13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 50 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com CONGRESS COULD EMULATE AUSTRALIA’S USE OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW TO COMPEL VOTING. HLR
– 2007. The Case for Compulsory Voting in the United States Harvard Law Review, Vol.
121, No. 2 (Dec, 2007), pp. 591-612. Another approach to enforcing compulsory voting is to use administrative law. Australia uses this kind of enforcement regime for its compulsory voting laws.
n Under this method, a federal agency would be charged with documenting which eligible voters fail to vote in any election. These nonvoters would be notified by mail of their failure to vote and assessed a small fine. The agency would also offer them a chance to provide a legitimate reason for their nonvote,
such as illness, emergency, or conscientious objector status. If the agency accepts [*612]
the excuse, then the fine would be waived. Otherwise, failure to pay the fine would potentially
lead to a judicial action and, ultimately, a prison sentence. Australia has achieved very high voter turnout using such a system. Since the Australian Electoral Commission takes less than 2%
of nonvoters to court, n the costs of enforcement are relatively low.
