by Brian Farley

Created on: May 08, 2011

Compulsory Voting: Problems and Perils

Compulsory voting in the United States is an interesting idea. Many think the results would be higher voter turnout and show results of how all of town, state, or country voted. While there appear to be some advantages, there are many considerations that must be considered before people take action. Issues include legal, voter fraud, and the intent of the peoples decision.  It forces voting on the American citizens. It is a persons right to vote. Making the Unites States for compulsory voting, would be unconstitutional. With compulsory voting, this would also cause uninformed voters to be going to the polls.

To start off, mandatory voting is unconstitutional in our nation. It is the peoples right to vote. Being unconstitutional, this would be going against our nation’s own government. In my email correspondence with Joe Courtney's office, Rep Courtney stated:

“I do not support mandatory voting but I strongly believe that all Americans should exercise their right to vote and participate in our democracy.... I continue to support legislation that improves voting access such as increased use of mail-in ballots.”

Compulsory voting goes against our own freedoms. Even if you vote to abstain, mandatory voting would still be forcing the people to vote under government control. 

Not only being unconstitutional, compulsory voting would cause unfair elections. These unfair elections would be caused by uninformed and or uneducated citizens voting in the nation’s elections. This would cause problems in the state and nation’s elections by ballots not filled out correctly or blank ballots turned in. Australia enforces compulsory voting. Although they have seen a 90% voter turnout in past elections, but most ballots could not be counted because they were not filled out correctly. “Although Australia's compulsory voting system has led to very high turnout...also a high informal rate and this has led to political exclulsion of significant numbers in citizens.”     With increasing voter turnout in past years, there would be no reason to have mandatory voting. Compulsory voting will increase our nation’s voter turnout, it would increase uninformed and or uneducated citizens voting in state or national elections.

With over 300 million citizens in the United States, it would be extremely difficult to see who has voted and who has not. Andrea Epling, Mansfield's Registrar of Voters for Democrats, wrote to me that:

“Voter fraud might be an issue against mandatory voting. Many people move to different towns and it is hard to catch up with them. Therefore, they could easily vote in two towns because they are on 2 voter lists. This especially could happen with a large university. Our state allows students to choose their place of residence for voting. A UConn student (and this truly happens all the time) can register to vote here while he/she is already registered in his/her home town.”

Also, with compulsory voting the government could not make everybody in the United States vote. For example, the homeless and prisoners would not be able to vote. Also, by freedom of religion, Jehovah’s witnesses are not allowed to vote under their religion. With a ten year period, it would be nearly impossible to see who has voted.

In conclusion, compulsory voting is against our 1st Amendment and thus being unconstitutional. With increasing voter turnout, would create a large percentage of uninformed voters. This would cause unfair elections from ballots being not filled out correctly.  

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