13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 81 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com COMPULSORY VOTING ACTUALLY TENDS TO REDUCE GOVERNMENT SPENDING GROWTH MORE THAN VOLUNTARY VOTING. W. MARK CRAIN AND MARY L. LEONARD Centre
for Study of Public Choice,
George Mason University – 1993. THE RIGHT VERSUS THE OBLIGATION
TO VOTE EFFECTS ON CROSS-COUNTRY GOVERNMENT GROWTH Economics & Politics. Vol. 5 No. 1. The cross-country empirical comparison reveals that government spending growth in CVR countries with compulsory voting is slower than involuntary voting countries. This result will surely surprise some readers. The
ex ante prejudice that more inclusive democracy will expand the size of government growth is not supported empirically. When voter participation rates approach 100 percent,
as it does in CVR countries, the preference of the median voter for government
services apparently declines, rather than increases. This result is consistent with pressure
group theories of government, which stress the ability of organized coalitions to secure net wealth transfers from the state. The interest group model derives this result in an institutional environment that
treats voting as voluntary or,
more accurately, ignores the difference between the right versus the obligation to vote. The main implication of the interest group analysis is driven by the concentrated benefits-diffused costs argument. It is this asymmetry that creates the opportunity for lets special interests to exploit the democratic electoral process. Obligatory voting rules appear to bean institutional mechanism to mitigates the asymmetry in incentives facing organized interest groups and atomistic taxpayers.
