Mandatory vote won’t fix malaise

According to British judge and cabinet minister Baron Moulton, there are three types of human action. There is action regulated by the law. There is action governed by our unfettered free choice. But there is also a middle ground of actions subject to duty, personal consciousness, manners and “good form.”

This middle ground is when we do things because we feel we ought to. It encompasses all the right actions that no one will force you to do . . . except yourself. According to Lord Moulton, a genuine test of civilisational greatness is whether we can trust people to follow their selfimposed laws rather than those imposed upon them. We should cherish this middle ground.

Moulton’s thoughts are especially relevant given the low turnout of voters in the local body elections. How might we fix such civic disengagement? One answer is to make voting in New Zealand legally mandatory; to remove it from the “middle ground” of actions that one ought to do. Although such a move would be “radical” for NZ, around 15 per cent of the world’s democracies have some form of mandatory voting. Australia has had compulsory voting since 1924. If you fail to vote in Australia, you receive a fine in the mail of A$20, rising to over $200 and a court visit if you don’t pay.

Thanks to the secret ballot, mandatory voting doesn’t mean you need to vote for any party or politician – you can cast an “informal” ballot by leaving it blank or spoiling it in some way.

In the last Australian election, about 5 per cent of all votes cast were informal. Does it work in increasing turnout? When Australia introduced mandatory voting, the turnout jumped from under 60 per cent to over 90 per cent.

Each federal election since then has seen a turnout of over 90 per cent (the one exception was this year when people who voted for the

House of Representatives was

89.82 per cent). This turnout is higher than in our general elections, which have tended to fluctuate between 70 and 85 per cent. It is much higher than our local body elections, which struggle to hit a 40 per cent turnout.

But even if compulsory voting solves our low turnout troubles, it leaves more profound questions unanswered. Why is it that most people do not feel they should vote in local elections? Is it they have so little information about their candidates? Would more open party affiliation for councillors and mayors solve this? Why do people think that voting won’t make a discernible difference? Is disengagement a legitimate democratic response?

For many Kiwis, there is no incentive to vote. Mandatory voting addresses the symptom but will leave the root causes untreated.

We must understand and fix these root causes so that turnout does not fall to the point where democratic legitimacy is lost.

Maxim Institute is an independent think-tank working to promote the dignity of every person in New Zealand by standing for freedom, justice, compassion, and hope.