Voting Rights At Risk

Ever since I read the book "Starship Troopers" by Robert A. Heinlein, I've been aware of two general facts about voting. First is that after a population struggles to obtain a right to vote, and finally succeeds, the percentage of voters in that group is quite high (examples from American history: many blacks and all women, last couple of centuries). Second is that when a group of people are simply given a right to vote, without having earned it, the percentage of voters can be quite low (many modern elections).

So, I've wondered at various times what sort of thing might be appropriate, as a way of earning the right to vote, instead of being given it. Heinlein's story has the idea that only people who volunteer for a couple years of military service should have the right to vote --they would have earned it, see?

Naturally, anyone who opposes the military would be aghast at that idea. But what is a suitable alternative? (Some might say, "The Peace Corps", but others won't like that one, either.)

In this Idea, I will propose that people are first given the right to vote, but also can LOSE it. And the method is very simple. "If you don't vote in the current election, then you will not be allowed to vote in the next election."

It should be a kind of "oscillating" rule; the election after the one in which you were disallowed from voting would be another election in which you would be allowed to vote. But if you don't vote in it, then you would lose the right to vote in the NEXT election after that one. And so on.

Now, some people would want anyone who fails to vote once to be forever barred from the democratic process (they would say, "Regardless of whether or not you were allowed to vote in the last election, the fact is, you didn't vote in that election, and so you can't vote in this one") -- and in that direction tyranny lies. So the previous paragraph was written to specifally prevent such mis-use of this Idea.

In the USA a rule like the one proposed here can be subtly powerful, because every 2 years is an election, and half of them can be considered "fairly minor", because all Congressional seats and 1/3 of Senate seats are up-for-grabs, while in the other half of elections (every 4 years, that is), the Presidency is also up for grabs, which makes it the major election.

So, if you don't vote in, say, the current minor election, you wouldn't be allowed to vote in the next (and major) election. You simply earn the right to vote in the next election, by participating in the current election.

I don't know how well this Idea could work for other democracies, since I don't know if they have an equivalent to the minor/major election system that we have. I think it is faily important for any democracy to have at least SOME elections fairly often, for this Idea to work as a stimulus to encourage voting.