To vote or not to vote

Unlike Australia, where it's mandatory for people over 18 to cast a ballot, voting in Canada is voluntary. Watching this current election campaign unfold, Canada makes a bloody good argument for mandatory voting. The turnout for the last election, in 2008, was just shy of 60 per cent. The Conservatives got roughly 37 per cent of that vote. So, by my rough calculation, with the support of less than a quarter of the eligible voting population, Harper formed government.

This election is shaping up to be just as tight, but with much the same cast of characters to choose from as last time trotting out much the same tune, it's not exactly inspiring. And I suspect we'll end up in much the same situation as before the writ was dropped, facing the same dysfunction in Ottawa that will only be resolved by a dramatic shift in leadership, or a dramatic shift in the rules of the game.

What would be different if voting were mandatory?

The theory: Because people MUST cast a vote, they are inclined to get involved in the debate and pay attention to the issues. This enhances the level of debate because more people know and understand the issues. End result: A better, more meaningful campaign.

The practice: Media coverage remains saturated with breathless issue-of-the-moment coverage that fails to delve into matters of public concern. End result: Voters make decisions on gut feeling having scanned the latest headlines. 

To be fair, that's largely what happens now in Canada, so I figure mandatory voting would at least get more people paying slightly more attention, and would force the parties to actually engage the centre ground, instead of trying so hard to build up their partisan base so they can win what basically becomes a ground war of recruitment. 

Mandatory voting is not the solution, and by definition it's not purely democratic, but at least it might help nix this awful stalemate in Ottawa right now.  That or reform the Senate, but that's a whole different bag of ugly, smelly wrong.