Politics & Society6d ago · 58 comments
Should voting be mandatory, with a fine if you don't show up?
Several countries already fine no-shows. Civic duty enforced, or freedom quietly taken away?
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Add your comment- Yuki M.6d ago
Forcing uninformed people to vote doesn't fix democracy, it just adds noise. A coerced ballot isn't a healthier one.
- Feli 213d ago
The fact that we're even debating whether to fine people for not participating in our own governance should tell us everything about how broken the social contract has become. The question isn't 'should voting be mandatory.' The question is 'what did we do to make people stop caring.'
- Elena5d ago
I work three jobs. On election day I'm scheduled from 6am to 10pm across two of them. Fine me if you want. I genuinely cannot physically be there. Any mandatory voting system that doesn't account for this is a tax on poverty.
- Alex K.5d ago
Most mandatory voting proposals include mail-in options, early voting, and exemptions for documented hardship. Your scenario is specifically what those provisions address. Did you actually read any of the proposals before posting?
- Nina1d ago
Can we talk about voter suppression for one second? Some people don't vote because they literally cannot — polling hours conflict with hourly-wage jobs, ID requirements create barriers, polling stations get closed in specific neighborhoods. Before we fine people for not showing up maybe we should make showing up possible for everyone. Seems like step one.
- Casey B.3d ago
I ran local elections for eight years. You want to know what changed turnout more than anything? Moving election day to a Saturday and putting a polling station in every supermarket. Free, no coercion, turnout jumped 18 points. We don't need fines. We need accessibility.
- Elena M.3d ago
Where did you run elections? That 18 point figure is striking and I'd love context.
- Feli3d ago
THIS. The answer to low turnout is removing barriers not adding penalties. Why is this so hard for people to understand
- Liam _x5d ago
counterpoint: jury duty is mandatory. we fine or imprison people who skip it. nobody calls that tyranny. why is voting different
- Elena5d ago
Because jury duty is a specific legal obligation with direct consequences for specific people? Voting is a political act. These are not the same thing at all.
- Liam K.3d ago
imagine fining poor people for not voting in a country where both candidates represent the interests of people who would never struggle to pay that fine. the audacity
- Ravi _x3d ago
Here's what nobody wants to say out loud: low turnout systematically favors one side of the political spectrum. The people pushing hardest against mandatory voting know exactly whose voters stay home. Follow the incentives.
- Alex S.2d ago
"follow the incentives" — okay sure, but you're assuming the currently non-voting blocs would actually vote differently if forced. Some studies suggest compelled voters lean toward incumbents and familiar names because they're less invested. You might just be amplifying name recognition, not progressive turnout. The political math isn't as clean as you're implying.
- Liam M.5d ago
Honestly the most underrated angle here: mandatory voting would completely obliterate the entire industry of voter suppression. If everyone HAS to vote, suddenly making it hard to vote becomes politically radioactive. That alone might be worth it.
- Noah5d ago
Disagree strongly. Mandatory voting doesn't stop suppression, it just changes the shape of it. They'd suppress which polling stations exist, how long lines are, ID requirements. The suppression machinery doesn't disappear, it adapts.
- Alex5d ago
This is the first genuinely interesting argument I've seen in this thread. Hadn't thought of it that way.
- Noah L.6d ago
My grandmother fled a country where voting was also 'mandatory.' She laughs every time this debate comes up in the west. You have no idea what forced participation actually looks like.
- Riley3d ago
I'm a first-generation citizen. My parents fled a country where voting was also mandatory — except there was only one option on the ballot. I know that's not what people here are proposing, but the principle of the state compelling political participation gives me chills I can't fully explain to people who grew up here.
- Liam1d ago
The first-generation citizen comment really hit me. I grew up in the US and honestly never thought about it that way until my coworker — she came here from Belarus — physically flinched when I suggested mandatory voting casually over lunch. Like an involuntary reaction. That moment stayed with me. I still think I'm in favor of some kind of compulsory system with real exemptions, but I hold that view a lot more carefully now.
- Theo4d ago
The libertarian in me screams no. The person who watched a gerrymandered minority government trash public services for a decade whispers... maybe.
- Drew2d ago
Jury duty is mandatory. You can be held in contempt for refusing. We decided that civic obligation outweighed individual preference there. Why is voting categorically different? I keep waiting for someone to articulate a principled distinction and I'm still waiting.
- Morgan2d ago
jury duty and voting are completely different things lol. jury duty decides one specific legal case. voting shapes governance for millions of people for years. the stakes and the nature of the coercion arent even remotely comparable. also plenty of people DO get out of jury duty so that comparison has holes
- Yuki3d ago
Mandatory voting with a fine is the political equivalent of dragging someone to a party and then complaining they're not having fun. You can force attendance. You cannot force engagement.
- Avery1d ago
The real question nobody is asking: if we made voting mandatory AND easy — automatic registration, election day as a national holiday, multiple voting methods — would anyone still object? Because if the answer is yes, then the objection was never really about burden or coercion. It was always about who shows up when everyone can.
- Quinn5d ago
The fine in Australia is something like $20. That's less than a parking ticket. The 'freedom quietly taken away' framing is doing a LOT of heavy lifting for twenty bucks.
- Casey M.5d ago
ok so the fine is small now. what stops it getting bigger later. thats the whole point about precedent people
- Liam T.4d ago
Here's what I don't get. We MANDATE car insurance. We MANDATE seatbelts. We MANDATE that children attend school. All of these are restrictions on individual freedom justified by collective benefit. Why does mandatory voting suddenly become the line we can't cross?
