I think that this is a great public forum topic: it relates to a current event that will educate students on some of the nuanc
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Lesson 4.2 Day 3
| 13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 43 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com It’s worth discussing the third argument, because, if true, it has the potential to be a very strong affirmative case. Perhaps I don’t understand the argument well enough, but I have a hard time understanding how an abstention from voting undermines the democratic process. Furthermore, I have trouble understanding how abstention creates a collective action problem whereby nonvoters exploit voters. There are several independent arguments a negative might consider when writing a case. The simplest is the libertarian argument that governments do not have the right to interfere with their constituents freedom anymore than absolutely necessary. Compulsory voting would be unjustified on this view because it coerces nonvoters to turnout to the polls. A number of authors defend this position, including, prominently, Nozick. While I’m sure that this will be the most common negative position on the topic, I think that affirmatives will be able to easily sidestep these kinds of cases so long as they prove that compulsory voting (like taxation for roads and basic infrastructure) generates a clear social good. Another strong negative position, which I mentioned earlier, might argue that the foundation of democracy is that governments should have a minimal role in forcing individual citizens to act according to their best interests. On this view, compulsory voting is unjust because it denies individuals the ability to act in their prudential self- interest (staying home because they’d rather not drive to a polling station) for the ostensible purpose of better representing those persons (their best-interest). On this view the right to vote is like the right to marry individuals may exercise it if they desire, but don’t have an obligation to. As a corollary to this argument, the negative might persuasively claim that governments should not force people to act against their beliefs, and argue that compulsory voting forces well-informed individuals who choose not to vote for good reasons to vote. A third straightforward negative position could use Brighouse and Fleurbaey’s argument that democracy requires a proportionality criterion to weigh between the interests of constituents. According to their article (which was the best negative article I’ve read, basic democratic principles derive from a larger concern with proportionally taking into account individuals stakes in a collective decision. The principle of majority rule follows from the proportionality principle because interested individuals should have an equal stake in their governance. However the principle that the majority may not disenfranchise minority groups also follows from the proportionality principle because to treat a minority individual as though they had no rights is tantamount to denying they have a relevant stake in the decision-making process. Given this framework, a negative might make a straightforward argument against compulsory voting by |