Hi Jon,
Thanks for your response. I've come to the same conclusion myself
(about the right not to vote) on similar contractarian grounds (as
well as for a number of other reasons). I've used the case of a war of
defence as an analogy so we seem to be in agreement there. But I'm
keen to learn about any legal cases where the right not to vote has
been tested. Do you know of any?
Cheers, Lisa
On 29/12/2010, at 4:18 PM, Jon Roland wrote:
Thank you for a more interesting question than you perhaps realize.
To answer it, we must turn to social contract theory. The Lockean
concept of "social contract" is the acceptance of a mutual duty to
defend one another from violent threats. Basically, all civic duties
are variants on the one general militia duty. That includes the duty
to respond to call-ups to defend, or prepare to defend, the public.
For example, jury duty is a specialized form of militia duty.
Participation is not voluntary, because if it were, those who
volunteered would tend to be biased, and you wouldn't want your case
decided by them.
The question then comes down to whether voting is a civic duty in
the same sense. If only volunteers vote, could the result be a bias
against the best interests of the public in general? Under some
circumstances, yes. The general judgment has been that if persons
qualified to vote anticipate that those who vote will vote against
their interest if they don't vote, then they will choose to vote to
protect their interests, and the problem will be self-correcting
without the need for coercion to vote. The problem gets more
complicated if there are more than two factions involved, so that a
faction A motivated to vote will vote to victimize faction B,
smaller than themselves, unless the faction C, larger than both,
weighs in to protect faction B, and at the same time, perhaps
themselves on a future occasion.
So the short answer is "No". There is no right not to vote, just as
there is not a right not to respond to any militia call-up, unless
one has an overriding militia duty of another kind, such as serving
as an official. That doesn't mean coercion is needed in many
countries, if enough people vote without it, and vote to defend the
rights of everyone. If that doesn't happen, then mandating that
people vote may be the key element that is needed for society to
remain otherwise free.
______
On a somewhat different issue, it should be noted that what is being
used as the "Constitution of Australia" is illegitimate. It is an
Act of the British Parliament, with somewhat different provisions
than the one that was ratified in a referendum. Only the latter is
legitimate. Australians need to tell their "Governor General" to go
back to the UK.
The inadequacy of Australian education is revealed by the difficulty
most Australians seem to have understanding the concept of authority
having to be derived from the people by logical derivation from an
original act of the people as sovereign. That is not the British
House of Commons.
-- Jon
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Constitution Society http://constitution.org
2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322 Austin, TX 78757
512/299-5001 jon.roland@constitution.org
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-----
Professor Lisa Hill
Post-graduate Co-ordinator
Politics Discipline
School of History and Politics
University of Adelaide
Adelaide S.A. 5005
Australia
Tel: 61 8 83034608
Fax: 61 8 83033443
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