On Compulsory Voting

“Recently, however, compulsory voting has entered mainstream debate... This nascent debate marks an exciting effort to make the actual electorate more representative of the eligible electorate and potentially shift political power. Yet modern debates have so far largely overlooked one angle of analysis: history. Though no writer since the 1950s has devoted more than two paragraphs to the history of compulsory voting efforts in the United States, the idea has a rich American tradition. Policies first emerged before the Founding. And debates especially picked up beginning in the 1880s and through the Progressive Era, when twelve states considered the policy, including two — Massachusetts and North Dakota — that passed amendments letting their legislatures enact it.”

Harvard Law Review, “Compulsory Voting’s American History” - https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-137/compulsory-votings-american-history/. Australia already has this, and I’d say, having lived in both countries, this solves a few (not all) challenges facing democracies today. Politicians in Australia don’t have to incite people to vote because the practice is already compulsory. They also rely on healthy traditions around voting days such as the famous sausage sizzle. I’ve often wondered if this is some sort of joke about citizens who delegate authority to parliamentary representatives, i.e. Australians don’t necessarily want to watch laws being made, but they do enjoy having a vote about who does the sausage-making. In any case, as an advocate of deliberative democratic systems, compulsory voting is not a panacea. But I think it can play an essential part in the aim to enrich democratic cultures.