Making voting mandatory

Among the recommendations made by the Supreme Court to improve the way elections are held in the country, the most important one is likely to be its call to make voting compulsory. There is little doubt that the Court is acting with good intentions here and this recommendation has been made with the aim of ensuring a better democratic set-up in the country. Elections in Pakistan have time and again seen extremely low voter turnout and those returning victorious in these elections can hardly be called the true representatives of the people. That is why increasing the voter turnout should be a goal for every state institution and the Supreme Court’s recommendation should be seen in this background.

However, it is important to note that voter turnout in Pakistan has rarely exceeded 40 per cent; having to get the rest of the voting population to the polls may be beyond the state’s ability. Unless measures are introduced to allow for pre-poll voting, expecting every voter to be able to turn out on election day may be asking for too much. An alternative to making voting compulsory, therefore, may be to educate voters about their rights and bring political parties on board to mobilise voters. Voting is a civic duty and citizens should be made aware of that duty. However, given the state of the electoral system in Pakistan, mandatory voting may be unenforceable at this time. Maybe our aim should be more modest — to increase turnout through a more enforceable method.

Another thing to be considered here is that people should have as much of a right to not vote in elections as they do to cast their ballot. Secondly, maybe such a decision should be made by the legislature. There is also a need to look at the electoral systems in countries that have compulsory voting. Some of these countries, like Singapore and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are not the most democratic in the world. Other countries, like Argentina and Brazil, also have compulsory voting, although citizens can opt out of voting so long as they do so in writing. In Pakistan, where the literacy rate is not very high, a law making voting mandatory will be hard to enforce but such a proposal should not be disregarded entirely.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2012.