More compulsory voting nonsense
Luke Brown
I've read (Compulsory Statism) quite a few lame arguments for compulsory voting over the years, along with some rather dreadful distortions over the issue of voluntary voting, but it would be hard to top a recent whopper courtesy of Senator Kim Carr of the Australian Labor Party.
It is from a Labor Party press release issued earlier this month on behalf of the Senator, after the Senate passed a motion supporting compulsory voting (Compulsory voting supported,Media Statement –– 6 October 2005):
Today the Senate recognised that voluntary voting is a system that would disenfranchise the citizenry of this country.
Today the Senate recognised that voluntary voting is a system that has the effect of removing from the electoral system itself the participation of those that need the Government the most –– the poor and the dispossessed, the people with the least access to decision makers.
This is utter nonsense, blatantly so in the assertion that citizens would be disenfranchised if compulsory voting were to be scrapped. As Senator Carr well knows, to disenfranchise is “to deprive (a person) of the right to vote.” (The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary) By not forcing people to attend the polling booth is not depriving a person of the right to vote. It is that clear and that simple.
If the first claim is nonsense, the second makes no sense. Surely those who “need the Government the most” with “the least access to decision makers” would be the least likely to voluntarily remove themselves from the electoral system? It does make more sense though if the needs of primary concern here are those of certain politicians.
Further, any envisioned detachment from the electoral system wouldn’t just mysteriously happen but would be as a result of a choice made by those concerned. It appears that the likes of Senator Carr have no particular interest in questioning why such a decision would possibly be made. And what kind of participation is it anyway when it is a result of coercion? What a man of the people.
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 24 October 2005