Or least that seems to be the take of those who want to impose “mandatory voting,” a scheme whereby citizens would be forced by law to cast ballots on election day, whether they wanted to or not.
Of course, on the face of it this “vote or else” plan is an anti-democratic assault on individual freedom, a fact which even some proponents of the idea recognize.
For instance, when former Chief Electoral Officer Jean-Pierre Kingsley was pushing mandatory voting he defended it by saying, “Sometimes, in order to save democracy, you have to do things that might seem to run a little bit against it.”
So why would anybody in a free society support an idea that goes “against” democracy?
Well, the chief argument is mandatory voting would cure voter apathy, which some see as a growing problem. And indeed voter turnout in Canada has been declining for years, with only 61 per cent of eligible Canadians casting ballots in the last federal election.
As former prime minister Joe Clark recently said, “It is a national interest that the public have more participation in the political process and perhaps a requirement to vote would lead to that.”
And yes, if voting were an enforced “duty” and not simply an option, voting participation in Canada would certainly go way up.
Meanwhile, the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt came up with another reason to support mandatory voting.
She says voter-suppressing robo-calls would not work as well if forced voting were in place.
As Delacourt put it, “Canadians have a lot of respect for the law. Chances are, if voting was compulsory, it would be a little more difficult to steer them away from their democratic duty.”
I also strongly suspect some Canadians favour mandatory voting for reasons that have less to do with civics or duty and a lot to do with left-wing politics.
What I mean is some left-wing-types truly believe the Conservatives use things like attack ads and voter suppression techniques to purposely cultivate voter apathy.
As one time NDP leadership candidate Nathan Cullen once put it, “It is a deliberate strategy to turn people off. He [Prime Minister Stephen Harper] either bores people to death, or uses wedge politics. People don’t see themselves in the conversation.”
Hence many on the left would likely see mandatory voting as a way to force legions of bored voters off the couch and into the voting booth, thereby dooming the Conservatives and electing the NDP.
Mind you, there might be just as many conservative slackers as socialist ones.
At any rate, what I find disturbing about the “force them to vote” argument is it pins the blame for apathy on citizens, i.e. citizens who don’t vote are shirkers, or they lack a sense of duty or they are simpletons duped by Conservatives.
I believe there’s another way to look at it. Perhaps by refusing to vote, citizens are sending politicians a legitimate message along the lines of, “We don’t have a choice! We don’t like any of you!”
In other words, apathy is forced upon them.
True, by forcing non-voters to cast ballots with bayonets at their back you might achieve a 99.9 per cent voter turnout rate, but you would also be masking the discontent which infects our political system.
Even worse, you would be providing the government with false legitimacy.
In short, if you don’t like political apathy don’t blame voters.
The real culprits are the politicians.
They are simply not giving Canadians a reason to vote.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: GERRY NICHOLLS
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