Challenging the Perceived Benefits of Compulsory Voting: An Experimental Case Study in AustraliaJ.M. Innes 1,3 & T. Yassine21. EU Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, University of South Australia2. Arcana Psychology Pty. Ltd., Australia.3. Churchill College, University of Cambridge4. Address for correspondence. Professor J M Innes, Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, University of South Australia, Magill, 5072, South Australia.E mail for correspondence: [email protected]. Orcid number: J M Innes, 0000 0002 7232 69376. Telephone +61423322811Key Words: Beliefs: Values: Freedom: Persuasion: VotingRunning Head: Challenging the bases for compulsory votingChallenging the Perceived Benefits of Compulsory Voting: An Experimental Case Study in AustraliaAbstractThe rise of populism is seen as a threat to the viability of liberal democracies. Low voter turnout is viewed as an avenue whereby extreme political groups can mobilise their constituencies to attain substantial representation with a relatively small proportion of the vote. High turnout is believed to counter such outcomes and in turn, compulsion to vote, to ensure high turnout, may contribute to stability of government. However, compulsory voting conflicts with the broader value of freedom of action and may induce voting without an understanding of the values which underpin democracy. We report an experimental case study to create conflict within voters in a country, Australia, in which voting is compulsory. We use the process of indirect persuasion (McGuire, 1960b), where an appeal to an underlying value can circumvent resistance to an explicit appeal, to effect belief change. Australian undergraduates of voting age either received an indirect attack appealing to values related to freedom, or a direct attack, to endorse a non- compulsory voting system. Belief in the practice of compulsory voting remained strong, but the indirect attack resulted in greater agreement with attitudes to dispose of the current system, thereby challenging compulsion. The introduction of compulsory voting brings with it a need to appreciate fundamental issues to ensure that benefits outweigh the threats.Challenging the Perceived Benefits of Compulsory Voting: An Experimental Case Study in AustraliaRecent political events in western liberal democracies have led to concerns about the rise of authoritarian populist movements. Drache and Froese (2022) list the many threats to the operation of liberal democracies which can result from the emergence of populist parties. They point to the effect of voter turnout, with “undecided voters”, who look to alternatives and consider different arguments, deciding not to vote, failing therefore to moderate the influence of the more extremist voters who are more motivated to cast their ballot. With voluntary systems of voting, the success of extremist movements may be a function of relatively low level of turnout of voters. Voter turnout in the Presidential election in the United States of America in 2016 was 54% of those eligible and in 2020 62%, while in the general election in the United Kingdom in 2015 it was 66% and in 2019 it was 67%. Higher turnout is seen as a means whereby greater numbers of moderate voters may act to dampen the effect of extreme positions (MacCallum, 2013). Arguments to enlarge the turnout have suggested that the suffrage be extended to citizens under the age of eighteen (Oosterhoff, Wray-Lake & Hart, 2022) and in the United Kingdom to under the age of sixteen. Another solution, practiced in very few democratic countries, is to make voting compulsory.Australia has had a compulsory voting system for over a century, celebrated as a central feature of the democratic process, setting it apart from other democracies (Brett, 2019) with its existence cited as a factor supporting the health of democracy (Khalil, 2022). Australia is also the sole Western democracy where voters can be fined for failure to vote when they cannot account satisfactorily to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) for that failure. Failure to vote initially brings a notification, followed by a fine of 20AUD if an explanation is deemed by the AEC not to be acceptable. Failure to pay the fine can lead to an appearance in court, a fine of 220AUD (plus court fees) and the further threat of a court record of a civil offence. These are not trivial consequences. The system is accepted by the population and Australians express surprise that other countries practice voluntary voting (Kent, 2012; MacCallum, 2013; Taylor, 2012). It is a frequently expressed that voting is a responsibility of citizenship and failure to do so is frowned upon.Compulsion to attend a ballot, however, does not require compulsion to register a valid vote. It is entirely legal, in a secret ballot, to submit a blank or spoiled ballot paper (the “informal vote”). However, there is no advice provided by Australian governments that a person may render a non-vote or abstain. Even the term “informal” carries the pejorative sense that the process of voting has not been thought through or that the person making such a vote did not understand the system. In Australia, there are no instructions in the electoral process to explain that the casting of an invalid ballot carries with it no penalty (McGuinness, 2011) and amendments to the electoral law in 1992 made itillegal to advocate an informal vote . The actual rate of “informal” voting in Australia is typically around 5%.The system in Australia, therefore, creates a sense that compulsion requires the registration of a valid vote even if the voter may not have engaged with the policies presented by the contesting parties and may have an incomplete conception of what are the consequences of voting. It may thus fail pragmatically to induce a sense of engagement in the political system which it was designed to enhance. Recent commentary has questioned the use of compulsion. A senior Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey, for example, has stated that “the custom makes light of democracy” (quoted in The Australian newspaper, 2ndAugust, 2019) on the grounds that being forced to vote (and register a valid vote) can carry with it an ignorance of the issues upon which voters are asked to decide.If we compare the voter turnout in recent elections in Australia with that in a comparable country with the Westminster system of representation in a lower house of the parliament, namely the United Kingdom, we can calculate the probable effect of the compulsion to vote on the actual valid turnout. The last two elections in the United Kingdom for representation in the House of Commons saw an average turnout of 66.5%. In Australia the last two Federal elections for the House of Representatives, saw an average turnout, reported by the AEC, of 90.9%. This can be reduced for Australian data to 85.5% by considering the proportion of “informal” votes cast. This shows a likely effect of compulsion to vote to affect 19% of the electorate, possibly undecided voters who were required to vote. That is, approximately