Voluntary registration is based on the principle that voting is a right of citizenship, and that voters may choose to register or not.
Inevitably some voters will choose not to register, thereby effectively depriving themselves of the right to vote. If there is a random distribution to the likelihood of registering to vote that is, if all types of citizens register in equal proportions, whether men or women, young or old, urban or rural, rich or poor, highly or poorly educated, and so on the conclusion might be that voluntary registration has no impact on the outcome of an election or on the selection of representatives and governments.
Across a wide range of democracies, however, disparities may be seen in who chooses to register and who does not. For example, men are more likely to choose to participate than women, although the gap has been narrowing in many countries over the past generation. Young people are considerably less likely to register and vote than middle-aged and older citizens. Urban voters typically register in higher proportions than residents of rural areas. Rich are more likely to register than poor, and the highly educated are more likely to register than the poorly educated.
If those who participate at higher rates have values, attitudes and political preferences differing from those less likely to participate, the result is that participation and voluntary voter registration will have an impact on the electoral outcome by favouring people more likely to register and participate. If the population that registers to vote is systematically biased or unrepresentative of the population as a whole, the election outcome may lack legitimacy.
Mandatory and Quasi-Mandatory Registration
Mandatory or quasi-mandatory registration is based on the principle that voting in a democracy is not simply a right but a responsibility of citizenship. Choosing not to register and vote is viewed as a dereliction of duty.
If voting is mandatory, as it is in Australia, it follows that registration is also mandatory even though it may not be legally enforced. Countries where voting is compulsory always have much higher voter turnout than countries where voting is voluntary. In addition, if voting is compulsory, the election management authority has a greater obligation to make it easy for individuals to register and vote.
Where the state takes responsibility for initiating the voter registration process e.g. by conducting door-to-door registration or maintaining a compulsory civil registry registration is near-mandatory. For example, a citizen may refuse to answer the enumerator’s questions, but the enumerator’s official request for information constitutes an extra pressure or incentive to respond and register. In countries with a civil registry, citizens often have a formal, legal obligation to report changes in their personal status to the civil authority. Thus a voters’ list based on data from a civil registry may be viewed as produced through de-facto mandatory registration.
Mandatory registration provides a more comprehensive listing of all eligible voters and allows more accurate assessment of voter turnout as a proportion of eligible voters. The true measure of voter turnout in an election is the number of people who voted in relation to the voting age population. This proportion may indicate the effectiveness of a voter registration program.
In a mandatory registration system, citizens understand more fully that voting is a civic duty and responsibility. The implication of a system of mandatory registration and voting is that each citizen has an obligation to vote both for himself or herself and for the community as a whole. In other words, citizens have an obligation to vote for the health of the democratic system, not only for the chance to have their personal preferences represented.
