Sept/Oct 2013
Aff Counters No Threat to Personal Liberty
foundationbriefs.com
Page 76 of 104
The right to vote does not imply aright not to vote, DAT
Hill, Lisa. Compulsory Voting in Australia A Basis fora Best Practice Regime
Federal Law Review, vol. 32.
Another important consideration is to ensure that compelling citizens to vote does not interfere with any existing rights, particularly those that are constitutionally protected. In general, the question of aright to abstain has attracted little attention, most likely a function of the fact that, unless mandatory voting is being exploited as a means by which to forge consent (as was the casein single party states which enforced voting, few citizens are anxious to divest themselves of such an important and often hard-won right. Nevertheless, objectors in the United States might, for example, claim that compulsory voting limits political freedom and that the right to vote implies aright not to vote. Similarly, if Australia were to adopt a bill of rights, voting libertarians might argue that its protection of political freedoms conflicts with the requirement to vote.
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