Millions in the West want mandatory voting. Are they right?

Editor’s note: Following elections in Uruguay on October 27th, Yamandú Orsi and Álvaro Delgado will face each other in a run-off for the presidency on November 24th. Uruguayans overwhelmingly voted against pension reforms.

In the world’s most consequential election—for the next president of the United States on November 5th—just three in five voting-age citizens are expected to bother casting a ballot. Voters have become similarly passive in many democracies, from Britain to Japan. Low turnout saps government legitimacy and stokes fears of democratic decline. One group of democracies bucks the trend. When Uruguayans go to the polls on October 27th, turnout will be massive; it was above 90% in the country’s previous election, among the highest anywhere in the world. Overall, South America boasts the highest turnout of any region. That is because of the 530m people round the world who are compelled to vote, and for whom the compulsion is enforced, 343m live in South America.

Other parts of the democratic world are intrigued. Majorities in Germany, Britain and France say voting should be mandatory. People are less keen on the idea in the United States, but Barack Obama and Donald Trump are both proponents (Mr Trump appeared to call for it at a rally on October 6th). South America shows what it yields for democracies. Turnout is higher, and often more representative of the electorate. The benefits for democracy are less clear, and there are surprising downsides.

Start with turnout. It regularly breaks 90% in Uruguay and Bolivia. In Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru it hovers around 80%. Globally, enforced compulsory voting boosts turnout by an average of 15 percentage points. When Chile ended its long history of compulsory voting in 2012, turnout plummeted, only to soar again when it reintroduced it in 2022 (see chart). Chileans will vote in once-again-compulsory municipal elections on October 26th and 27th.

Compulsory voting boosts turnout among young and poor voters in particular. In Argentina, for example, it is estimated to have twice as big an effect on the turnout of less educated voters as it has of highly educated ones. Yet the rules matter. In Brazil compulsory voting turns out more rich people; fines are small but punishments for repeated failures include the inability to get a new passport. That worries jet-setters more than favela-dwellers.

The use of compulsory voting changes the behaviour of political parties too. In the freewheeling United States parties spend billions on glitzy ads to motivate their supporters to go out and vote; many would prefer a greater focus on policy programmes. Work by Shane Singh of the University of Georgia suggests that is exactly what happens when voting is mandatory. He also shows that compulsory voting in Argentina decreases the practice of “vote-buying”, whereby voters are paid cash to plump for a specific candidate.

Compulsory voting appears to have effects beyond the campaign. When Venezuela in effect abolished it in the early 1990s, inequality, which had been declining, rose sharply. John Carey and Yusaku Horiuchi of Dartmouth College suggest the rise occurred because Venezuela’s poor lost political representation, which compulsory voting had previously helped ensure. (There is evidence from beyond South America, too. In Australia, after compulsory voting was introduced in the early 20th century and turnout leapt, the share of the vote going to the Labor Party increased by almost ten percentage points, and pension spending jumped.)

Yet many other hoped-for benefits of compulsory voting are elusive. One of those is the notion that, when compelled to vote, citizens will become better informed about the issues. In Brazil mandatory voting does push people to watch the television news, but there is little evidence that it increases knowledge of issues there or anywhere else. The evidence that voters perceive governments to be more legitimate owing to high turnouts from compulsory voting is underwhelming.

There are outright problems, too. Many votes are blank or spoiled. These are so often cast by the politically disgruntled that in Argentina they are called the voto bronca, angry votes. Others in effect close their eyes and jab at the ballot paper. In Brazil some 8% of voters admit to casting valid but random votes for presidential elections. Worryingly, random voting may reduce the chances that the preferred candidate of the majority is selected.

Not only is evidence of increased legitimacy hard to find, researchers are divided on whether compulsory voting boosts satisfaction with democracy at all. Mr Singh has found that reluctant voters in Argentina, who already tend to be unhappy with democracy, become even less happy after being forced to vote. Nonetheless, compulsory voting is popular in much of the region. Some 70% of Uruguayans support it. Chileans were less keen in 2012 but, having tried voluntary voting and seen turnout plummet, they are now very enthusiastic. A majority of Argentines support it, too. Brazilians, who have a dim view of politics, are marginally against it.

Even in Uruguay compulsory voting is not uniformly imposed. The congressional and presidential races are compulsory—and tight. The latter will probably go to a run-off between Álvaro Delgado, the centre-right candidate, and Yamandú Orsi of the left-wing coalition. But voters will also consider two constitutional referendums on October 27th. One of them, blithely dismissing demographic trends, would lower the pension age by five years and boost payouts. Markets, fearing fiscal disaster, have been selling the peso.

Yet Uruguayans are not obliged to vote in the referendums; anyone who does not vote (but who votes in the compulsory races) will be counted as a no. That makes a plunge in the pension age much less likely. If it fails, expect none of the leading candidates, who all back compulsory voting but oppose the pension change, to question the legitimacy of the vote. ■

Sign up to El Boletín, our subscriber-only newsletter on Latin America, to understand the forces shaping a fascinating and complex region.