TO THE POLLS BY FORCE?

In a recent report, Chief Electoral Officer of Canada Marc Mayrand wrote that the 2015 election was “historic” in many ways. It was the first fixed-date federal election. It sprawled over the longest writ period in more than 140 years. And it also saw the highest voter turnout in more than two decades: 68.5 per cent. About three million more Canadians cast ballots last year than in 2011.

This latter fact is important as the government embarks on its study of reforms to the electoral system. And one change in particular has escaped the high profile of other issues: the notion of mandatory, or compulsory, voting. Alongside proposals that would end our current first-past-the-post election system in favour of a more proportional model, the all-party committee the government is striking to examine reforms will look at the merits of making you show up at the polling booth in the first place.

Is mandatory voting a good idea? Certainly some countries — Australia, Belgium and Brazil are examples — use it, with little objection from their citizens. But why impose it on a successful democracy such as ours?

The chief reason offered is that we need to increase voter turnout. Not enough people are casting ballots. In particular, those who are not voting tend to be lower-income, younger, or disadvantaged in some way, and so people who might represent their interests don’t get into office.

Forcing them to vote, alongside their betteroff fellow citizens, would help make democracy more representative.

Proponents also posit (like the ancient Greeks, from whom we derive some key bits of vocabulary about all this) that citizens have certain duties by virtue of being citizens. Paying taxes would be one, or jury duty, for instance. Or going to school to a certain age. Showing up to choose a political representative, they believe, belongs in this category too. And being forced to vote will help make us more civic-minded.

Yet the notion of compelling anyone to cast a ballot rubs others as an exercise in enforced choice — which seems contradictory. As well, many argue that higher voter turnout is not an end in itself, that there is scant evidence to indicate a turnout of 90 per cent, as opposed to 60 per cent, would give us better political leadership. And anyway, they note, the 2015 election illustrates that there are plenty of non-compulsory ways to boost participation. Elections Canada clearly found some of them. So did candidate-turned-victor Justin Trudeau.

The question of mandatory voting will be swept up in the charged debate now underway about changing many core aspects of how we vote. Please follow that debate carefully, citizen. But of course, that’s just our advice: It’s not mandatory.