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The Citizen and the Abstentionist

Democracy
Elections
Political Theory
Voting
Stanislas Richard
Central European University
Stanislas Richard
Central European University

Abstract

Compulsory voting is usually justified as a solution to the harmful effects of high rates of abstention, which undermine democracy and its core values, like the preservation of fundamental individual rights, or the equal concern for all citizens. My aim in this paper is to show that even if this argument is valid – and I shall give no reason to doubt it is – it nevertheless fails to justify compulsory voting. It indeed relies on the capacity of the ballot to serve as a proxy for political action, and that capacity presupposes a certain set of empirical conditions which are exterior to the citizens’ direct scope of influence. I identify two such conditions, 1) a high level of political predictability on one hand, which is necessary for a ballot to be perceived as fostering political change, and 2) ideological diversification on the other, which allows a ballot to genuinely reflect the voter’s political preferences. These two conditions often fail to obtain in most contemporary democracies, and they often actually are the cause of the high levels of abstention. To address a problem that requires institutional and structural responses, advocates of compulsory voting propose a cosmetic solution that confuses the cause and the consequence and put a high moral strain on individual citizens. I then return the argument upside down, and show that when 1) and 2) do not obtain, the considerations that could justify compulsory voting (like the defence of democratic values) actually justify abstention and can give stronger reasons for non-voting than for voting. I also consider other voting rationale, like a meta-preference for democracy, choosing the lesser evil, or protesting against the prevailing state of affairs, and show that in the absence of 1) and 2), their underlying concerns are better served by abstaining than voting. I close my argument by arguing that advocates of compulsory voting do not take abstention seriously as a politically motivated and significant act, while sporting a narrow conception of democratic participation that is at odds with their underlying concerns. My aim is thus to give reasons to reject compulsory voting as a justified response to high rates of abstention, whatever might be its empirical merits, and to cast doubts on the existence of an overriding duty to vote.