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Join the conversation: Should voting be compulsory? [1]

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Date: 2025-06

Welcome to openDemocracy’s weekly reader comments round-up. This is an opportunity for us to showcase some of the many carefully considered messages we receive on a range of topics.

These comments are edited for clarity, accuracy and length and don’t necessarily reflect openDemocracy's editorial position.

I agree with all the writer’s arguments, but not his conclusion. Making anything compulsory breeds resentment. This, in turn, could trigger maverick or deliberately destructive voting choices, which would equally wreck good government.

Carrots are better than sticks. To attract the alienated, poor, impoverished, marginalised voters to the polling stations, something has to be on offer, such as materials, food parcels, vouchers for children’s clothing, entertainment, or travel cash, or even entries in a lottery.

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Information must also be offered on which to base a vote for those people too preoccupied to take note of news or political argument, or else they could simply tick a box in order to get the carrot. Perhaps a set of five-minute videos from the candidates on offer in that particular polling station. Ironically, even the disadvantaged and sidelined are likely to possess smartphones that can receive them.

Any other arrangement will produce a result no more representative, and possibly much less so, than the current system. –CJ Lay

Yes, voting should be compulsory; every vote counts. –Pauline

I think this idea of compulsory voting is ill-thought-out. Better political education is what's needed in our society. Most people can barely distinguish between England, Scotland, Great Britain and the UK, let alone anything else. Most people have very little knowledge of our political institutions and systems, let alone the implications of policy decisions. With archaic titles like ‘Master of the Rolls’, the Punch and Judy show that is Prime Minister’s Questions and inadequate political education in schools, what else is to be expected? It's been a problem for decades and continues to be so. Sort that out, and people will be more inclined to vote. –Janet

The era of high voter turnout was also the era when there was a choice between parties with genuinely different policies and economic approaches. When the only choice is between slightly different shades of conservatism, no wonder many voters stay at home. In the US, where the parties have been very similar to each other for much longer, turnout has also been low for much longer. Between 1910 and 2020, no US presidential election had a turnout above 65%, and those for mid-term congressional elections were always 5-10% lower.

I fear that compulsory voting is a sticking-plaster solution, and does not address the root of the problem. When the basis of economic policy is not at issue, voting can never have more than marginal effects on inequality. –Leo

The answer is NO! Until they introduced photo ID, I almost always went to my polling station. But given our dreadful voting system meant that voting for anyone I supported was largely a waste of time, and that the elections were often for posts I didn't think should exist, such as an executive mayor, I would increasingly spoil my ballot paper. But media reporting of results is in the habit of not including spoiled papers in the turnout figures, so I kept wondering why I bothered at all.

Compulsory voting would just be trying to enforce participation in a failed system. If it were introduced, I would very publicly refuse and campaign openly for others to do the same. Assuming I was then prosecuted, I would refuse to pay the fine. (Though I doubt many non-participants – including very public ones – would be prosecuted, if the precedent of the census is anything to go by, since doing so would raise awareness of the high level of non-compliance and likely increase resistance in the future.)

Compulsory voting would be, in effect, an attempt to enforce participation in, and validation of, a failed system. It's the one thing that would absolutely guarantee I would never enter a polling station. –Albert Beale

The writer’s argument is well-practised but offers no solution. Regrettably, in this debate, I feel one of the causes of low turnout is our instant gratification society. TV and movies show every issue resolved within a short timeframe. The public now expects this from our available forces. Disenchanted, disaffected, disenfranchised voter attitudes are created. Time is needed for jobs, economy, housing and every other provision to occur. One hour, including adverts, isn’t reality! Meanwhile, corrupt and dodgy practices continue, and we move further towards Boss Hogg governance. –Alan

Voting should be compulsory, providing that:-

(a) The voting system is some form of proportional representation or transferable vote.

(b) The ballot slip should not include a candidate’s political affiliation.

(c) The ballot slip should contain a box labelled ‘none of the above’.

(d) The returning officer should list the candidates on the ballot slip in random order. (I was in New Zealand, where they had compulsory voting. Many people simply ticked the first name on the slip. It was called ‘the donkey vote’, some candidates changed their names to ‘Arnold Aardvark’ to be first in the order.) –George P

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[1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/readers-thoughts-should-voting-be-compulsory-low-turnout-democracy/

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