacy ◽  
Youth Participation ◽  
The Political ◽  
School Students ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
Do So

<p>Youth participation literature is yet to fully explore the ways in which young marginalised LGBTIQ+ identifying youth engage in the political sphere. While there is a significant amount of existing literature about youth and their participation habits, research has not quite begun to explore the intersection of youth and LGBTIQ+ marginalisation, and identification, in relation to political participation. This research seeks to address these knowledge gaps, and explore the ways in which high school aged LGBTIQ+ youth in the Wellington region participate in politics. To do so, it organized a survey among Wellington high school students (N=91). The empirical data showed that most of the participants did not view their LGBTIQ+ identity as being political. It also found that the majority of respondents felt as though they have greater political efficacy and ability to make a change as LGBTIQ+ peoples than they do as young citizens under the voting age. Furthermore, the analyses revealed that the extent to which youth feel as though they belong to the queer community positively affects the extent to which they are involved in the LGBTIQ+ community. This research has served to challenge normative assumptions of political participation, and thus broaden understandings of how minority groups perform their citizenship, and engage in politics.</p>

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