Why are we so proud of being forced to vote?

“Compulsory voting is far from the gleaming electoral innovation we confidently assume.”

It’s an endearing trait of most Australians to be light-hearted, occasionally even flippant, about matters deeply serious. But then there are some subjects that sometimes surprise you, where the line separating the sacred and profane unexpectedly shifts and you find yourself trespassing into taboo territory, wondering how on earth you’ll ever get back.

I made one of these perilous crossings several weeks back when an otherwise pleasant conversation veered into politics. Having lamented the state of US politics, my companion proceeded to extol the virtues of our own electoral system, pointing out, rather smugly, that Australia’s policy of compulsory voting was a far more legitimate and democratic arrangement than anywhere else in the world. “Really?” I asked, slightly puzzled.

“Absolutely,” he replied. “Every citizen is responsible for taking a stake in their democracy … If we scrap compulsory voting, we’d end up broken, just like America.”

I left feeling bemused, if not a trace irritated, by his breezy sense of self-assuredness. Days later, while contemplating the upcoming federal election, I found myself asking how Australian governments can be regarded as any more legitimate than other democracies simply because all citizens participate in their creation. Isn’t their case weakened precisely because all Australians are forced to take part?

A young girl waits for her grandfather to vote at the 1955 federal election.

Compulsory voting in Australia is revered as an article of faith; to utter even the slightest rebuke – or call for its abolition, as some occasionally do – is to court the indignation of the nation’s political class, which almost universally celebrates compulsion as a boon for our democracy and a bulwark against the forces of extremism that would seek to do it harm.

Maybe so, but the arguments in favour of compulsory voting – or, to be pedantic, mandatory showing up – remain surprisingly thin. Of the world’s 166 democracies, only 19 have compulsory voting, with Australia the single English-speaking country among them. Yet despite operating one of the rarest electoral beasts on the planet, its origins remain clouded by political mystery and mischief.

The system was not, as is often thought, the result of any carefully calibrated electoral innovation, designed to enhance the country’s democratic bona fides. Nor was it designed in response to declining voter numbers. On the contrary, the scheme was hurriedly spatchcocked together in the run-up to the 1915 Queensland election, three years after the state recorded a 75 per cent voter attendance, then its highest ever turnout.

The Liberal government, fearing Labor’s ability to muster vast legions of union members and volunteers to polling booths, pushed for compulsory voting to level the field. The proposal was later backed by Queensland Labor, and quickly absorbed into its national platform, once it claimed victory at the 1915 election. A similar story followed almost a decade later inside federal parliament, as the two major parties quietly joined forces to enshrine compulsory voting into law.

There was virtually no debate; only one member spoke strongly against the measure as a denial of liberty. A brief glance at the parliamentary record reveals the astonishing speed at which the bill was passed. While Herbert Payne, the eccentric Tasmanian draper-turned-senator who introduced the bill, boasted it would lead to a “wonderful improvement in the political knowledge of our people”.

Voters at the Bondi Bathers Club polling booth in the seat of Wentworth on Election Day, September, 2013.

That Australia has achieved any discernible improvement in “political knowledge” seems doubtful. Still, we continue to lionise the idea that by compelling everyone, even the disengaged or apathetic, to the polling booth we somehow shield our democracy from unspeakable danger.

This is not to say some citizens are too stupid or incapable of voting; many simply do not wish to cast a ballot on a set of topics they don’t at present understand. Instead, what the process makes clear is that by substituting legal compulsion for persuasion, politicians are the main winners, with governments, not citizens, enthroned as the true masters of democracy.

Today’s opinion polls consistently show about 70 per cent of citizens favour compulsion, suggesting voter turnout would remain respectable under a voluntary system, though such a reform seems exceptionally remote.

Still, sacred cows aside, compulsory voting is far from the gleaming electoral innovation we confidently assume: its hollow demands and perfunctory origins leave little to boast about.