Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

12- 1:30pm In some countries, voting is an obligation or legal responsibility. Mandatory voting is promoted as a means of addressing low voter turnout and ensuring election results reflect the will of the majority. In Australia, which has an established tradition of compulsory voting, recent polls show ¾ of the population supports the practice. In Canada, voting is a right which a citizen can choose to exercise or not. What happens when citizens stop exercising this right? The 2008 Alberta election recorded the lowest voter turnout ever for a provincial election (40.6%), and voter turnout in federal, provincial, and municipal elections has been in steady decline across the country for decades. This debate sponsored by SACPA, the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership and the Famous 5 Foundation will explore compulsory voting as a possible solution to record low voter turnout in Canada. Arguments for and against compulsory voting using experiences of other countries will be debated. T