My Vote for Mandatory Voting

Citizen involvement and representation are critical for and definitive of the concept of democracy. Voting provides for this involvement and representation – without it democracy simply ceases to be. I agree with the idea of compulsory voting and think it could improve any democratic government system.
The ideal of democracy is that the citizens’ best interests can only be attended to if the citizens themselves run the government. This is what distinguishes it from a monarchy or dictatorship. Democracy breaks down when citizens enjoy the benefits of feeling like the leaders want what they want, but forget that it depends on them. As less and less people fail to vote, extreme activist factions and small groups of influential individuals gain more power, sometimes in corrupt ways. Mandatory voting could help reduce the corruption among government officials by reducing the power and say of the radical few with insider connections, bringing the goals of the leadership back to the goals of the people.
If everyone voted, politicians would have to take better care with their campaigns. Without compulsory voting, candidates aim to woo over a target group of people they feel might agree with them. (The system of winning electoral votes in the US is an example of this). With mandatory voting, politicians know that no matter what, everyone is going to vote one way, so they have to pay attention to and take a stand on issues that really matter to all citizens instead of just their usual followers. Also, money would no longer be spent during pre-election time on campaigns just to get people to vote at all. Perhaps this money could go to a neutral way of educating the populace on the various candidates’ ideas and proposals so citizens can truly make an informed decision.
Mandatory voting could go a long way towards improving a country’s international image. Democracies whose officials were elected only by a small margin tend to be seen by other countries as nothing more than a dictatorship or oligarchy wearing a fancy façade. Many complain about the American government’s reputation, but how can it be taken seriously if the president’s approval rating has at times actually been as low as thirty percent? If other nations can trust that a country’s government is an accurate representation of the attitudes and wishes of the people, they can more readily respect and interact logically with that country.
Though mandatory voting may at first seem to be the opposite of democracy – forcing citizens to do something – methods can be put in place where a person could abstain if they needed to. It has also been argued that some people get around mandatory voting by simply choosing a candidate at random. The misrepresentation that might lead to, however, could really be no worse than those same people not voting at all. The benefits outweigh the risks in the issue of compulsory voting, and I believe all democracies should adopt some form of it.