Mandatory Voting Will Build Resentment, Not Democracy

American democracy—or, at least, the California simulation of it—requires that even disinterested and actively hostile non-voters mark a ballot so government officials can gin up participation numbers, says Assemblyman Marc Levine (D-San Rafael). Levine has introduced a bill that would make voting compulsory, with civil penalties for the non-compliant. It's a proposal that seems guaranteed to make disaffected non-voters become even less impressed with a sketchy political process.

If passed, the measure would "require a person who qualifies and is registered to vote to cast a ballot, marked or unmarked in whole or in part, at every election held within the territory within which the person resides and the election is held. The bill would require the Secretary of State to enforce this requirement," according to the summary.

In defending the bill, Levine points to the 20-plus supposedly healthier democracies around the world that have some sort of compulsory ballot-marking on their law books. The number is a bit vague, since several countries have experimented with mandatory voting, then dropped it, while others implement it only regionally, and still others have it on the books but don't bother with enforcement.

"Can a country be considered to practice compulsory voting if the mandatory voting laws are ignored and irrelevant to the voting habits of the electorate?" asks the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. "Is a country practicing compulsory voting if there are no penalties for not voting? What if there are penalties for failing to vote but they are never or are scarcely enforced? Or if the penalty is negligible?"

Belgium and Singapore, for example, threaten to punish non-voters by, ummm, not letting them vote in subsequent elections.