How did the adoption of compulsory voting in Australia impact the partisan balance there?

Question

Compulsory voting was introduced in Australia:

for state elections in Queensland in 1915, excluding Indigenous Australians. Victoria introduced compulsory voting in 1926, New South Wales and Tasmania in 1928, Western Australia in 1936 (excluding Indigenous Australians), and South Australia in 1942. It was introduced for federal elections in 1924 for British subjects aged 21 and in 1984 for Indigenous Australians.

How did compulsory voting impact the partisan balance of election outcomes in Australia as it was rolled out in that country?

Answer 1

Compulsory Voting has absolutely no impact on voters who were already commited to vote. No matter which party the majority of these voters were going to elect, Compulsory Voting would not change that count.

Edit...

Dead people can win elections (see 5 Dead People Elected) therefore Australian electoral laws have provision for by-elections and other procedures when an elected person is unable to take their seat. See Senate election provision of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, Section 180 Death of Candidate after nomination, Clause 1).

If the majority of electors can/will vote for a dead person and a dead person can receive the majority of votes then it is irrelevant if voting is compulsory or optional. This cohort of electors have a fixed position.

Then the balance of electors vary their vote. Sometimes called 'swinging voters'. The actual percentage of swinging voters will vary from election to election. Refer to:

• 2024 election results in the United Kingdom.
• Queensland State Election (See Corruption in Government)

Even during a landslide such as the UK elections or issues of corruption in government that causes a change in the elected party there will always be electors who remain faithful to their preferred party. It does not matter if there is compulsory voting as in Queensland or non-compulsory elections as in the UK.

Hence the statement that Compulsory voting has no impact on those voters who were already committed to vote for their preferred party.

Edit end ...

What needs to be addressed is the impact of the disinterested voters who would not normally have cast a vote. Typically this would be a minority of voters in an Australian election. From this cohort you can eliminate all voters who cast informal votes or did not cast a vote. Although it would be compulsory to vote there is secret voting and a failure to complete a valid ballot paper is not checked, reviewed or enforced. Even with Compulsory Voting there is never a 100% turnout with a percentage of electors not casting a vote.

What you are now left with the even smaller percentage of voters who were forced to vote and submited a valid vote.

Disinterested voter who have been forced to vote but have no interest in the election outcome can submit a Donkey Vote. Traditionally this is assumed to be a vote straight up or down the ballot paper. These voting patterns basically provides the advantage to the Candidates at the top of the ballot papers. With the random allocation of candidates on a ballot paper there is no bias to any political party. Although previous analysis of Australian Federal and State election results typically finds in the region of a 1% to 2% Donkey Vote this can bias results in close elections. In Australia there are three layers of government in order Federal, State and Local Government (typically called Councils, Rural City Councils, Shires and Boroughs). In theory the impact of this Donkey Vote introduced bias that was unrelated to political parties. Catch was some ballot papers were in alphabetical order therefore an advantage could be obtained with suitable names. In other words the inpact of the Donkey Vote on Australian election results with Compulsory Voting is actually a complex subject with a highly variable impact. See the Wikipedia 'Donkey Vote' page plus the associated Donkey Vote Talk page for further details.

The assumption going forward here was that with random ballot papers the Donkey Vote does not favour any political party. Even if a ballot did permit a political party to gain the advantage in the election of one Candidate it was open to other political parties to gain an advantage for a different Candidate in another election.

Another electoral practice to gain an advantage for a political party is Gerrymandering. This usually rewarded an encumbent political party. Refer to the history of Queensland State elections. In this case the impact of the Compulsory Voting of the informal and Donkey Voters would not have an impact on results of the gerrymandered ballot papers.

Now down to the balance of voters who have been forced to vote under Compulsory Voting and provided a formal vote not using a standard defined Donkey Vote or one of the Donkey Vote variants (refer to Wikipedia Donkey Vote's Talk Page, Victorian Local Government elections for further details).

These voters are making a considered choice for Candidates based on the information available to the voters. This could be as simple as How-to-Vote cards provided at to voters at each election booth, election flyers, media such as newspapers, election meetings, cornflutes, etc. The better organised and larger political parties have the advantage.

