13NFL1-Compulsory Voting Page 71 of 163 www.victorybriefs.com COMPULSORY VOTING DRAMATICALLY CHANGED ELECTION RESULTS BY RECTIFYING TURNOUT INEQUALITY THAT FAVORED CONSERVATIVE, NON-LABOR PARTIES. Anthony Fowler – 2013 Department of Government, Harvard University. Electoral and Policy Consequences of Voter Turnout Evidence from Compulsory Voting in Australia Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2013, 8: 159 –182. According to these results, average turnout in the absence of compulsory voting during this period would have been 67 percent, and the Labor Party would have received 44 percent of the votes. However, average turnout with compulsory voting would have been 91 percent, and Labor would have received 53 percent of the votes. This suggests that 78 percent of the new (marginal) voters brought to the polls by compulsory voting supported the Labor Party compared to just 44 percent of older (regular) voters This estimate is substantively large but quite plausible, given what we now know about turnout inequality prior to compulsory voting. Among the 91 percent of voters who voted under compulsory voting, only 61 percent of Labor voters turned out to the polls under voluntary voting while 88 percent of non-Labor supporters turned out. These calculations independently confirm the extent of turnout inequality in Australia before compulsory voting. Before compulsory voting, non-Labor supporters were 1.4 times more likely to vote compared to Labor supporters. When compulsory voting caused an exogenous increase in turnout, election results changed dramatically.
