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
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