Should it be the law that everyone has to vote?

[Constellationsofmyheart]

Interesting local election results in my city with no overall majority.

Turnout typically very low for the local elections.

It’s got me thinking, should it be law that everyone has to vote?

A lot of people are very disillusioned with politics and a lot just don’t understand or don’t know who to vote for therefore they just don’t bother.

That means that a minority are making decisions for the majority.

If everyone had to vote then people might be more inclined to do their research, but at least everyone would have their say.

Those examples are not the same and are mostly related to harm. Smoking was banned to improve the public health of the individual but also more importantly to protect those that shared the same space with them.

The aim is to increase engagement rather than participation. Forcing people to vote not only strips away their right not to vote but it only serves to increase turnout. In that case you'd need to be careful what you wished for. We need to instill a feeling of responsibility in young voters, teach more history, teach them about the suffragettes, with rights come responsibility, etc from a very young age. PR would show them that their vote can make a difference.

And that's where we will disagree.

Why would you want 'to increase engagement rather than participation?' What's the point in that? Surely the end game would be to increase voter numbers?

Everything you have cited already happens in schools. My DC was showing me what he learnt about voting rights & suffragettes last term. He's in Y9. They've been teaching this in schools for decades - none of it has shifted the dial.

I have always stated that 'None of the above' should be an option in any mandatory voting system.

Introducing PR straight away without any guardrails or previous behaviour shift would be a disaster - think Brexit x 10