THE State elections will soon be upon us, and the State and Federal governments continue to force upon the people compulsory voting.
You have to wonder about the logic of some who believe that compulsory voting lies in true democracy.
The razzmatazz of the US elections is often used to justify compulsory voting, as if every nation that doesn’t have compulsory voting runs their elections in the same way, when nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact those countries with voluntary voting, which is almost all of them including the founders of democracy, have well-ordered representative elections and stable regimes.
Note how many politicians talk about “one’s social obligation” (obligation being something that people choose to do), but then go on to say “the compulsion gives greater validity to the democratic process”.
A second criticism of voluntary enrolment and voting is that it tends to distort the outcome by not expressing the will of the adult community.
Just what kind of will is it that has to be forced?
We have a long way to go when political leaders cannot differentiate between forcing people to put marks on bits of paper and the freedom of choice expressed by really free people.