Compulsory vote: A bad idea

Among the world’s major jurisdictions, Australia and Brazil do have compulsory voting (in Brazil the illiterate or those between 16 and 18 cannot be coerced), but this seems a rank bad idea for a country such as India.

Occasionally important BJP leaders have talked about it. In their view, democracy will be strengthened as winning candidates and parties can claim a higher form of legitimacy if everyone voted. Most recently, Gujarat governor O.P. Kohli, a RSS veteran, on Monday gave his assent to a bill awaiting the governor’s clearance since Narendra Modi was chief minister. This makes it compulsory for electors to cast their vote in polls for local bodies in Gujarat.

Voting may be called a civic responsibility. But if this is turned into a duty, then articles of our Constitution to do with freedom of expression are impinged. If the Gujarat local bodies model were transposed to the level of the Lok Sabha election, about 28 crore of the 83 eligible voters in the country who did not venture out on polling day would have to be penalised.

A strong argument in favour of mandatory voting is that no one can then be coerced to stay away from voting. This was a problem is some parts of the country when the powerful kept out those not likely to vote for them. That era has long passed through social and political education. In India, the voter turnout is already quite high in spite of desert and snow terrain in some geographies.