Make voting compulsory

By James Katongana

Uganda is going to the presidential and parliamentary polls in 2016 to exercise their democratic duty in choosing their leaders.

With experience the voters turn out however, is not impressive. Out of 14million registered voters in 2011, only eight million Ugandans turned up for polls.

This constitutes 57% of the registered voters. 43% that did not turn up for voting is a big number that you cannot ignore and yet no one knows the reason for this apathy.

Voting is a freedom fiercely sought by people all over the world and Uganda inclusive. The benefit for every voter is that his or her vote will make a difference in the outcome of the election.

The voter gains satisfaction from performing his or her duty as a citizen. The greatest privilege of a citizen is his/her right to share in government of his/her country.

He can do so directly if he/she participates as a member of the parliament or any other relevant representative organ or he /she can do so indirectly by exercising the franchise to elect suitable representatives.

Because of this noble duty, government needs to devise means of increasing voter turn out. When participation rates increase, elections can more accurately reflect the will of the eligible voting population.

Registering  to vote and going to the polls should be made legal duties in Uganda for citizens aged 18years and above and failing to comply one should be subjected to punitive measures such as; pay a fine, be denied employment, subjected to community service, appear in court and denial of other social services.

Making voting compulsory confers a high degree of political legitimacy because it results in increased voter turn out. A good example is voting in Australia.

Australia boasts some of the highest civic participation in the world with a reported 94% voter turn out in the last federal election compared with about 65% in the UK 2010 general election and an estimated 57% in the 2012 US presidential election.

Compulsory voting system protects the right of the marginalized groups. The people who do not vote are the poor and the disenfranchised and those are people that should be voting because they benefit from services that come with the result of an election.

Even compelling voters to polls for an election reduces the impact that external factors may have on individual’s capacity to vote such as weather, transport or restrictive employers. If everybody must vote, restrictions on voting are easily identified and steps are taken to remove them.

I know critics will argue that compulsory voting will stifle political freedom and threaten the basic principles of democracy. In fact, in Australia, there are those who do not agree with the system and prefer paying a fine or spending a day in prison.

John Kent- the Libertarian Columnist in Australia supports this view and says, “It is disgusting. It is far from being democratic.

We are not a democracy if we can’t vote democratically”. But if one loves his/her country, why doesn’t one participate in such a noble activity after all, it is done in a while. Voting demonstrates a social expectation that at minimum every one needs to participate every few years.

I’m also aware that voter turn out based on compulsory voting does not translate into a politically engaged electorate. Some voters may mistakenly or intentionally submit a ballot that is blank or improperly filled in which cannot be counted in the final tally.

This is not a big problem if voters do not want to support any given choice it is better than not voting at all because it ensures that there is no possibility that the person has been intimidated or prevented from voting.

In some countries, voters have the option to vote “none of the above” if they do not support any of the candidates to indicate clear satisfaction with the candidate list rather than simple apathy at the whole process.

Now that we have registered for identity cards, we need to embrace electronic voting method which is the safest method of voting as votes cast cannot be tampered with.

Compulsory voting reflects more of the will of the people because it poses questions as ; who do I want to lead the country rather than reflecting on who was more able to convince people to take time out of their day to cast a vote that also poses a question; do I even want to vote today?

The writer is a Pan-Africanist
 

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