Compulsory Voting (vote obligatoire)

Today a law was passed by the Modi govt in Gujurat that voting has been made compulsory. Modi’s argument was that this law will force people to come out and vote and if they are not in a position to decide, can give negative votes. Modi was also very vocal about Italy with an obvious dig at Sonia Gandhi that the country has compulsory voting. Italy practiced compulsory voting from 1945 to 1993. (Mark the year 1945 which was the end of world war 2 with a crushing defeat for Italy). There are no formal sanctions in Italy but possible arbitrary or social sanctions. This is called the "innocuous sanction" in Italy, where it might for example be difficult to get a daycare place for your child or similar but this is not formalised in any way at all. Somebody forgot to whisper in Mr. Modi’s ears!

Freedom is associated with democracy. Free Speech, Marriage etc are rights, not duties. Likewise to vote or not to vote is a right, not a duty. People should not be compelled to vote. Understand this - that compelling a person to vote is infringing and contradicting his basic freedom. With compulsory voting the act of punishing those citizens with fines or imprisonment will also come into existence and with it the oppressive nature of the idea will be established.


Individuals have no interest or ideas of the candidates and some may resent compulsory voting. Others may be well informed but may not have any preference for any particular candidate or may have no wish to support the political system or thought. The idea of negative voting or donkey vote does not give much emphasis for compulsory voting. It has been proved that forcing the population to vote results in an increased number of invalid and blank votes compared to countries that have no compulsory voting laws. Voting is a voluntary act and bringing in a law to vote compulsory itself is a failure of democracy. Why are the political masters so hell bent in forcing the people to vote? Let the man decide whether he wants to vote or note. Man has not expressed any thoughts of anti democracy or anti voting. He does not criticizes the democratic systems or the voting system. He has the right though for free speech and thought.

What he wants is to be left alone__________.