Should voting in elections be mandatory?

Mandatory voting would raise participation

Question: Should voting in elections be mandatory?
Position1 of 2›: Voting should be mandatory
Argument‹3 of 3: Mandatory voting would raise participation

Mandatory voting will, fundamentally, increase political engagement.

The argument

In democracies around the world, a significant portion of the electorate continues to opt out of voting in regular elections. On average a third of adults eligible to vote in the last few general elections in the UK have stayed at home. At the very least making voting mandatory would increase participation in elections and increase the size of the electorate who participate in national political life.

Premises

[P1]In democracies worldwide a large share of eligible voters opts out—on average a third of eligible UK adults have stayed home in recent general elections. [P2] Making voting compulsory would, at the very least, increase turnout and enlarge the electorate participating in national political life. [C] Because it would raise participation, voting should be mandatory.

Counter-arguments

Mandatory voting is a magic bullet when it comes to maintaining a continuous high turnout. Even in a country like Australia that already has mandatory voting, with the threat of a fine for not voting, turnout in elections has markedly declined from a decade ago.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] Making voting mandatory will not fix all of these problems.