already has floated the issue, I take to include in this blog article we wrote to Fernando Paulsen in the magazine Que Pasa some time .. (A new item is in the oven door ..)
The mirage of voluntary voting
By: Fernando Paulsen and Kenzo Asahi
But as it takes away from the time of the conquest of the voting rights attached to that epic moment, awareness of which also won a civic duty, begins to fade, until the right to vote in the democratic routine, staying in the postmodern exaltation of individuality, of a decision more among many others, to buy or not buy, go to the party or not to go phone call or not call sick friend, please wrap or not to wear, or not to vote, everything seems to be mixed as part of a continuum of sovereign decisions of the individual.
Voting in a democracy is an act of transfer of trust, one of the most important decisions of citizens. The voter casts the most valuable of his being in society, their trust in another person, to represent and promote their welfare. In many countries consider that voting is not only a right, that everyone can exercise, but also a duty that everyone should exercise. So there is established that voting is compulsory. Assuming that this binding enhances the sense of duty, which was lost when the memory that evaporated when Epic aspire to vote was a forbidden dream.
What is obligatory as progress
Since 2004 it introduced the first bill to have automatic enrollment in Chile and voluntary voting was never seriously discussed and compared this option with the possibility that voting was compulsory. A mere reference to a binding act emanating from the right seemed contradictory. Retreat sounded undemocratic. And compulsory voting was no issue.
In this election, like never before, because Marco Enríquez Ominami you installed from his critique of the exclusions from the system, because the coalition wanted to catch the Opposition in its rejection and that it took Sebastián Piñera as part of their breakthrough ideas with your industry, automatic and voluntary voting was raised. And every time you see the advantages suggested that voting was compulsory, across the political professionals rescued the idea of \u200b\u200bdecline associated with the obligation to vote.
From a logical point of view is incomprehensible to fulfill the duty to vote is perceived as an intolerable imposition, unlike so many other obligations that are not discussed. There is no revolt against the requirement that school-age children attend school. What if parents want to educate them at home? When the State enacts laws that seek to protect the Chilean itself, as in the case of the obligation to wear a seatbelt or helmet if riding a bike, why not get up a move to promote freedom of each run personal risk you want? Not to mention taxes, contributions and what is proper, the obligation to have health insurance or earn money when you stop working on a AFP. Should not be matters left to the freedom of the individual?
All the above measures and many more are justified in the common good mean in the protection of life and the idea of \u200b\u200bgiving all citizens equal opportunities to grow and compensate for imbalances their socioeconomic status.
postulate that in the case of compulsory voting, the empirical evidence to compare voluntary and mandatory systems in many countries, highlighting the idea that compulsory voting is more effective than the volunteer to create conditions for the redistribution of income in countries with high economic inequality, as in the case of Chile. Moreover, we postulate that under these conditions of inequality voluntary voting eventually alter the incentives of policy towards the postponement of redistributive public policies, these policies benefit the poor which, voluntarily, do not participate in elections as voters in higher proportion who do not vote and are better-off.
The evidence is clear and available. Then review of its main findings.
Lower revenues and electoral
In countries that have implemented voluntary voting, it has involved, on average, a smaller share voting by citizens with fewer resources. Paradoxically, low-income citizens, who are most likely to benefit the political system, tend to vote less.
Chilean Researchers Paulo Alejandro Corvalan and Cox (2010) [2] conclude that the proportion of young Chileans poorest quintile between 18 and 19 who is part of the electoral registers, is half that in the richest quintile. For example, they raised in a recent column [3] that although there are 8,000 La Pintana aged between 18 and 19 years, only 300 were registered to vote in these elections, in contrast, Las Condes, where there are 8,000 young people of the same age, 4,000 were registered to vote (in this example The difference in the proportion of youth enrolled more than 13 times.) The trend in voter turnout and described in Chile confirms a large literature on the social bias in the probability of going to the polls [4] . However, there is broad agreement entre los investigadores que la forma más efectiva de disminuir ese sesgo social en la elección es instaurando el voto obligatorio (Lijphart, 1997) [5] .
Voto Voluntario y menor inversión en políticas sociales
Como consecuencia de lo anterior, los gobiernos de países que introducen el voto voluntario, terminarían investing less in social policy with regard to countries with compulsory voting. Chilean researcher Juan José Matta (2009) [6] in a rigorous study [7] evidence from 70 countries, concludes that countries with voluntary voting, spend 16% less total expenditure government social spending (with respect to countries that have compulsory voting) [8] .
In practice, voluntary voting would involve not only less investment in social policies but, worse, a more unequal income distribution. Researchers Chong and Olivera (2008), in another study, and from evidence for 91 countries, concludes that when countries implement a system where voting is a civic duty and where the breach of that duty is associated with actual costs (fines, no access to government services), income distribution (measured by the Gini coefficient) improves. For example, if we extrapolate the increase in inequality and Olivera Chong calculated by following the implementation of voluntary voting, Chile could worsen its already existing unequal Gini coefficient (54.9), coming to our Gini coefficient Bolivia (60.1) . In this way, our country would be within 5% of the world's most unequal countries (now, Chile is within 12% of most unequal countries) [9] .
The reason we raised the convenience of voting as a civic duty is not because we think it is good per se increase voter participation but, rather, because when a country sees and implements the vote as a duty, better political representation of society as a whole and, in particular, of the dispossessed. In parallel, the implementation of voting as a civic duty could improve income distribution, contributing to the formation a more just society.
In light of all this evidence, we believe it is imperative to evaluate seriously the option of automatic enrollment and compulsory voting as a civic duty versus progressive-regressive feature of the Vote Volunteer-and detachment current anxious situations and opportunities arising from the presidential contingency.
[1] Chilean economist and engineer. My areas of learning include the Hogar de Cristo, Harvard, the Municipality of Puente Alto and now London. Stubbornly seek and share happiness and justice.
[2] Corvalan, A. and Cox, P. (2010). "Turnout Decline in a Transitional Democracy: Generational Replacement and Class Bias in Chile." Working Paper.
[3] The Desk (11/01/2010), column "Vote or voluntary disregard for equality" available http://ow.ly / VIVq
[4] for six Central American countries: Seligson et al. (1995), for European countries, Linder (1994) and Powell (1986).
[5] Lijphart, A. (1997) Unequal participation: democracy's unresolved dilemma. American Political Science Review 91, 1-14.
[6] Matta, JJ (2009). The Effect of Compulsory Voting on Redistributive Policy: Theory and Evidence for a Cross Section of Countries. Master's thesis, Catholic University, Institute of Economics.
[7] By rigorous we mean the fact that the author controls for relevant variables that could bias the study results (income per capita index civil liberties if the government is presidential, age of the population, government expenditure as a percentage of GDP). Also, to control for unobserved variables and / or a possible reverse causality (where, in fact, be a greater desire for redistribution causing increased social spending and the implementation of compulsory voting), the author uses instrumental variables theoretically appropriate and obtains results similar to those obtained by simpler methods (multiple regression).
[8] The result is consistent with other studies such as O'Toole and Strobl (1995).
[9] figures Gini coefficient for Chile, Bolivia and their relative positions were obtained from World Data Development Report Human 2007-2008 (UNDP)
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