The funny thing about freedom and democracy is that you must believe in the other person’s right to deprive your freedom, in order to support the basic mechanism which provides that freedom in the first place. We must all be free to vote, in order to be free.
In Australia, we are not free to vote. It might sound strange or outrageous, but think of it this way: We are not free to pay tax, we are forced to pay tax; we are not free to follow the road rules, we are forced to follow the road rules; we are not free to comply with the building code, and we are not free to vote. It’s that simple.
The purpose of democracy is that we are free to self-rule. As a free people, we are free to choose our own government. Each individual has equal power to have his or her say as to who should lead our nation. We can choose leaders based on their policies, or for whatever reason we like.
When you force people to vote, it influences their decision, dependant on their political or ethical beliefs. For example, some people don’t like to be forced to make a choice, so they vote informally or avoid registering to vote. In Australia, over 5% of people vote informally and over 10% remain unregistered. This drives our voter turnouts lower than many countries where voting is voluntary, including Sweden, Denmark, Malta and Iceland.
Australia has around the 20th highest voter turnout in the world, but it’s very hard to determine exactly where we sit, because governments tend to pump the figure up to make their countries look more democratic.
Australia has around the 20th highest voter turnout in the world, but it’s very hard to determine exactly where we sit, because governments tend to pump the figure up to make their countries look more democratic.
So what can you do to get more people to vote? Well, the political parties have a vested interest in encouraging people to vote. If there is a section of the community who doesn’t vote, it’s in a political party’s best interest to attract them. In this way the political parties are somewhat obligated to sell and promote democracy. They must earn their votes when voting is voluntary.
In Australia people are encouraged to vote by force. The government fines us for not voting, and can even jail us if we don’t pay the fine. The trouble is, this means we are no longer free to vote, and it turns people away from the process, because the system is unfair and completely undemocratic.
Some people say ‘we aren’t free to do a lot of things, so what’s the difference with our vote?’ Remember the example: If we are not free to carry a knife, it doesn’t mean we are not free, it just means we are not free to carry a knife. But if we are not free to vote in favour of carrying a knife, then we are not free – period.
People twist this by saying we are free to choose once we enter the polling booth (pick a cell, any cell); and they may be right, but it’s already too late, because for our vote to have meaning it is summed along with the other votes, and unless the people who vote represent the entire population of eligible voters, the results of elections are not representative of the people.
When you force people to vote, it distorts the sample. Some people avoid voting to protest against the coercion, and others avoid registering to vote to maintain and protect their freedom.
If people are free to vote, some people will be more likely to vote, since there will be no reason not to. There will be no reason to avoid registering and no reason to vote informally. If voting were voluntary, our voting rates might actually increase. Either way, the group of people who votes would be a different group of people, or a different sample to the one we use now.
So which group is better - the group who votes because they are forced, or the group who votes voluntarily? Clearly in a democracy it should be the group who votes voluntarily. It should be the people who decide who votes.
Deciding if one votes is as much a part of the voting decision as deciding which party to support. If the government controls our decision to vote, it affects the results of elections by tainting the sample.
The effect of this interference is that elections favour the group who is more likely to conform to the government, than oppose it. Government always wins. This puts upwards pressure on the size of government and the degree of government control, and downwards pressure on individual freedom & liberty.
When we vote, our decision usually comes down to a choice between increasing or decreasing government regulation & control. If we choose to support a carbon tax, NBN, internet filter, media censorship, mining tax, workplace laws, and the like; we are choosing to increase the level of government regulation & control.
There needs to be a balancing force which opposes government control, so that the government doesn’t become ever more powerful. Our government revenue as a percentage of GDP has almost doubled since the sixties and it continues to rise. We call ourselves a nanny state now, but it keeps getting worse.
“Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.” W. Somerset Maugham.
If we are not free to vote, we are not free. It really is that simple.
Jason Kent is a free member of the Facebook groups “Free Our Right To Vote” and “Eureka Freedom Rally” (originally posted October 5 2011 on Menzies House)
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