Democracy and Compulsory Voting

• Published date: 01 June 2020
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Author: Alexandru Volacu
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912919839155
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912919839155

Political Research Quarterly

2020, Vol. 73(2) 454 –463

© 2019 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912919839155

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Article

Introduction

Normative debates on the question of whether compulsory

voting is morally permissible or even morally required

have begun to gain traction especially within the past two

decades, following Lijphart’s (1997) seminal article which

defends this institution on grounds of both egalitarianism

and procedural fairness.1 Most, though not necessarily all,

of these arguments rest on a prior justification of a moral

duty to vote that characterizes democratic citizenship,

which is then translated (sometimes, but not always, with

supplementary claims) into a political duty by means of

imposing sanctions for electoral abstentions. Various

defenses of a moral duty to vote have been put forth, and I

do not intend to offer an exhaustive list or engage with all

of them in this paper. Instead, I am interested in exploring

one particular, but highly influential, category of argu-

ments for a moral duty to vote, that is, those that draw

their force from democracy-related features. I identify

four distinct arguments in the recent literature on the eth-

ics of voting, which appeal in different but salient ways to

democracy as a justificatory mechanism, in the works of

Lisa Hill (2014), Julia Maskivker (2016), Luke Maring

(2016), and Emilee Chapman (2019).2 My primary aim in

this paper is to show that democratic arguments advanced

in favor of a moral duty to vote cannot be deployed to

provide a wholesale defense of compulsory voting.

Importantly, though all of the above mentioned authors

defend the existence of a moral duty to vote, only Hill and

Chapman argue that compulsory voting is also justified on

the basis of this duty, while Maskivker explicitly leaves

this question open3 and Maring does not address it. Thus,

my arguments should be understood as both providing a

criticism of Hill and Chapman’s positions and providing

reasons for not defending a move from moral duties to

vote to compulsory voting, if we accept the arguments of

Maskivker and Maring for the former.

The paper is structured as follows: in the section

“Democratic Arguments in Favor of a Moral Duty to

Vote,” I present the four democratic arguments in favor of

a moral duty to vote. In the section “The Democratic

Argument for Compulsory Voting,” I offer an outline of

the generic democratic argument in favor of compulsory

voting. In the section “The Normative Conditionality

Objection,” I provide what I take to be the decisive objec-

tion against the democratic argument for compulsory vot-

ing, which relies on its normative conditionality. Finally,

the last section concludes.

Democratic Arguments in Favor of a

Moral Duty to Vote

Political participation constitutes the bedrock of a demo-

cratic system, whether it is in a direct or representative

version, in a majoritarian or consensualist version or even

839155PRQXXX10.1177/1065912919839155Political Research QuarterlyVolacu

research-article2019

1National University of Political Science and Public Administration,

Bucharest, Romania

2Research Institute of the University of Bucharest, Romania

Corresponding Author:

Alexandru Volacu, Faculty of Public Administration, National

University of Political Science and Public Administration, Expoziţiei

30A Bd., Room 612, Bucharest 012104, Romania.

Email: alexandru.volacu@administratiepublica.eu

Democracy and Compulsory Voting

Alexandru Volacu1,2

Abstract

In this article I aim to show that compulsory voting cannot be defended on democratic grounds. In pursuing this task,

I first offer a generic account of the democratic argument in favor of compulsory voting, drawing on some of the most

salient recent defenses of a moral duty to vote. I then offer an overarching objection that defeats both the generic

form of the democratic argument for compulsory voting and its various operationalizations. The crux of the objection

is that the democratic justification of a moral duty to vote is parasitical upon the existence of a moral duty to vote well.

This decisively undermines the democratic argument for compulsory voting, since the latter can only be deployed as

an enforcement mechanism for a duty to vote, regardless of the substantive content of that vote.

Keywords

citizenship, compulsory voting, democracy, democratic legitimacy, moral duty to vote