How America Can Benefit From Australia’s Compulsory Voting System

Higher than usual turnout is expected for the 2018 midterm elections, and one indication is a surge in early voting in Texas primaries, with Democratic turnout up 69 percent and Republican votes up 20 percent from the early count for the 2014 primaries. And, unlike in Australia, no one dares tell Texans they have to vote.

High election turnouts throughout this past year follow the divisive and hotly contested 2016 general election, in which 55.7 percent of voting-age Americans cast a ballot, about 86 percent of registered voters, a healthy number for the U.S.

But in Australia in 2016, about 87 percent of voting-age people participated in the nation’s federal election, or 91 percent of enrolled voters. And that was the lowest turnout since the country introduced compulsory voting in 1924.

If the U.S. had compulsory voting, how would it change American democracy? One thing the Aussies figured for their own country was that near-universal engagement would have a moderating effect on politics.

Compulsory voting and enrollment have been credited with giving Australia relatively stable, moderate leaders for most of its history, according to Stewart Jackson, a lecturer in the department of government and international relations at the University of Sydney. He said that aspiring Australian politicians have to appeal to a majority of the entire population, rather than working to activate and energize certain segments of voters, an ideological “base.” 

Source: huffingtonpost