Compulsory Voting and Voter Turnout in the Low Countries: A Research Overview

Abstract

In recent decades research on voter turnout has vastly increased, especially because of the structural trend towards lower turnout in western societies. Some scholars consider the introduction of a system of compulsory voting as an effective tool to counter this trend. The academic debate on voter turnout and compulsory voting, however, points to a trade-off between equality of electoral participation, on the one hand, and the quality of the vote, on the other. The first argument considers a high turnout at elections as a condition for the effective functioning of representative democracy. Higher turnout levels are assumed to lead to more equality with regard to electoral participation (Birch, 2008; Lijphart, 1997). However, another strand in the literature argues that compulsory voting negatively impacts the quality of the vote since compulsory rules force the uninformed and uninterested as well. It is feared that they will cast blank, invalid or unsubstantiated votes (Rosema, 2007; Selb & Lachat, 2009). This article aims to make a state of affairs of the existing literature on compulsory voting and voter turnout in Belgium and the Netherlands and its impact on both equal electoral participation and the quality of the vote. For this purpose, we collected and analysed previously published research on (1) the (simulated) consequences of abolishing compulsory voting in either of both or both countries and (2) (intended) voter turnout.