a solution for Portugal? – Observer
You have free access to all the articles of the Observer for being our subscriber.
The figures show that abstention has arrived in Portugal for inaugurating the country’s not officially having a debate around the possibility, the obligatory vote. In addition to sparse articles in newspapers, the debate was not widespread in Portuguese society. We believe that regardless of the decision that is taken, this debate must reach the broad masses. It also tells us that, at the moment, we do not have a defined position in relation to mandatory voting. Instead, we want to contribute to strengthening the debate. The reader will withdraw theirs, how to withdraw.
We understand that the urgency of reducing the values of abstention that requires adopting a posture of dialogue and openness in relation to any democratic instrument that can help in its effective combat, as long as it is consistent with the most important national legal principles. In this regard, the 2016 report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) shows that in the 27 States that have made voting compulsory, electoral participation is 8.7% higher than the participation of States where voting is optional. . It is thus clear and clear that compulsory voting can reduce abstention. But at what cost?
Sarah Birch (2009) defines mandatory voting as “the legal obligation to present the ballot boxes at the time they are fulfilled there as responsibilities to obligations to obligations”. In most countries that adopt mandatory voting, the voter is not obliged to actually vote for one of the candidates presented; every voter will always have the chance to vote blank or null; We are faced with a circumstance that can weigh on the argument for mandatory pro-voting. For this reason, there are arguments to the effect that, when we refer to mandatory serial voting, we find a different, more exact, more rigorous expression: in Germany and the Netherlands, at one time, the expression “mandatory presence at the polls”. For us, and ultimately, in this particular, faced with a semantic problem. that the unseen is the voter’s obligation to present his vote before a ballot box that does not see his inner vote or the role required of him with which he can defend a null vote. The same obligation, of a proposal in which the ballot paper, without obligation, to grow, are obliged to be obliged with the ballot paper, without obligation, to grow, obligated in, with the candidacy paper, without obligation, to grow up, of being obliged, with the application form.
The idea of being obliged to be devout can prima facie sound like a denial of some achievements of Western liberal democracies. Those who defend compulsory voting do not always deny from the outset, this apparent attempt and conflict that seems to exist between the free exercise of a certain dimension of individual and institutional freedom, on the part of the State, and the obligation of citizens to vote. Lisa Hill (2014) advances that the legal summons of citizens to vote can fit tolerably with democratic and liberal values. The champions of compulsory voting will also run that electoral participation in the electoral sense preferable to active participation and in response to the argument that compulsory voting can, in a certain way, curtail the freedom of which there is a series. of other obligations that are imposed by the State and that most people tend to accept naturalness (for example, the obligation to educate children or pay taxes). It is important to try to understand, we believe, if the affirmation, by the State, of the obligation of citizens can be justified to the point at which they are justifiable, for example, the legal duty to educate children and pay taxes. Not really In 1971, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that compulsory voting does not violate the freedom of expression of scientists, justifying that in reality what is required with the vote is that the citizen appears before a ballot box and place the vote, but may vote blank or null.
In any case, we show that the positivization of compulsory voting implies a restriction on the individual freedom of individuals. This restriction materializes in at least two different ways, or in two different moments. First, it obliges citizens to physically move from their homes to the polls in order to vote, in circumstances that, despite everything not being judged, are not considered to be a strong restriction on individual freedom. Then, prevent citizens from being able, in a conscious and proposed way, to show their indifference to their indifference to what they are going to vote for: politics to transform their thinking and political preference, the citizen will be able to opt for any of the candidates chosen in the vote, blank vote, null vote or no vote at all. In our obligatory votes, the embodied option is obligatory, not being a negation at the disposal of the States that this positive option.
The Brazilian Gennaro Cannavacciulo (2003) makes the public defense of mandatory voting as the only effective way to increase and increase the maturity of the Brazilian people’s politics. Cannavacciulo even dares to concretize that political maturity, in the present case, is understood as “the ability of the people to discern political evil, by monitoring it through communication channels”. We agree with the author when he states that “it is a virtue for the people to be able to assess whether legislators and members of the executive are fulfilling their role”. We have, however, some reservations about whether the institution of compulsory voting would leave the people immediately to discern the “political evil” and be able to defend themselves against it.
Many of the defenders of the positivization of compulsory voting make an initial quality, it concerns the initial quality of the democratic regime that will eventually establish this legal duty. Lisa Hill (2014) advances that she does not advocate all types of compulsory regimes, only those where “determined quality standards are met and where mandatory voting is appropriate”. We follow the observation that a mandatory voting system, if it exists, requires a more or less mature system of rights, freedoms and guarantees to sustain it. This maturity is based on the necessary solidity of state institutions – with emphasis on a lawful, clear and independent performance of institutional committees –, as well as on a procedure related to simple voting and that does not exclude simple votes. In addition, ours, criminal prosecution – if it exists, in the abstract – must be effective but without much measure. No longer obligatory, obligatory and independent, which admit a limited regime, constitutionally and constitutionally restricted to democratic regimes. Mandatory voting in authoritarian or totalitarian political regimes does not enter into our investigation.
There is yet another dimension that we consider relevant. In countries where voting is optional, candidates invest their resources in two phases of the same process. They need, of course, to convince as people that theirs and vision for the community that the ideas will elect are the best, most solid, pertinent or urgent at the concrete moment and for the future. On the other hand, today, and especially in countries where abstention is high, all candidates are obliged to be concerned with the presence indeed at the ballot box. In other words, as candidacies cannot only focus on ascertaining, improving and deepening a materiality and substance of their political-social visions; the current status quo – as they dedicate themselves to the formal task of guaranteeing that the people who may eventually be forced to go, in fact, to the ballot box. If there is no second concern, there are more means for total and absolute obedience in the first place.
Mandatory voting is a complex and controversial institute. There is no doubt that it has the virtue of increasing the much-needed electoral participation in the suffrage. It remains, however, to understand at what cost it does so and how it behaves in other latitudes. This is what we will try to do in future articles of this short investigation.