Evaluating Election Turnout

Professor Richard Rose

In the contemporary world, virtually every country holds elections of  one kind or another.  The right of citizens to vote is now a defining attribute of democracy, and the franchise is a right of every adult citizen and no longer a privilege restricted to a narrowly-defined group. Yet the fact that everyone has a right to vote is not sufficient to make a country democratic.

Global surveys invariably conclude that the majority of regimes in the world today are not democratic; the median regime has been aptly described as "partly free" (Freedom House, 1996). In countries of  this nature, the failure to achieve democracy is not the result of denying most citizens the right to vote. It stems from the fact that such elections as are held are not freely competitive, and that regimes do not fully respect the rule of law, which includes the need to limit their own coercion. As long as it has the power to control competition and the counting of votes, a regime has nothing to fear from holding  elections which are unfree and unfair. 

Democrats are not the only rulers to promote a high voter turnout; a distinguishing feature of modern totalitarian regimes is the compulsory mobilization of subjects to show public commitment to them.  Totalitarian rulers share the goal of 100% turnout, even when this is combined with no choice at all of parties or candidates. Thus, when it comes to electoral participation, it is certainly possible to have too much of a good thing. Virtual unanimity in turnout and in voting for a single party produces an election result too good to be true.  This essay discusses firstly what constitutes "free and fair" elections and the inter-relationship of turnout and choice in both democratic and totalitarian countries. Secondly, it shows that, although a comparative perspective does make it possible to evaluate turnout as higher or lower by comparison with other countries or a nation's past record, there is no consensus on evaluation, on what a "good" turnout actually is; rational choice theorists can argue that "whatever is, is right", while at the other extreme democratic idealists can argue that anything below 100% turnout is not good enough. And thirdly, this  essay concludes by showing what a government can do to make a good turnout better. It examines the question of compulsion to vote, whether it is a worthwhile option, and why a government can never produce "perfect" turnout and still hold an election that is fair and free. 

Freedom of Choice Two conditions must be met before citizens are free to choose their governors. The right to vote is a necessary but not a sufficient condition; in addition, elections themselves must be both free and fair.  An election is free if a multiplicity of parties are able to compete for votes; without this, the only choice open to an elector is whether to turn out or, if compelled to, whether to vote for the sole party,  publicly abstain, or spoil the ballot paper. An election is fair if officials administer the law in ways that protect the rights of each elector and of competing parties, and if the counting of the votes is accurate. As Mackenzie (1958: Part Four) shows in his classic discussion of "electoral morality and its enforcement", the pathology of elections takes many different forms: an unfair election can be corrupt, muddled, stolen or manufactured.

 The evaluation, as opposed to the counting, of turnout must not only take into account who can vote but also the radically different significance of voting in unfair and unfree as against free and fair elections. The categories are set out schematically in Figure 31 below.  The democratic ideal is an election in which all adults have the right to vote, many parties compete and the election is administered fairly.  If  the franchise is granted to relatively few adults, but there is free and fair competition for the support of those who can vote, the political system is an oligarchy, and meets at least one condition for democracy; this arrangement may be described as proto-democratic, since the expansion of the franchise will make it democratic.

At the other extreme, if competition is very limited and very few adults are allowed to vote, an election is repressive. Under these conditions, restrictions are imposed not only on citizens but also on politicians, since those who oppose the ruling powers are unable to voice their opposition effectively. This type of election can be found in poor countries with low literacy rates, when governments decide to go through the formalities of an election without wishing to stir up either their opponents or their subjects. In contrast, a totalitarian regime wants everyone to vote, but it does not want the result to be decided by the free and fair choice of its citizenry; it therefore eliminates competition, and the ruling party campaigns aggressively to make everyone turn out to vote for it.