Abstract
This chapter offers a critical perspective on one of the oldest and most consistent claims made for compulsory voting in Australia, namely that it would encourage greater citizen engagement with, and understanding of, the political system. The chapter focuses on the development of political knowledge and skills of young citizens and how they become equipped to vote in elections once they turn 18. It first provides an international overview of political knowledge before analysing the types of political knowledge Australians require in order to make informed political choices. It subsequently considers how young people might access this knowledge, and examines potential barriers to people’s ability to become informed. It finally offers a critical discussion of current challenges and considers potential ways of improving the political knowledge of Australia’s youngest voters.
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Notes
- 1.
While Mann proposed compulsory voting in the House of Representatives, the initial proposal was put forward by Senator Herbert Payne, then a Nationalist Party Senator for Tasmania (see Bennett 2005).
- 2.
Citizens are disqualified from voting in Australian elections if they are serving a prison sentence of three years or more, convicted of treason, or if they are ‘of unsound mind’ (Australian Human Rights Commission 2010).
- 3.
The CSES is a research program involving election study teams across the world (see https://cses.org/about/). Following the decision to omit the political knowledge module, the CSES has sought to use ‘left-right party placement questions’ as well as ‘political interest’ questions to identify ‘individuals who are tuned in, and those who are tuned out, to the details of politics’ (Gidengil and Zechmeister 2016).
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Ghazarian, Z., Laughland-Booÿ, J. (2021). Becoming an Informed Voter: Compulsory Voting and Developing Political Knowledge in Australia. In: Bonotti, M., Strangio, P. (eds) A Century of Compulsory Voting in Australia. Elections, Voting, Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4025-1_7
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