one-fifth of the Australian electorate voted who in other less restricted circumstances would not have voted and who, yet, cast a valid vote.The practice of compulsory voting raises philosophical concerns at a deep level, in the ostensible relationship between the concepts of voting and freedom. The Australian political system places two concepts, freedom of expression to vote and compulsion to cast a vote, side by side and serves to contrast them. The right to freedom of expression is recognised as a human right in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Article 19 of the ICCPR states that ”[e]veryone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference” and ”everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice”. By making voting compulsory, the doctrine itself is infringed. Almost twenty percent of Australian voters are casting their ballot where otherwise they may have abstained. How valid are the votes in these circumstances? Valid and well considered or unconsidered and less valid a representation of their response to the arguments advanced by all political parties?The current research examined how the presentation of a conflict between freedom of expression and compulsion to vote may act to induce a re-examination of the value of compulsory voting. Eligible voters in Australia were presented with an expression of the conflict between a general value of freedom, explicit in Australian culture, and the specific rule that a vote must be exercised at the ballot box, to examine how voters may be induced to think about and act upon the values of freedom and the right to vote and, therefore, consider the possibility of change in the electoral system.Note on the Conceptual Nature of Case StudyWe use the case of Australia as a study in the way advocated by Campbell (1975), namely that a case study can provide a strong foundation to test a hypothesis, when the variables are clear and the boundary conditions are relevant and explicit and enables an ability to draw out the factors most effective to understand the phenomenon (Yin, 2002; Markova, 2014). Many case studies present hypothetical cases to identify putative cause and effect relationships. This may result in lesser engagement with the choice required to be made. In the case of Australia, compulsory voting is neither a hypothetical nor an insignificant variable; it is the law to which all those eligible to vote must ascribe. Therefore, it is a test case to examine conflict between beliefs that have real consequences for the beliefs of the voters.Direct and Indirect PersuasionA factor in the effectiveness of persuasion lies in the degree to which a persuasive attempt is made explicitly or implicitly. McGuire (1960b) showed that when a person is presented with a message with an explicit agenda, the person may act to reduce any resultant dissonance in two ways. A direct attack upon a value is likely to encounter the most resistance and be least effective, due to an automatic propensity to reject arguments that are novel (McGuire, 1960b; McGuire 1964) and may also result in counter-arguing if sufficient thought has been given to the creation of counterarguments (Blankenship et. al, 2012, Maio & Olson, 1998). If, however, an implicit, but logically related issue, is attached to the message, this can provoke change. McGuire’s technique, illustrating ‘Socratic’ reasoning, exposes the person’s opinions on logically related issues, sensitising them to inconsistencies, to result in deeper cognitive processing of the message and produce a subsequent change towards consistency (cf. McGuire, 1960a; McGuire & McGuire, 1991). Subsequently, less resistance to the message is generated as the recipient may believe that they are arriving at their own conclusions.McGuire (1960b) relates direct and indirect appeals to another feature of beliefs, namely the extent to which they may be held without valid support, referring to them as ‘cultural truisms”. A truism can be defined as an ingrained idea that is cognitively unchallenged; individuals have a high agreement with them, but they have minimal cognitive support (Maio & Olson, 1998). A lack of questioning prevents an individual from building arguments to support their views; they exist in a state susceptible to change. Watts (2018) makes a similar argument for the usage of the term “commonsense” in a political context. John Stuart Mill stated over 160 years ago, “He who knows only his own case knows little of that” (On Liberty) .Maio and Olson (1998) proposed that the concept of truisms is ‘a valid metaphor for values’ (pg. 294). They suggest that central values may be widely shared and rarely questioned and therefore are empty of cognitive and social support; they function like truisms and motivate behaviour unthinkingly. Schwartz (1996) also suggested that values serve basic universal human needs, and people may rarely be placed in situations that require them to question them.Such a void in arguments supporting beliefs may render beliefs susceptible to attack as people cannot counter-argue effectively (McGuire, 1964). This research has become highly salient in recent times in association with general concerns with the politics and effects of “misinformation” and the consequent suggestion of the value that “pre-bunking” of information, rather than “debunking”, may be especially effective in preventing the spread of incorrect “facts” (Basol, Rozenbeek & van der Linden, 2020). McGuire tested the vulnerability of common health beliefs, using the analogy of providing weak versions of counterarguments to participants (hosts), as a form of “immunisation” to later viral attack. The participants’ endorsement of a proposed change in belief was changed dramatically after a full-scale attack on their previously unchallenged beliefs. The effects of the arguments were eliminated, however, if participants had received prior messages that motivated and enabled counterarguments to be generated (McGuire, 1964).McGuire acknowledged that the beliefs used in this research were of relatively minor importance and changing them would be much easier than more important ego relevant beliefs. Maio and Olson (1998) also suggest that ego-relevant beliefs may be less susceptible to attack, even if still bereft of cognitive support. We take the case of compulsory voting, a fundamental right of participation in democracy in Australia, as a case of a central belief that is also, in effect, a truism in that it is not challenged in political debate. A test of the ability of an indirect appeal to produce change in such a central belief is therefore a powerful one. Does the centrality of the belief constitute a defence? Or may a central belief still be susceptible to change through attack from novel arguments? Recent work has explored the role of argumentation and counter-argumentation in the case of contested “truisms” (Lewandowsky & van der Linden, 2021; Pfau, 1997), but in this case we are concerned with a belief which is consensually held across large segments of the voting population and barely ever challenged.Method
