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Voter Engagement, Electoral Inequality and First‐Time Compulsory Voting
Author(s) -
Birch Sarah,
Lodge Guy
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the political quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.373
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1467-923X
pISSN - 0032-3179
DOI - 10.1111/1467-923x.12178
Subject(s) - voting , turnout , voter turnout , inequality , political science , ranked voting system , demographic economics , public economics , economics , public administration , law , politics , mathematics , mathematical analysis
This paper reviews the problem of declining turnout and proposes as a solution a system whereby each elector would be legally obliged to vote in the first election for which they were eligible. Popular attitudes toward first‐time compulsory voting are measured and probed by means of UK data. The main findings of the paper are that first‐time compulsory voting is a politically and administratively feasible proposal that appears tentatively to command popular support and has the potential to help address a number of the problems associated with declining turnout, and in particular low rates of electoral participation among younger citizens.