Disenfranchising voters and some ways to avoid it
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Date
2011
Authors
Kliuchkovskiy, Yurii
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Electoral Commission [et al.]
Abstract
Venice Commission Comparative Report on Thresholds and Other Features of Electoral Systems Which Bar Parties from Access to Parliament. It has been suggested that under a compulsory voting regime voters who are otherwise not inclined to vote might, out of their dissatisfaction with the major parties, "cast a protest vote" which often goes to a radical (usually a minor) party. As D.Nohlen reports, "radical right did fare slightly better in the eight nations which use compulsory voting" and " this evidence is suggestive". Speaking politically, non-participation of voters in elections means that they have no incentive to vote because they don’t believe it would change their life. It could be caused by two opposite reasons. On the one hand, people could be quite satisfied with the living conditions and feel no danger to them irrespectively of election results. On the other hand, people could be quite disappointed and not believing that something could change after elections. It’s clear that these two situations are met in different countries. Nevertheless the recipes are not of legal nature. In this presentation I tried to gather and to systematize possible criteria for disenfranchising which without any doubts are well known. I hope it could be
a base for fruitful discussion.
Description
Keywords
Council of Europe Forum "For the Future of Democracy", Venice Commission's Code of Practice in Electrical Matters, European Court of Human Rights, European Convention on citizenship, "family voting", Venice Commission’s Declaration on Women’s Participation in Elections, conference materials
Citation
Kliuchkovskiy Y. Disenfranchising voters and some ways to avoid it / Yuriy Kliuchkovskyi // Electoral Management bodies - 6th European Conference "Enhancing participation in elections", The Hague, 30 November - 1 December 2009 and 7th European Conference "Every voter counts", London, 22-23 June 2010 : selected reports / The Electoral Commission [et al.]. - Strasbourg, 2011. - P. 112-122.