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May 03, 2006
The shorter ippr report on compulsory voting
(tidied up for truly abhorrent spelling, punctuation, grammar and use of excel)
Note for ippr's lawyers: this is just a bit of fun.
No one votes anymore, especially young and poor people.
This is bad.
Compulsory voting increases turnout.
Governments make us do loads of stuff we don't want to already, what's an extra trip to the local school on top?
Compulsory voting increases turnout.
Re-engaging people properly is really hard; this way we can at least pretend that all is well.
Turnout has fallen for loads of reasons, possibly because people have more idea of what actually goes on, but more likely because they like single issues more. This is especially true of young people, who also like Bono more than Blair.
Compulsory voting increases turnout.
In deprived communities, people hate everything, especially things other people do, thus social norms are hard to establish.
Voting reform may tackle some of the underlying issues, but it wouldn't do a great deal to turnout (not as much as compulsory voting anyway) and besides, it's not as simple.
While we're at it, move elections to weekends, and do them at the same time. Keep up this postal voting lark too. Oh, and let people register to vote after the election has been announced.
Compulsory voting increases turnout.
Loads of countries have compulsory voting.
Evidence from Belgium suggests that the sense of civic duty instilled by making voting compulsory is a sham, as if they abolished it, turnout would drop to the levels seen everywhere else. This is bad. High turnouts are good, remember. Er, what was our argument again?
Ah yes, compulsory voting increases turnout.
Compulsory voting shifts the electioneering focus from mobilising supporters to attracting new ones.
Because it's only compulsory to turn up, rather than vote, no rights are impinged upon. The right to sit on one's arse is not a real right.
Compulsory voting would not lead to everyone voting for the lefty parties because they've got nothing better to do because compulsory voting is absolutely not the thing of party politics. Geoff Hoon told us so.
Compulsory voting increases turnout.
Compulsory voting increases turnout.
Compulsory voting increases turnout.
Compulsory voting increases turnout.
Do it now.
Posted by pauldavies on May 03, 2006
