Letters to Editor
Archived copy
Margie Bass
77 Keymer Street
Belmont WA 6104
0892779504
24 September 2005
Dear Editor
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 have run 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 talks 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".
Real old-fashioned proletariat socialism if ever there was.
A second criticism of voluntary enrolment and voting is, of course, 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. Of course we
know that forcing people to vote who - never read a newspaper, never listen to
the news on radio, or on TV, have no interest in current affairs, or politics in
general - doesn't distort the outcomes of elections does it?
The irony is that because attendance at polling station is compulsory then
no-one has to bother to take the trouble to inform such people about the need to
vote and the major parties still get their $2.20 per vote anyway.
It seems 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.
Yours truly,
Margie Bass