Sept/Oct 2013 Aff: Turnout Inequality Harms Democracy foundationbriefs.com Page 32 of 104 Mandatory voting is rooted in the concept of universal suffrage, DAT 9/10 am Malkopoulou, Anthoula. Lost Voters Participation in EU Elections and the Case for Compulsory Voting Center for European Policy Studies (July 2009). Compulsory voting was introduced for the first time on a national scale in Belgium in 1893. A rather technical reason at that time was to protect poor voters from forced abstention, i.e. negative vote-buying, by their employers. Although this is not an issue inmost
European countries today, it may still be a useful mechanism to prevent electoral corruption and abstention-buying in countries that feature large economic divides and labour dependence.
The main rationale behind the system in Belgium was to complement and enforce universal suffrage, which was introduced in the same constitutional reform of 1893. Compulsory voting was away to fulfil the principle of political integration, in other words it was a method to politically unite a socially disparate people. In this sense, if the principle of universality is a central
aspect of voting rights, its progressive realisation requires respect from the state and protection from third-party interference. As with all human rights, the third and most advanced step is fulfilling such rights, in other words providing guarantees that they will be exercised. So, full political integration is perhaps the strongest
argument for compulsory voting. Indeed, the most important implication of universal participation is political equality. In his milestone article in 1997, Arend Lijphart argued that low turnout is biased against citizens with a lower education, income and social class. According to him, citizens with lower education or modest social status, as well as those belonging to ethnic, linguistic or religious minorities, are more prone to abstention than others. Conversely, voluntary voting perpetuates political inequalities and misrepresentation. Paradoxically, the claim of abstainers that the European Parliament is an elitist establishment is reinforced by abstention itself. (1)
Law of Dispersion AMS Armin Shafer. Republican Liberty and Compulsory Voting Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies November 2011. The main reason fora concern with falling turnout is that lower participation rates mean more unequal Share with your friends: 
