Does Voter Turnout Tell Anything About the State of Democracy?

The higher the voter turnout, the healthier is the democracy. This is a common assumption. 

Photo Credit: Ian Britton

This is not always true. The Soviet dictator, Stalin always got 99,9% votes. In Soviet practice less than 50% voter turnout meant that elections were not valid and thus in Stalin’s single-candidate elections 99% turnout was reported. 

The reportedly 64,1% (on 7.11.2008) is said to be the 100 year highest ‘record’ turnout in the US presidential elections of 2008.

How Does US Voter Turnout Compare with Other Countries?

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• In the Iraqi elections of 2005, there was 71% voter turnout
• in the Russian presidential elections of 2008 it was 68% 
• in the UK parliamentary elections of 2005, 61,3% turnout
• in the EU elections of 2004 the turnout was 45,5% (lowest at 7% in some areas). 
• In the Iranian Majlis or Parliamentary elections of 2008, the Ministry of Interior figure claims voter turnout to be 52% from Iran’s 49 million eligible voters. 2,200 candidates were, however, barred from running on the grounds that they were not sufficiently loyal to the Iranian revolution. Turnout in the second round of Iranian elections was only 25% and winning candidates got only 25% of electoral support.

In the US, 52,6% of voters supported the democrat candidate Barack Obama and the whole world has applauded his election. Russian President Medvedev won the 2008 elections with 71,25% of electoral support. EU member countries Germany, France and Britain claimed that these elections did not meet their criteria for democratic elections, but along with EU promptly congratulated the winner President Medvedev.

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• In Iraq, the winning party with 42 women got 48,1% of electoral support though very few people would consider Iraq to be a safe and functional democracy. 
• In the UK 2005 elections, only 21% of the electorate actually supported the winning party candidate Tony Blair.

Statistics can be utterly misleading if we are to draw any conclusion on the state of democracy in any elections.

What About Enforced Compulsory Voting in Democracies?

Should the US consider enforced compulsory voting, like in Australia or Malta where they have 95% turnout?

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There are currently 32 countries with compulsory voting. Of these, 19 countries like Australia, Lichtenstein, Belgium and Singapore enforce it. Of the 30 member states of the OECD ten have some kind of compulsory voting.

The main argument in favour of compulsory voting is that it then represents the will of the majority and not only those who vote. Further, it can eliminate malpractices in providing or hindering access to vote. Thirdly, it forces people to think about controversial issues and take a stand.

The main argument against compulsory voting is that voting is a civil right like free speech and not a civic duty like paying taxes. There are also religious strictures against involvement in politics as those among Jehovah’s Witnesses, which would make compulsory voting oppressive.

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Does Low Literacy Mean Low Voter Turnout?

Another fallacy is that literacy corresponds with high levels of voter participation through ballots. 

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A low literacy does not necessarily mean a country's turnout rate will be low. There is no significant statistical correlation between literacy and voter turnout. 

• Low literacy countries such as Angola and Ethiopia have achieved high turnout rates.

Some people, when trying to explain situations in Western democracies or EU elections, interpret that low voter turnout is actually a sign that things are going smoothly. Others warn that voter apathy means, on the contrary that voters show their mistrust and fatigue by not bothering to vote.

Funny Incidents from the 2008 US Presidential Elections

• A judge in Ohio ruled that homeless people could use a park bench as their address in order to register.

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• A voter couple flew home from India just to cast their ballots.

• NASA astronauts on board the International Space Station sent a video message encouraging people to vote as they did, from 200 miles up.

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• Democrat candidate Obama's Ohio volunteers knocked on a million doors on Monday 3.11.08 to gather votes. That very night, a Florida official locked himself in the Seminole County election headquarters and slept overnight with the ballots to make sure everything was clean.

Teaching Children How to Control their Alcohol Drinking and Addiction!

Should children be taught how to drink alcohol wisely?

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Researchers cannot agree on whether parents showing their children to use alcohol responsible succeed. Research on how parent-enabled binge drinking shapes their children's alcohol behaviour is very contradictory.

