New Zealand should have compulsory voting

Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash

New Zealand used to pride itself on having a healthy democracy. We have free elections, proportional representation and a highly trusted electoral system. But there are two obvious weakness

1.       We let donations turn it into The Democracy Game.

2.       We don’t require people to participate.

It’s the participation I’m writing about here.

Given the current polls, the election result is impossible to forecast, but what I can confidently predict is that over 500,000 enrolled New Zealanders will not vote – in 2023 it was 655,094.

Source: www.govt.nz – Privileges and responsibilities of a citizen

New Zealand requires eligible citizens and residents to enrol, but voting itself is voluntary. At the 2023 general election, just 78.2% of enrolled voters cast a ballot. That means more than one in five enrolled New Zealanders stayed away. When you add the estimated 200,000 of eligible voters who aren’t enrolled, well-over three-quarters of a million eligible voters failed to vote in 2023.

Having more people involved in the election through voting can only strengthen our democracy, which isn’t as robust as we might like to think. Making voting a civic responsibility, rather than a privilege, might be a step in the right direction.  

We should change that and the obvious model is Australia.

Australia introduced compulsory voting for federal elections in 1924, following a dramatic fall in turnout. In 1922, only 59.4% of Australians voted. At the first federal election after compulsory voting was introduced, turnout jumped to more than 91%.

A century later, the results remain remarkable. At the 2025 Australian federal election, turnout was expected to be around 90%, compared with New Zealand's 78.2% in 2023.

And compulsory voting in Australia is not quite as draconian as the phrase suggests. Australians are legally required to attend an election and vote, but they retain complete freedom over how they vote. Nobody can force them to support a particular candidate or party. If they have a valid reason for not voting, they can explain it to the Australian Electoral Commission.

That distinction matters. Compulsory voting is not compulsory political enthusiasm. It is compulsory participation in the democratic process.

There is a powerful democratic argument for this.

Under voluntary voting, participation is not evenly distributed. Some groups are much more likely to vote than others. In New Zealand's 2023 election, turnout among 18–24-year-olds was 74.2%, while turnout among voters aged 70 and over was 84.9%. Turnout among Māori voters was lower again, at 70.3%.

That matters because governments respond to the people who vote. ACT would love to disenfranchise as many people who don’t vote for them as possible - young people, prisoners etc. He commented not long ago that, “compulsory voting resulted in all sorts of weirdos being voted in”. They’re behind you, David!

If politicians know that certain groups are less likely to turn up on election day, there is an obvious temptation to concentrate political attention on people who reliably do. Compulsory voting removes much of that distortion. Every section of society becomes part of the electorate that politicians have to persuade.

Australia's experience is compelling. The Australian Electoral Commission notes that compulsory voting produces consistently high participation and that one argument in its favour is that governments and opposition parties must consider the interests of the whole electorate, rather than simply those most likely to vote.

You might think the Australian public would be keen to see it repealed, but that’s not the case. Through numerous opinion polls and Australian Election Study survey data, support for compulsory voting hovers around 70 percent. Compare that to the 54 percent of New Zealand voters who chose to keep MMP at the 2007 referendum and you get an idea of its popularity. I’ll leave it to Australians more knowledgeable about the outcome of their elections to judge whether their century old system has resulted in voting in “too many weirdos”.

 But democracy already imposes civic obligations. We pay taxes. We obey laws. Some citizens perform jury service. We accept these obligations because they underpin a functioning society. Voting once every three years is hardly an unreasonable burden.

New Zealand should follow Australia's example. Make voting compulsory, keep the ballot secret and completely free, provide sensible exemptions, and let voters decide exactly what they want to do with their ballot.

Democracy works better when everyone has to turn up.

Australian Electoral Commission — Compulsory voting

Australian Electoral Commission — 2025 election participation

NZ Electoral Commission — 2023 election report

NZ Electoral Commission — voter turnout statistics

Parliament of Australia — compulsory voting and Australian democracy

Parliament of Australia — history of compulsory voting