A Critical Perspective on the Institutional Duty to Vote

Kevin Elliott has recently developed a novel argument for establishing a duty to vote grounded in the idea that individuals endorsing the role of democratic citizens have a moral obligation to safeguard the value or legitimacy of their own democratic institutions. This ‘institutional’ duty to vote is justified because maximal electoral turnout is seen as an ordinarily necessary condition to safeguard the fairness of the representation process, and corollary ensures that representative democracies maintain their ‘normative attractiveness’ by ‘functioning excellently’. This paper engages critically with the normative implication of this novel account. It defends two central claims. First, it proposes two arguments which question the sufficiency of a duty to vote (simpliciter), as proper electoral behavior, to fully realize electoral democracy’s worth. Taking Elliott’s ideal for granted, it argues that fully realizing ‘fair representation’ plausibly requires that citizens vote in specific fashion, to ensure that electoral outcomes do not undermine the conditions necessary for realizing this ideal. Additionally, the sufficiency of ‘fair representation’ as the normative aim of electoral democracies is questioned, and it is shown that voting ‘well’ might be required based on other necessary considerations for justifying (electoral) democracy’s worth. Second, it is argued that Elliott’s institutional duty to vote seems to hardly apply to societies where there exist persistent minorities. In such societies, universal turnout cannot be expected to give rise to a ‘fair’ representation process. This cast doubt on the possibility that maximal turnout be sufficient, appropriate or legitimate as a demand from democratic citizens of such societies.