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On the Justifiability of Compulsory Voting: Reply to Lever

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2010

Lisa Hill
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Notes and Comments
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British Journal of Political Science , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 917 - 923
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Lever, Annabelle, ‘Compulsory Voting: A Critical Perspective’, British Journal of Political Science, 40 (2010), 897–915, pp. 900–901, 908–910, 910–12CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Lever, , ‘Compulsory Voting’, p. 901Google Scholar.

3 Lijphart, Arend, ‘Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma’, American Political Science Review, 19 (1997), 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hill, Lisa, ‘On the Reasonableness of Compelling Citizens to Vote: The Australian Case’, Political Studies, 50 (2002), 80–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Fox, Ruth, Kalitowski, Susanna, Korris, Matt and Atkins, Nicola, The Audit of Political Engagement 6: The 2009 Report (London: Hansard Society, 2009), pp. 19–20Google Scholar; Keaney, Emily and Rogers, Ben, A Citizen’s Duty: Voter Inequality and the Case for Compulsory Voting (London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2006), p. 5Google Scholar. http://www.ippr.org.

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7 This provokes questions: What are the constitutive features of a democracy? How are democratic institutions justified? Since ‘political equality’ is an ‘intrinsic value’ of democracy ( Weale, Albert, Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1999), p. 42CrossRefGoogle Scholar), then the undisputed capacity of compulsory voting to serve this value in terms of election turnout provides a powerful justification for compelling people to vote.

8 Louth, Jonathon and Hill, Lisa, ‘Compulsory Voting in Australia: Turnout With and Without It’, Australian Review of Public Affairs, 6 (2005), 25–37Google Scholar.

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19 These findings tend to contradict Lever’s imputation that compulsory voting achieves ‘nothing more than raise turnout’, if that. See Chong, Alberto and Olivera, Mauricio, ‘On Compulsory Voting and Income Inequality in a Cross-Section of Countries’, Working Paper No. 533 (Washington, D.C.: Inter-American Development Bank Research Department, 2005)Google Scholar; and also Mueller, Dennis C. and Stratmann, Thomas, ‘The Economic Effects of Democratic Participation’, Journal of Public Economics, 87 (2003), 2129–2155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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31 Anonymous, ‘The Case for Compulsory Voting in the United States’, Harvard Law Review, 121 (2007), 591–612Google Scholar, p. 599; Fellman, David, The Defendant’s Rights Today (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976), p. 182Google Scholar.

32 Kreimer, Seth F., ‘The Problem of Negative Rights in a Positive State’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 132 (1984), 1293–1397CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 1387.

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