In my debate with Lisa Hill about compulsory voting, I am both at a disadvantage and an advantage, much like John Simmons was in his debate with Kit Wellman about state authority.  On one hand, all Hill has to do is produce one good argument for compulsory voting to win, whereas I’m burdened with having to examine and refute a wide range of arguments for compulsory voting. So, Hill has the advantage there. On the other hand, I have an advantage because A) Hill asserts the positive, and B) Hill wants to coerce people.

A) The Burden of Proof Falls on She* who Asserts the Positive

My college housemate Linea claimed to be a witch with magic powers. Now, I never believed Linea was actually a witch. To justify my skepticism, I did not have to prove she was lying or delusional. Rather, my skepticism was justified because she never demonstrated she had any magic powers.

Suppose a researcher claims acupuncture cures cancer. We are justified in being skeptical until we acquire compelling evidence that acupuncture really does cure cancer. Now, suppose the researcher shows me some data that appears to support the claim that acupuncture causes cancer. However, suppose I show that she made some mistakes in her calculations, and thus her results are not statistically significant. This would be enough to invalidate her argument and justify my continuing skepticism. I would not need to prove definitively that acupuncture does not cure cancer.

In general, in any controversial debate, the side that asserts the positive claim bears the burden of proof. No one has a standing intellectual duty to prove a negative. Rather, those who assert that a controversial positive claim is true bear the intellectual obligation to establish its truth.

So it goes with philosophical arguments as well. Sure, in a debate between a Kantian and a utilitarian over the best moral theory, the two begin on equal footing. Each of them defends a controversial moral theory. But our debate in this book is not that kind of debate. Rather, this is more like a debate in which one person defends Kantianism, while the other merely defends skepticism about Kantianism. In that case, the Kantian bears the burden of proof. The skeptic need not prove, definitively, that Kantianism is false. The skeptic need only poke holes in the Kantian’s argument.

Lisa Hill, William Galston, Bart Engelen, and other supporters of compulsory voting assert that the state should force citizens to vote. They thus assert a controversial positive claim. They thus bear the burden of proof. To justify my skepticism, I do not thereby have to prove definitively that compulsory voting violates citizens’ rights, the state should not compel citizens to vote, that compulsory voting would be a disaster, that compulsory voting fails to produce good results, or the like. I need only poke holes in their arguments or find fault with their reasons.

Suppose you do a literature search, looking up published empirical research on the consequences of compulsory voting. You find that, say, five papers conclude compulsory voting produces certain good consequences, but five papers (of equal merit, as far as you can tell) claim it does not; this helps my argument but hurts the pro-compulsion side.

By default, we are justified in failing to advocate compulsory voting, until they give us compelling reasons to advocate it. If we do not have sufficiently good reasons to accept compulsory voting, then we should not endorse it.

B) The Burden of Proof and the Morality of Compulsion

There is a second reason why the pro-compulsion side bears the burden of proof. This second reason shows us why, in the absence of a strong argument for compulsory voting, we must not only fail to advocate compulsory voting, but must actively oppose it. This second reason shows us why, in the absence of a compelling justification for compulsory voting, we must presume it to be unjust.

The problem is that compulsory voting is, well, compulsory. Any compulsion, no matter how minor, has to be justified. In the absence of this justification, it’s presumed wrong.

Suppose the government wanted to outlaw something trivial that hardly any adult wants to do: booger eating. It said it would impose  $5 fine per year on known booger eaters, on anyone caught eating a booger. Now, to show this is unjust, I don’t need to prove that eating boogers is healthy, that criminalization would cause more harm than good, that laws against booger eating are “undemocratic,” or that citizens have some sort of natural right to eat boogers. Rather, the anti-criminalization side gets to presume that criminalization is wrong, just because it coercively intrudes into people’s lives. Government coercion, no matter how petty, is presumed unjust until shown otherwise. So it goes with compulsory voting. In the absence of a compelling justification for compulsion, we presume it wrong.

What counts as a compelling justification? What must the proponent of compulsory voting do?

First, I note, strong doubt kills the case for compulsory voting. It’s not enough to speculate that compulsion will produce good consequences. The proponent wants to actually coerce people. She needs strong evidence that compulsion will produce good consequences (or that it’s an end in itself, etc.), not merely suggestive or mixed evidence.

Second, she needs to show that whatever goal is promoted through compulsory voting is the right goal for government to promote. So, for instance, suppose I could prove that forcing people to listen to progressive rock would make them have more sophisticated taste in music. Even if I had definitive proof of that, I’m a long way from justifying compulsion. After all, there’s no reason to think government should be in the business of making people have better taste in music. Or, consider that there is very strong evidence that regular church attendance not only is correlated with higher life satisfaction, but actually makes people happier. Even still, this wouldn’t justify government in imposing a yearly $20 fine on anyone who fails to attend some sort of religious gathering (including, let’s say, an atheist club). Or, consider that there’s strong evidence that marriage makes people happier. This doesn’t by itself justify government imposing a $500 penalty on anyone between 24-65 who isn’t married. Proponents of compulsory voting usually try to show that it would produce good consequences of some sort. They rarely, I think, manage to provide even moderately good evidence for that claim. But, worse, they also rarely then do the work to show that government should be in the business of promoting those good consequences.

Third, she needs to show that there are no non-compulsory or less compulsory ways to achieve the goal. Consider some silly examples. Suppose the nation is under threat of alien invasion. Suppose the situation is so dire that conscription seems justified. But now suppose I prove that, for whatever reason, the aliens hate bunnies. If we just fly bunny flags on the state capitol buildings, they’ll stay away forever. In that scenario, conscription would be unjustified. Or, suppose someone advocates mandatory jury duty. But suppose I prove that using magistrates is as good at promoting justice as using juries. In that case, there’d be no grounds for forcing people to do jury duty. Or, suppose instead of forcing people to be vaccinated (a type of coercion that I think is justified, by the way), we could stop the spread of disease by flying bunny flags on the state capitol buildings. Again, that would kill the case for compulsory vaccination. And so it goes with compulsory voting. The proponent need always show that non-compulsory or less compulsory alternatives are bad. In the book, I argue that none of the arguments for compulsory voting work, but even if they did come close to working, they’d at best justify a voting lottery.

Conclusion

In Compulsory Voting: For and Against, I do indeed trot out the argument you’d expect me to make–that compulsory voting is bad because it makes the voting public slightly stupider, and so this will probably lead to slightly worse government. The median, mean, and modal voters who choose to vote under a voluntary voting regime are better informed, etc., than the median, mean, and modal voters under a compulsory voting regime. (Note that because I don’t bear the burden of proof, I don’t have to prove definitively that compulsory voting leads to worse government. I have more freedom to speculate than she does.) But I don’t get to this argument until my last chapter, called “Should We Force the Drunk to Drive?” Instead, I spend three chapters taking down arguments for compulsory voting. My main argument against it is just the failure of the arguments for it. Compulsory voting is presumed unjust until shown otherwise. There are some plausible arguments that purport to show that it’s just, but, I argue, these arguments are mistaken.

*I wouldn’t be surprised if the Butt Hurt Libertarians Facebook group throws a little fit that I changed the saying to “she”.