The Yes camp has a lot of supportive research for the claim that parents teaching kids the delicate art of 'responsible' drinking is a blessing for them. But the critics of the yes camp and the no camp have equally strong arsenal to counter the main arguments. 

A survey of 6,245 American teens, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2004, discovered that adults play a very important role in teen drinking although in different ways. Teens attending a party with alcohol supplied by a parent were twice as likely to binge drink and twice as likely to become regular drinkers. But teens drinking occasionally with their parents were only one-third as likely to binge and half as likely to become regular drinkers.

Parents usually have two approaches to alcohol usage training:

1. Small amounts of alcohol drinking under parent supervision
2. Zero tolerance - no alcohol drinking under any circumstances!

Law enforcement in the USA and some Asian countries takes the second approach while most other countries take the first approach.

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Many parents believe that letting their teenagers have alcohol at home makes them responsible drinkers. Research findings (Vorst et al. 2010) show that alcohol permissive parents may have good intentions, but the results may not be what they desire. In a study of 428 Dutch families, researchers discovered that the more their parents allowed them to drink at home, the more they drank outside. Teenagers who drank under parental supervision had a higher risk of getting addiction and alcohol related problems. 

One of the central problems here is not the alcohol itself but the mixed message parents give to the teens while drinking. Children want and expect parents to be parents and not drinking buddies.

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Many governments worry about their younger citizens drinking. The UK government is seriously concerned about young people in the UK consuming alcohol irresponsibly.

UK Government Attitude to Youth Alcohol Consumption

According to BBC reports, the government aim is to reduce drinking and drunken behaviour in public. 

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UK Government statistics show that the number of 11 to 15-year-olds drinking regularly had fallen from 28% in 2001 to 21% in 2006. However, average consumption by young people who drank had nearly doubled from 5.3 units in 1990 to 11.4 units in 2006. In this UK government programme, teenagers who habitually carry and consume alcohol in public have to follow anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) and acceptable behaviour contracts. 

Parents will get guidelines on how much alcohol their children can safely consume, in a bid to encourage teenagers to drink more responsibly. UK Parents who fail to get their children to stop abusing alcohol would be forced to attend parenting courses or face prosecution.

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US Government Attitude to Youth Alcohol Consumption

The US approach is very different. According to the US government’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, “Nearly 7.2 million (19 percent of all youths) were binge drinkers” – that is, having five or more drinks at least once a month. 

The United States is the only Western nation to make drinking illegal until people turn 21, though people can enlist in the army, handle weapons of mass destruction and get killed or kill others in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

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In a US survey of teen drinkers, two thirds of those sampled said they got alcohol from family members or friends. Underage drinkers consume 26% of alcohol in Ohio. That's only the second-highest rate of underage consumption in the nation.

Chinese Government Attitude to Alcohol Consumption of Minors

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The Chinese government has also banned alcohol sales to minors. They blame that permissive attitudes among parents and teachers have worsened a growing problem with under-age drinking. A quarter of middle-school pupils and up to 80 per cent of high school pupils say they drink alcohol, according to Sun Yunxiao, of the China Youth Research Centre, in a recent article in People's Daily.

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Youngsters in India still lag far behind in this. India is 150th among 184 countries in WHO's Global Status Report on Alcohol 2004. Uganda tops this list at 19.5 litres and India a meagre 0,8 litres per head. Figures and reports are not available from Iraq, Iran or Afghanistan.

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Marketing experts argue that advertisements do not target those below the legal drinking age. Research in the US shows that when a total ban on advertising was introduced, consumption levels did not change.

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So what can governments do to tackle irresponsible underage drinking? Do you have any suggestions?

Additional resources: 

• Donovan, John E. Adolescent Alcohol Initiation: A review of Psychological Risk Factors. Journal of Adolescent Health 2004; 35:529.e7-529.e18 accessed from http://www.prevention.psu.edu/documents/donovan_jah_article.pdf
• van der Vorst, H., Engels, R. C. M. E., & Burk, W. J. Do parents and best friends influence the normative increase in adolescents' alcohol use at home and outside the home? Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 2010; 71 (1): 105-114