Refer to the Wikipedia List of Australian Federal Elections for an overview. Eventually it became dominated by two political grouping 'Labor Party' and the 'Liberal coalition'. Minor parties still exist but typically don't form government.

The Labor Party had roots in the worker's unions and was positioned more Left of centre and more radical. The Australian voters tended to be more conservative.

Compulsory Voting initially enhances the advantage of encumbancy. Catch was political issues such as World War 1 (Compulsory Conscription issue), Great Depression, World War 2, Vietnam War (Compulsory Conscription again), etc., were all major factors in elections. Compulsory Voting basically forces only the disinterested voters to make an informed decision on their ballot paper. Generally lack of attendance or informal votes have no impact on the election results.

Due to their impact on results there have been some attempts to reduce the impact of Donkey Votes. Refer to changes from alphabetical order to random ballots, rotation of ballot papers, above the line voting, etc.

Introduction of Compulsory Voting initially entrenched governing party encumbancy but that did not guarantee re-election to government. Refer to the historical record provided in the referenced Wikipedia article.

Answer 2

Some effects of compulsory voting:

• Compulsory voting means that voter suppression is basically not an issue in Australia. All adult citizens are required to enrol aside from people serving prison sentences of more than 3 years. It also means that voting accessibility is prioritised:

  • Elections happen on Saturdays when most people don't work
  • Polling locations are widespread, and it's rare to have to line up for even half an hour
  • Pre-voting, postal, and telephone voting is an option
  • Mobile polling teams visit aged care, homeless shelters, prisons, remote settlements, and more
  • Silent electors can still vote

  While the effects of this wouldn't be immediately apparent in terms of partisan balance, it does mean that the results are more truly representative. Indigenous, elderly, disabled, homeless, and more, everyone's votes will be counted, so the election as a whole should be less biased towards cities, wealthy, abled, non-indigenous, etc.

• Does compulsory voting mean that more people take a personal interest in politics, or does it just mean that disengaged voters vote without a lot of thought? Unfortunately the research isn't clear, though, as PDP11 wrote in their answer, I have to imagine that there is some small benefit for the incumbent, and for the major parties generally.

• Australians frequently talk about voting someone out, rather than voting for them. Compulsory voting means that the voter turnout is typically about 95%, and so no one can depend on a passionate minority to elect them. So even though lots of Australians don't like either the Labor or Liberal parties, our preferential voting system means that you eventually need to preference one of them higher than the other. This means both major parties try to appeal to a broad base of the electorate and so are more centrist than in other Western democracies. Surveys show 37% of voters decide who to vote for during the election campaign, and even up to 27% only decide who to vote for in the final days or on election day itself!

• The Australian government actually funds any candidate or group which receives at least 4% of the first preference votes in an election. This, combined with compulsory voting and preferential voting, means that smaller parties can receive substantial funding despite not winning any seats. In the last federal election the Greens had 12% of the total national vote (winning 4 lower house and 6 senators), and One Nation had 5% of the vote (1 senator), and received about $11 million and $3 million respectively. This allows smaller parties to build awareness and momentum over multiple elections until they get to a position to be able to start winning elections (typically in the senate, due to its proportional representation).

• Prior to 2016, to vote in the senate you either had to number every candidate, or select a single party. If you selected a single party your preferences would be automatically assigned according to that party and any preference deals they made with other parties. That resulted in elections with over 100 candidates and 1 metre ballot papers. These preference deals meant that sometimes candidates were elected despite only getting as low as 0.5% of the actual vote - many people, not caring particularly much, would look at the list of parties and vote based on what looked funny, such as the Sex, Shooters and Fishers, HEMP, Pirate, Climate Sceptics, Animal Justice, or Motoring Enthusiasts parties. Voters wouldn't have actually expected any of these parties to win, but sometimes, added together, they would be enough for a senate quota, and one of them would be elected. Without compulsory voting it's unlikely these parties would have, even collectively, gained enough votes to win any seats.

  In 2016 the senate election method was changed to allow for preferential voting of parties. This effectively ended the chance that any of these micro parties could be elected again, as they would need to rely on the voters intentionally preferencing them, rather than the deals they could make with other parties.