13NFL1-Compulsory Voting
Page 149 of 163
www.victorybriefs.com
AT EQUAL REPRESENTATION
STUDIES SHOW THAT COMPULSORY VOTING DOES
N’T ACTUALLY PROMOTE EQUAL
REPRESENTATION.
Selb and Lachat 09, Peter Selb Department of Politics and Management, University of Konstanz, Germany and Romain Lachat Institute of POoitical Science, University of Zurich, Switzerland, The More, the Better Counterfactual Evidence on the Effect of Compulsory Voting on the Consistency of Party Choice, European Journal of Political Research, 2009. Compulsory voting (CV) undoubtedly raises electoral turnout. But does it also affect individual party choices and aggregate election outcomes Previous studies have focused on partisan or directional effects of CV in favour of, for example, social- democratic or anti-establishment parties. Observed effects are usually small, however. Using survey data from the Belgian General Elections Study, we find that CV primarily affects the consistency, rather than the direction, of party choices. In particular, our analyses suggest that CV compels a substantial share of uninterested and less knowledgeable voters to the polls. These voters, in turn, cast votes that are clearly less consistent with their own political preferences than those of the more informed and motivated voluntary voters. Claims that CV promotes equal representation of political interests are therefore questionable.
13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 150 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com IT’S FAIRER TO GIVE MORE WEIGHT TO THE VOICES OF THOSE AFFECTED BY Share with your friends: |
