Sept/Oct 2013
Aff Counters Abstention Still Exists
foundationbriefs.com
Page 80 of 104
Other forms of protest do not have to be problematic, DAT
Engelen, Bart. Why Compulsory Voting Can Enhance Democracy Acta Politica, 2007,
42.
Some opponents of compulsory voting, however, contend that higher turnout levels are not necessarily a good thing. Compelling citizens to participate, even when they have no opinion or do not want to express it, only results in a higher number of protest votes (Keaney and Rogers, 2006, 30). The legitimacy of the democratic process is not enhanced if citizens cast their votes only because they have to. This argument is forceful in pointing out the possibility that their vote does not reflect their true preference (which is to stay at home) or opinion (which they often lack. If citizens freely decide to participate, their vote will be more authentic. To assess this argument one can analyze to what extent compulsory voting coincides with invalid, blank and other protest votes. The data show that the number of votes that do not count (invalid and blank ballots) drops about 2% when countries abolish compulsory voting. The amount of lost votes is thus substantially smaller than the amount of votes gained by compulsory voting. However, the problem lies in interpreting the group of protest votes that do count. Citizens who would not vote if they were not obliged to might vote at random. This phenomenon of donkey voting – after the game in which a blindfolded child pins the tail on the donkey – is not to be neglected. The problem is that the exact number of such votes is hard to measure. Additionally, they also occur involuntary voting systems (Orr, 2002, 575). While pleading for more research in this respect, I
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