Compulsory Voting

Reason for low voter-turnout from urban areas is quite obvious – “DISSATISFACTION”. Educated people think that it’s of no use, putting their efforts, for people who might make promises but not deliver them. There have been so many cases of corruption coming up and thanks to media for showing this facet of Govt or any bureaucrat, urban people have lost faith in democracy. On the other side, rural people are relatively less educated than the urban. But the strong voter turnout is might be due to cash or any tangible incentives given to them and their blind belief in politician’s promises.

     Compulsory voting, like in Australia, can be a good option in a developing country like India because it will increase the voter count to a great extent. When people know that lot of people are going to vote, they might understand the value of their vote which was earlier thought to be of no worth as everyone felt his/her vote would always turn out to be in a “minority” voters and his/her preferred party would lose. Another good aspect of this would be that it would make people do lot of ground work and think broadly before casting their vote.

      I think it can also reduce vote rigging to a certain extent. When people turn out in large no. to polling booths, it becomes difficult to manipulate with them, otherwise small crowd of people can always be threatened or intimidated, which can impact the results. Vote buying can also be reduced because it would be difficult to buy votes from all interest groups.

     Though it seems to be going against democracy, but at times, State has to intervene for the welfare of the people and this intervention is an example of “Welfarism”.