UK 2015 general election with compulsory voting?

If the situation leading up to the 2015 general election was exactly the same apart from compulsory voting was introduced, what do you think the result would be?
 
Tories - 33
Labour - 32
UKIP - 17
Lib Dems - 7
Greens - 5

Worse for the Tories, a tiny bit better for Labour, considerably better for UKIP, more or less same for the Lib Dems, slightly better for the Greens. UKIP gain Thanet South, Thurrock, Boston and Skegness, hold Rochester and Strood, possibly gain Rotherham. Maybe even a couple more that I'm forgetting. Greens gain Bristol West. Galloway comes closer in Bradford West (though still loses). SNP still win 56 seats, possibly even adding the other three. Labour-SNP deal. Tories fall into civil war. Several defections to UKIP. Another general election within two years. UKIP break 25% and 100 seats.
 
No democracy has compulsory voting. Some like Australia have compulsory *balloting*--not the same thing, since one can cast a blank or spoiled ballot without penalty. http://themonkeycage.org/2011/11/mo...ot-necessarily-make-electorate-less-informed/

Anyway, compulsory balloting does result in a higher percentage of valid ballots than non-compulsory balloting. This is supposed to help the Left on balance, though one may note it did not prevent victories by the Right in Australia in the federal elections of 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2013. In other words, it is definitely not a panacea for the Left.
 
Tories - 33
Labour - 32
UKIP - 17
Lib Dems - 7
Greens - 5

Worse for the Tories, a tiny bit better for Labour, considerably better for UKIP, more or less same for the Lib Dems, slightly better for the Greens. UKIP gain Thanet South, Thurrock, Boston and Skegness, hold Rochester and Strood, possibly gain Rotherham. Maybe even a couple more that I'm forgetting. Greens gain Bristol West. Galloway comes closer in Bradford West (though still loses). SNP still win 56 seats, possibly even adding the other three. Labour-SNP deal. Tories fall into civil war. Several defections to UKIP.

I can broadly agree up to here (UKIP breaking 100 seats on 25% in 2017 is too far, IMO). 'Civil war' is maybe a bit much, unless you mean 'what happened under Major', because I don't see it getting worse than that. Also depends on how many is 'several' defections to UKIP. And don't forget that while all possible Farage voters are now voting in Thanet South, all possible anti-Farage voters are going to be forced to vote too - I think his odds of victory are about the same as OTL.

It's also probably worth decreasing the Tory vote even more, because we forget that even in this world where 'nothing else changes', the Conservatives (and Lib Dems in coalition) have introduced compulsory voting. That's going to piss off a lot of people, including some voter profiles the Tories need support from. UKIP would probably be the main beneficiary, but if Labour said they'd get rid of it, they might do okay too. (I suspect Ed wouldn't, though, so I can understand moving 1-2% more away from the Tories and into the Faragegasm column.)
 
No democracy has compulsory voting. Some like Australia have compulsory *balloting*--not the same thing, since one can cast a blank or spoiled ballot without penalty. http://themonkeycage.org/2011/11/mo...ot-necessarily-make-electorate-less-informed/

Anyway, compulsory balloting does result in a higher percentage of valid ballots than non-compulsory balloting. This is supposed to help the Left on balance, though one may note it did not prevent victories by the Right in Australia in the federal elections of 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, and 2013. In other words, it is definitely not a panacea for the Left.

Spoiling your ballot is voting. I think you're trying to make a distinction that doesn't exist.
 
Spoiling your ballot is voting. I think you're trying to make a distinction that doesn't exist.

If you want to call casting a blank ballot "voting," fine. The point is that those people who do not want to vote for any of the candidates do not have to do so, even under so-called mandatory voting. Therefore one cannot automatically *assume* that any party or candidate will get more votes than it got under non-compulsory voting. Of course in all likelihood there will be *some* people who otherwise would not have voted who would vote for one candidate or another, but not as many as one might think, and it is unlikely that they would vote ovewhelmingly for one candidate.
 
If you want to call casting a blank ballot "voting," fine. The point is that those people who do not want to vote for any of the candidates do not have to do so, even under so-called mandatory voting. Therefore one cannot automatically *assume* that any party or candidate will get more votes than it got under non-compulsory voting. Of course in all likelihood there will be *some* people who otherwise would not have voted who would vote for one candidate or another, but not as many as one might think, and it is unlikely that they would vote ovewhelmingly for one candidate.

But how many people are going to deliberately spoil their ballot? Very few.

So, ja, you're not going to get party vote adding to 100%, but there will be a lot more votes cast for parties than iOTL. Especially considering the ridiculously low turn outs. The 2014 US Federal election had a turnout of 36.3%, according to
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/the-worst-voter-turnout-in-72-years.html?_r=0
 
No democracy has compulsory voting. Some like Australia have compulsory *balloting*--not the same thing, since one can cast a blank or spoiled ballot without penalty. http://themonkeycage.org/2011/11/mo...ot-necessarily-make-electorate-less-informed/

....

I recall a story in the local press some years back claiming that some authority (don't recall if state or federal) in Australia were looking at enforcing a valid vote, Ie that you would have to have your ballot accepted by an optical scanner or similar to ensure no blank or spoiled votes got through.

Anyone know what happened to that idea ?
 

Sideways

Donor
UKIP may push harder on the northern seats, and we'd probably have seen northern city devolution under the last parliament so that the Conservatives could push for votes there.

Basically, it wouldn't be the same election it was OTL.
 
But how many people are going to deliberately spoil their ballot? Very few.

So, ja, you're not going to get party vote adding to 100%, but there will be a lot more votes cast for parties than iOTL. Especially considering the ridiculously low turn outs. The 2014 US Federal election had a turnout of 36.3%, according to
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/opinion/the-worst-voter-turnout-in-72-years.html?_r=0

Well, it is unfair to US midterm elections as the standard--and even US presidential elections have lower turnout than most other countries. The comparison we are interested in here is the UK. In Australia, "Spoilt ballots count for around 6% of the total votes cast in the 2010 election. Taken together with the number of eligible voters who fail to register, the actual percentage for voter turnout in Australia's federal elections hovers in the low 80s." http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23810381 This is higher than the 66.1 percent in the UK in 2015 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/gen...ghest-turnout-since-Tony-Blair-landslide.html but not *that* much higher.
 
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