In about a month, there are going to be elections all over the United States, including in Champaign county. Four years ago, in the last series of midterm elections, only 42.3 percent of Americans voted. This time, I don’t expect anything different. Last March, only 20 percent of registered voters in Champaign County bothered to vote in the primaries. I am not the first, nor am I going to be the last, to complain about voter apathy, but I don’t just want to complain. I’d like to suggest that the solution to this problem is something which several other nations have successfully turned to – compulsory voting.

This idea is immediately repulsive to many, even those who believe that high voter turnouts are inherently desirable. This can be for a plethora of reasons: libertarians prefer as little government mandate as possible; others think compulsory voting goes against the American and democratic ideals of freedom and liberty; and some people even seriously hold the view that it is better when fewer people vote.

These, I believe, are all weak reasons to oppose mandatory voting. Much like taxation and jury duty, we generally accept the principle that there are civic duties every citizen fulfils in order to sustain the fabric of society.

Moreover, as a self-proclaimed pillar of democracy, the United States absolutely pales in comparison to the rest of the Western world in voter participation. As a matter of fact, as apt as we are to complain about the state of political affairs, many of us don’t even register (128 million in 2002), and much fewer go out to the polls.

I also understand the right of any person to withhold their vote. Mandatory voting, given secret ballots, does not infringe on this right. Once you get to the poll, you can opt not to choose any candidate or issue on the ballot.

But the fact is that many people do not vote not because they honestly do not want to choose any of the candidates, but because they have no time or opportunity to do so or are simply wholly uninformed about political issues. There are certainly other options available to fix some of these problems, none of which are implemented or practically functional, even given the ample evidence cited particularly after the 2000 and 2004 elections that throngs of people were turned away from the polls, especially in poor and minority neighborhoods. Campaign finance, on the information front, insists on making every widely available piece of political information heavily commercialized and pre-packaged.

Compulsory voting would push many apathetic voters to learn about issues, force municipal governments to be accountable to their constituencies about voting facilities and schedules, and demand a more substantive level of political discourse. Using mild financial penalties with the possibility for valid excuses, countries like Australia have successfully implemented compulsory voting laws which increase political participation tremendously.

In 1923, the year before compulsory voting laws were instituted in Australia, voter turnout was around 60 percent, which is still significantly higher than even presidential elections in the United States. In 1925, the year after these laws came into effect, participation skyrocketed to over 91 percent, and in the years since has never dropped below 90 percent, often reaching 94 to 96 per-cent. And this is of the entire electorate, not just as a percentage of registered voters.

Higher voter turnout, even if large numbers of people abstain from actually choosing candidates, adds legitimacy to a political system and to elected representatives. As of today, our political candidates, who decide how we fund our schools and where our tax dollars go, aren’t even supported by close to half their constituencies. This is appalling, depressing, and needs to be changed, not with more futile funding towards “You Really Should Vote!” campaigns, but with a clear stance that voting, like paying taxes, like being a juror, is a necessary civic duty.