- Omar B.3d ago
Because those mandates are about physical safety. Voting is about political expression. Compelled speech — even compelled political expression — is categorically different in most constitutional frameworks.
- Priya R.3d ago
Turning up and spoiling your ballot is not compelled speech. It's just... turning up. The mandate is on presence, not expression. This distinction keeps getting lost.
- Yuki2d ago
The fine argument collapses immediately when you ask: fine of how much? $20 is nothing to a wealthy person and devastating to someone working two jobs. You've just created a system where the poor are penalized for not participating in a system that already ignores them. Brilliant.
- Zara2d ago
counterpoint to the fine being regressive: you could scale the fine to income. we already do that with taxes. this isnt some unsolvable engineering problem its just a policy choice
- Sam4d ago
I've been a political scientist for 15 years. The empirical data on mandatory voting is genuinely mixed. Countries that implement it see higher turnout obviously, but studies on whether *policy outcomes* become more representative are surprisingly inconclusive. The relationship is more complicated than either side admits.
- Quinn4d ago
Arend Lijphart's work is the classic starting point. More recent: Jakee and Sun 2006, Fowler 2013, Bechtel et al. 2016. They reach different conclusions which is itself the point — this isn't settled.
- Casey3d ago
I asked my 19-year-old why she doesn't vote. She said 'I don't know enough about the candidates and I don't want to guess.' That's not apathy. That's actually kind of responsible? Forcing her to guess seems worse than letting her abstain.
- Liam3d ago
The solution to that is civic education not exemption from participation. Plenty of people vote without knowing everything. The threshold for 'informed enough' is entirely arbitrary.
- Iris 212d ago
My grandfather used to say that democracy is the only system that requires its citizens to maintain it. Like a house — you can choose not to clean it, but then don't act surprised when it falls apart around you.
- Omar4d ago
None of you are addressing the elephant in the room: 'None of the Above' as a compulsory ballot option. Make that mandatory AND give people a real protest vote. Suddenly the whole debate shifts.
- Omar K.1d ago
This is the hill I'll die on: mandatory voting without proportional representation is pointless theater. You can drag every citizen to a booth but if 48% of the country still gets zero representation in the legislature the legitimacy problem isn't solved. Fix the system first THEN talk about participation mandates.
- Zara L.1d ago
the 'presence not expression' argument is honestly kind of insulting to people's intelligence. the government forcing you to physically show up to a political event, under financial penalty, and you want to call that NOT compelled political participation? bro. if my boss made me attend a political rally but said 'you can just stand there and not clap' we'd correctly call that coercion. the blank ballot loophole doesnt magic away the compulsion
- Diego6d ago
Mandatory voting is literally just the government holding democracy hostage. 'Vote or pay up.' That's not civic engagement, that's extortion with extra steps.
- Zara3d ago
okay but what about the 'none of the above' option. if you force me to show up at least let me officially reject every candidate on the ballot. spoiled protest votes should count as a category. THAT would actually tell politicians something useful
- Liam3d ago
Switzerland has direct democracy, extremely low mandatory voting, and arguably the most functional government on earth. Different systems produce different outcomes. There is no universal answer here.
- Priya4d ago
People who don't vote are not lazy or apathetic. Some are making a deliberate statement. My dad hasn't voted in 30 years because he believes electoral participation legitimizes a system he considers fundamentally corrupt. That's a principled position, not a failure of citizenship.
- Ravi4d ago
Nope. Hard disagree. Abstention IS a political position and the state has no business criminalizing it.
- Ravi M.4d ago
With respect to your dad: the system continues whether he legitimizes it or not. His non-participation changes literally nothing about the outcome except removing his voice from it.
- Elena S.2d ago
I've worked polling stations for eleven years. The people who show up already range from deeply informed to profoundly confused. Mandatory voting wouldn't change that ratio as dramatically as people fear. What it would change is who gets counted.
- Yuki3d ago
Hot take: the people most opposed to mandatory voting are the ones who benefit from low turnout. Follow the money and the opposition to this policy makes a lot more sense.
- Feli3d ago
Or, wild idea, some of us just genuinely believe in political liberty and aren't secretly bankrolled by oligarchs. The conspiracy framing is lazy.
- Casey L.3d ago
Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina all have mandatory voting. Have you seen the state of their democracies? High turnout doesn't automatically produce good governance. Correlation is not causation, full stop.
- Sam1d ago
Can we please talk about the fine amount for one second? Australia's is like $20 AUD. That's roughly thirteen US dollars. Thirteen. A parking ticket for forgetting to move your car on street cleaning day costs more than that. If the deterrent is that trivial, what is the actual point — symbolic obligation, or genuine enforcement? Because right now it's neither fish nor fowl. Either commit to meaningful civic architecture or admit you just want the appearance of participation.
- Jordan M.1d ago
I genuinely find both sides of this debate exhausting. Voluntarists act like abstention is some profound political statement. Mandators act like turnout alone equals health democracy. Meanwhile actual policy that affects actual people is being made while everyone argues about the meta-question of who should be arguing about it.
- Jamie R.4d ago
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Making the sheep show up doesn't fix the menu.
- Morgan R.4d ago
this metaphor has been used so many times it's basically meaningless at this point. please retire it
- Yuki6d ago
Australia does it and turnout is the envy of the world. Funny how 'tyranny' produces governments that actually represent people.
- Morgan 925d ago
The right NOT to participate is part of the freedom. A vote you're fined into casting isn't really yours.
- Taylor5d ago
If your democracy only works when people choose to show up, maybe ask why so many have chosen not to.
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