…Because nothing says “freedom” like compulsion.

Economics has quite a bit to say about the “rational voter” and his voluntary abstention from the voting process, and despite popular opinion, the laws of economics are never subject to vote. In fact, there is a growing body of politico-economic literature about median-voter-models, and rational ignorance. Unfortunately, the words of wise men like Harvard professor N. Gregory Mankiw, and GMU professor Bryan Caplan are probably lost on people like Desiree Cooper, of the Detroit Free Press, who suggests that we join a score of other countries and make voting compulsory.

But costs of voting aside, it is not likely that there would be any appreciable difference in outcomes under Cooper’s proposal. According to the law of large numbers, it is statistically unlikely that the distribution of the ballots cast by N people will vary significantly from those cast by 2N or 3N similarly situated people. The presence of grossly-uninformed voters casting ballots haphazardly just to skirt a fine will have a tendency to cancel one another out, and as Mankiw deftly notes, when your lazy or uninformed neighbor neglects to cast his ballot, the result is that your vote counts that much more. Cooper’s only chance at redemption is that she twice admits her idea smacks of fascism:

&bull“That may seem anathema to the idea of liberty”
&bull“It may sound like the antithesis of democratic freedom”

Argue as you will, Ms Cooper: that you’d prefer to see higher turnout, that you’d prefer to see a more well-informed populace, that you’d prefer any number of circumstances not within your power to bring about. But do not resort to the coercive apparatus of the State to enforce your preferences upon those of us who think and act differently than you.

Cooper’s mandatory voting proposal is based on the implicit assumption that forcing people to vote, under penalty of law, will create a larger body of informed voters, willing and able to guide public policy. But even under this assumption, the law of large numbers maintains that election outcomes will not likely be very different. If, at present, the public policy is dictated primarily by the most knowledgeable individuals, merely increasing the quantity of knowledgeable voters is not likely to have a noticeable effect on the distribution of votes.

The “right” to vote, per Ms. Cooper, is an obligation. But she would not venture so far as to suggest that the right to bear arms, embodied in the second amendment to the Constitution, imposes any such obligation on the citizens in general. Nor would she suggest that the first amendment requires us all to publish and distribute our opinions. No, of course she wouldn’t. Cooper’s idea is absolute nonsense, and as she rightly indicates, “anathema to the idea of liberty.”