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Recently Gujarat assembly has passed a bill on saturday which makes voting mandatory for local body election. This has been done first time in the history of India. This step was taken because the voter turn out in the local and municipal elections were very low.

Under the bill, if a voter fails to vote for the reasons other than prescribed in the rules, he may be declared a “defaulter voter” and would face consequences for which rules will be framed and placed before the assembly for its approval later. The bill also allows negative voting if the voter does not wish to vote for any of the listed contestants. The manner of negative voting and its impact on other candidates will be worked out by the state government through special rules framed later. “Under consideration is a proposal to disqualify all candidates in case negative voting is the highest,” an official said.

Its not only India which has enforced this rule but in all there are other countries which has done so the list is given below:

• Argentina (compulsory for citizens between 18 and 70 years old, non-compulsory for those older than 70)
• Australia (compulsory enrollment and voting for state* and national (federal) elections for all adults over 18).
• Brazil^[4] (non-compulsory for citizens between 16 and 18 years old and those older than 70)
• Chile (enrollment voluntary)
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Ecuador (compulsory for citizens between 18 and 65 years old; non-compulsory for persons aged 16–18, illiterate people, and those older than 65)
• Fiji
• Liechtenstein
• Nauru
• Peru (compulsory for citizens between 18 and 70 years old, non-compulsory for those older than 70)
• Singapore
• Switzerland (compulsory in the Canton of Schaffhausen only)
• Turkey
• Uruguay
• India only for the state of Gujarat
• (U.S.) State of Georgia in 1777:
• Austria (introduced 1929 for presidential elections and 1949 in some states for parliamentary elections, abolished step by step between 1982 and 2004)
• Netherlands (introduced 1917 along with universal suffrage, abolished 1970)
• Soviet Union: while voting was not de-jure obligatory, voting was de-facto enforced.
• Spain (1907-1923, but not enforced now)
• Venezuela

*In South Australia it is not compulsory to enroll for state elections. Nevertheless, as the enrollment form is a combined Federal/State one, with no provision to not enroll for the State,it is in effect compulsory.

Arguments in favour of mandatory voting

A common argument for compulsory voting is that such a system guarantees that the government represents a majority of the population, not only individuals who vote. This helps ensure that governments do not neglect sections of society that are less active politically, and victorious political leaders of compulsory systems may potentially claim greater political legitimacy than those of non-compulsory systems with lower voter turnout.

A key argument for compulsory voting is that it prevents interference with access to the vote, in a similar way that the secret ballot is designed to prevent interference with the votes actually cast. Compelling voters to the polls for an election mitigates the impact that external factors may have on an individual’s capacity to vote such as the weather, transport, or restrictive employers. It is a measure to prevent disenfranchisement of the socially disadvantaged. Polls are generally held on a Saturday or Sunday, to ensure that working people can fulfill their duty to cast their vote. Similarly, mobile voting booths may also be taken to old age homes and hospitals to cater for immobilized citizens, and postal voting may be provided for people who are away from their electorate on election day.

If voters do not want to support any given choice, they may cast spoilt votes or blank votes. According to compulsory voting supporters, this is preferred to not voting at all because it ensures there is no possibility that the person has been initimidated or prevented from voting should they wish. In certain jurisdictions, voters also have the option to vote none of the above if they do not support any of the candidates to indicate clear dissatisfaction with the candidate list rather than simple apathy at the whole process.

Another potential argument is that it will make people think about the tough issues more. This in turn might make governments less squeamish to bring up tough and possibly unpopular issues that need to be addressed.

It is also argued that voting is a “civic duty”, like paying taxes, and is important for the harmonious functioning of a society.

Arguments against of mandatory voting

A common argument against compulsory voting holds that voting is not a civic duty, but rather a civil right. While citizens may exercise their civil rights (free speech, marriage, etc.) they are not compelled to. Compulsory voting can be seen as infringing a basic freedom of the citizen. Some consider the fining of recalcitrant voters to be more oppressive still.

Further, compulsory voting may infringe other rights. For example, most Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that they should not participate in political events. Forcing them to vote explicitly denies them their freedom of religious practice. In some countries with universal voting, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others may be excused on these grounds. If however they are obliged to show up to vote, they can still use a blank or invalid vote.

Some individuals resent the idea of compulsory voting, particularly if they have no interest in politics or no knowledge of the candidates. Others may be well-informed, but have no preference for any particular candidate, and have no wish to give support to the incumbent political system. Such people may vote at random simply to fulfill legal requirements: the so called donkey-vote may account for 1-2% of votes in these systems, which may affect the electoral process. Similarly, citizens may vote with a complete absence of knowledge of any of the candidates, or deliberately skew their ballot to slow the polling process or disrupt the election.

Supporters of voluntary voting assert that low voter participation in a voluntary election is not necessarily an expression of voter dissatisfaction or general political apathy. It may be simply an expression of the citizenry’s political will, indicating satisfaction with the political establishment in an electorate.

This causes lot of trouble for me as I live in Gujarat and from now onwards I have to be present there for voting. If not I am not sure what consequnces or fines I have to pay. But anything which is good for democracy and proper governance is fine with me.

So what do  you think about this

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- sources times of India & wikipedia