A bill for mandatory voting for all eligible Nigerians passed the second reading at the House of Representatives penultimate week. Jointly sponsored by the Speaker, Tajudeen Abbas, and a lawmaker from Plateau State, Daniel Asama, the bill seeks to amend the Electoral Act 2022 to make voting compulsory for all Nigerians of voting age in national and state elections.
The proposed piece of legislation prescribes a fine of N100,000 or six months imprisonment or both for eligible voters who fail to exercise that civic duty without valid justification. When he led the debate on the floor of the house, Asama sought to justify the bill on the grounds that democracy thrives better when the people are actively involved in choosing their leaders and shaping governance.
Hear him: “Voting is not only a right but a civic responsibility and in many democracies across the world, it is treated as such. This bill proposes to introduce mandatory voting for all Nigerians of voting age in general elections, both at the national and state levels. It seeks to amend the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act 2022, to reflect this obligation while also allowing for limited and justified exemptions where necessary”
He cited low voter turnout and the imperative to reverse the trend as justification for the bill, drawing parallels with the 2023 general elections which he said recorded less than 30 per cent voter participation. The trend, he argued, undermines the legitimacy of elected governments and weakens democratic institutions.
Asama further cited Australia, Belgium and Brazil among democracies that have adopted compulsory voting with positive outcomes in political participation and public accountability. Though the bill generated divided opinions among members, it nevertheless scaled the second reading.
The issues canvassed by Asama, especially as they relate to deepening democracy and good governance through popular participation in elections, constitute the pristine ideals which representative democracy seeks to promote. Democracy, in the form it manifested in the medieval Greek City States, entailed physical participation of the people in the election of their leaders. But the sheer size of modern states has precluded direct democracy of the ancient times.
Representative democracy evolved to respond to population dynamics of modern states. Since it is no longer possible for the electorate to gather in one square to elect their leaders, an arrangement through which they will still exercise that obligation without assembling in one particular place was evolved – representative democracy. By this, the people exercise the power to rule through their elected representatives.
This, ipso facto, recognises the inalienable rights of the people to elect their leaders through the ballot process. Through this process, it is also assumed those who emerge as leaders during elections do so through popular sovereignty. Thus, the strength of representative democracy lies in its capacity to reflect the collective will of the people through popular participation in elections.
So, all the issues raised by the sponsors of the bill on active participation of the electorate in enhancing effective governance and overall legitimacy are commonplace arguments. They constitute the lynchpin on which the wheels of the democratic process revolve. There are no issues with such precepts but examples.
What this country stands to gain through popular participation of eligible voters during elections in terms of enhancement of governance legitimacy and effective leadership is not in doubt. Unfortunately, the bill targets the wrong problem. The therapy the bill seeks to administer to low voter turnout is an obviously inefficacious one. It will achieve practically nothing without addressing the systemic challenges that promote and reinforce low voter turnout.
The issue is the credibility and integrity of elections. How credible are elections usually marred by all manner of infractions promoted by the high and low? A few years back, ballot box snatching, writing of election results in the comfort of the homes of prominent politicians and hotel rooms, were the order of the day. Results announced bore no semblance to votes cast at the ballot box. And those announced as winners were mainly not the people the electorate cast their votes for at the voting centres.
These electoral infractions did a lot to weaken the confidence of the electorate in the ballot process, with low voter turnout as its logical outcome. It took strong agitations, protests and some reforms in the Electoral Act to restore some modicum of confidence in our elections. But as soon as these reforms guaranteeing the sanctity and integrity of the electoral process were introduced, crooked politicians went back to the drawing board to invent new techniques to subvert the new law.
That is why the introduction of technology in election management has not been allowed to function properly. In the 2023 general elections, the hopes of the electorate for credible elections, one that satisfies integrity tests, were abruptly dashed by what the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) called ‘glitches.’ Vote buying has also reared its monstrous head in forms never seen in Nigeria’s electoral history.
These negative responses to the advent of technology in election management are, in the main, fuelled by the morbid fear of rogue politicians that they will lose out were elections to be free, fair and credible. That is not all. Acts of violence and do-or-die politics are regular features of our elections that scare even the most patriotic.
Thugs of all descriptions are hired by politicians to harass, main and even kill those opposed to their sponsors. There was a fair dose of these negative tendencies during the last general election, especially at the governorship polls.
Threats were issued in some states against non-indigenes, while in some others people could not vote on account of the insecurity that has held this country down for a couple of years now. These are the real issues that incubate and promote low voter turnout. Yet, our lawmakers cannot find their voices on them even as fears of rancorous elections in 2027 hover around the political space. How the bill intends to address the systemic dysfunctions that scare people from venturing out to cast their votes holds more value for the integrity of elections than compulsory voting in hostile and life-threatening circumstances.
The proponents of the bill cited Australia, Belgium and Brazil among democracies that practice mandatory voting with good outcomes. That could be so. But what value is there in comparing countries with dissimilar political cultures and levels of development? Yes, Australia and Belgium practice mandatory voting as well as some other developed countries around the world with varying modifications. Australia imposes a fine of $20 for defaulters while that of Belgium hovers between 40 and 80 euros depending on the number of times of default.
Compulsory voting has been in practice in Australia since 1924, and that country is credited with one of the highest voter turnouts in the world. Voters are given a number of avenues to cast their votes during elections. These include postal voting, pre-poll voting, absent voting at Australian missions overseas as well as voting at mobile teams at hospitals, nursing homes, remote localities and ordinary voting at polling centres.
So there exists some sophistication in the Australian electoral process garnered from years of practice of mandatory voting. Can postal voting take place in this country? Through what means, if one may wish to ask? And if at all it is possible, will the votes not be hijacked along the line by those in control of the instruments of power and coercion?
The array of voting avenues provided by the Australian electoral system have no place in Nigeria currently. And will be difficult to implement in the foreseeable future. It is therefore not just enough to copy practices and seek to enforce them in climes that are ill-prepared for them. One aspect of the bill that seeks to empower INEC to develop a system to track vote compliance and manage exemption requests strikes as a tall order.
Australia and Belgium have not been able to enforce voter compliance over the years. Though lists of absentees are required to be sent to the offices of the Public Prosecutor in Belgium, for instance, the reality is that nothing gets to be done with that list.
INEC, as presently constituted, can ill-afford to be saddled with the additional burden of compiling lists of defaulting voters and managing exemptions. And as this column argued in a previous article, mandatory voting is a thing whose time is yet to come.
The bill is another research work that has practically no solution to the multi- faceted electoral infractions that frighten voters from venturing out during elections and diminish their confidence in the integrity of the process. The substantive issues that diminish the confidence of the electorate and scare them from venturing out to vote are the issues to address.
