For the third time in four years, Canada held a federal election. And like the last two elections, the result is a “minority” government, where no party won a majority of seats in the House of Commons yet the first-place finisher gets control over the geographical monopoly that is the Government of Canada.
Stephen Harper, the prime minister of the previous minority government, will retain his post after his Conservative Party finished first with 143 of the 308 available House seats. Despite falling 12 seats short of a majority, Harper is thought to have received a solid mandate since he improved upon the Conservatives’ haul of 124 seats in the previous election.
What’s more noteworthy, however, is the Conservatives’ popular vote total of 5,205,334. This represents just 37.6% of all votes cast, hardly a commanding mandate. And the overall turnout was the lowest in Canadian history, just under 60% of eligible voters.
Canada’s total estimated population is 33,311,389. This means that just 15.6% of the Canadian people actually consented to the rule of Harper and the Conservatives. Of course, the remaining 84.4% of the country is expected to obey every command of “their” government.
These kind of numbers should throw cold water on even the minarchist argument that monopoly government must exist for the “protection of rights.” It’s illogical to grant such broad authority to an institution that (a) only requires a relative handful of supporters to manufacture “consent” and (b) can conduct its operations in perpetuity through aggression against the non-consenting majority.
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While I don’t disagree, I do find this a weak argument. A statist will only have to reply that voting should be mandatory, to circumnavigate the argument.
L.e.v: We are talking minarchist-statists here. Yes, other (non-minarchist) statists would have no problem mandating it.
However, minarchists believe in liberty to a large extent. So, I don’t think they would advocate that.
It is sort of a evergreen argument. The obvious answer is of course that not voting is voting too. Those 40 % of Canadians who didn’t vote basically stated that they don’t care who is at the helm. And that’s perfectly all right.
Libertas est Veritas,
How can the statist justify mandatory voting if he only has 15.6% support? Assuming that he believes in democratic principles, he would be unable to muster the votes necessary to enable his plan. If he advances his agenda contra the will of the people, he has exposed himself as a tyrant. I see nothing wrong with the calls for abstinence from voting. I think that this may be the only short term solution to the expanding state. If the people become aware of the farce of elections through the power of small percentages, so much the better. Stay home on election day, your conscience will thank you.
Is it because, they have confidence in all of them or none of them?
Perhaps the real problem is the 60% who did vote. How many of them voted on the basis of petty concerns like wanting to loot their neighbors for their favored projects or force others to “eat healthier”? How many of them voted on the basis of “things they think they know, but are wrong about”?
My guess is this covers the vast majority of the 60% that voted.
I am going to have to agree with Libertas est Veritas on this one. Fortunately, people are still free to choose whether they wish to expend their time and energy on the act of voting or not. It is not necessarily the Canadian government’s fault that 40% of the eligible voters chose not to participate in this election for whatever reason (anarchist protest, apathy, dislike of all the offered candidates, laziness, etc.).
Also, it seems a bit misleading to quote a figure of 15.6% of the entire Canadian population “consenting” to the results to the election when a large portion of the total population would be too young to vote or to even comprehend the process and the candidates’ platforms. A more useful statistic in my opinion is that around 22.5% of all eligible Candadian voters (37.6% support from 60% of all eligible voters) made the effort to vote for the Conservatives.
Regardless, 22.5% is still a small percentage of eligible voters to be deciding the leadership of a nation, especially when an even larger percentage of eligible voters (40%) implicitly or explicitly chose “None of the above.”
Australia has compulsory voting. Running the same calculation as I did for Canada, the governing Australian Labour Party has the “consent” of 25.0% of the total population in the 2005 election (that country goes to the polls again next month.)
Some other countries I calculated:
United Kingdom (Labour, 2005) — 15.9%
New Zealand (Labour, 2005) — 22.8%
Germany (Christian Democratic, 2005) — 18.7%
Spain (Socialist Workers, 2008) — 28.0%
And for comparison’s sake, here’s the calculations for the recent U.S. presidential and gubernatorial elections:
United States (Republican, 2004) — 21.1%
New York (Democratic, 2006) — 15.0%
California (Republican, 2006) — 13.3%
Florida (Republican, 2006) — 14.0%
This is why Mises said a two-party system is preferable to many parties; For a site named after Mises, it seems you are ignorant of his points.
How does the number of parties matter when the result is the disenfranchisement of greater than 2/3 of the electorate? Why does it matter that we go through the motions of voting when the essence of the state stays the same? Aggression against the non-violent can not be justified. The state is destructive to liberty, be it a democracy or not. Hoppe seems to indicate that democracy is in fact one of the worst forms of statehood in that the will to resist its encroachments is diminished by the hope of gaining control of the reins for ones own benefit. Furthermore, why should those who are the net tax recipients be allowed to vote for fleecing those who are the net tax payers? It is altogether an abomination.
After the promise not to change the taxation of income trusts made in the prior campaign was broken, not to mention the lies made to justify breaking the promise, I decided not to vote in yesterday’s Canadian election (a privilege I still have). The turnout for the election was the lowest in history. Does this indicate that an increasing number of other Canadians also find themselves disenfranchised? It would not surprise if voting became mandatory.
Regarding Fred’s comment, the only way the government could compromise on making voting mandatory would be to offer a “None of the above” option at the end of each office’s list of candidates.
Doing so would still leave a viable option for those who would normally not vote out of dislike for all the candidates offered and would also allow those individuals to register a protest vote on the official record. Imagine the message or “mandate” sent by an official election tally of 23.5% for Candidate A, 22.5% for Candidate B, and 54% for “None of the above.”
To Chad and others:
What do you think the State would do if “None of the above” won? Dissolve? No, of course not. The State has more guns, so it would force us to accept the runner-up or to vote again until we got it right.
By the way, in the United States and most other democratic countries, “None of the above” kind of wins every presidential election; for instance, in 2004, I think about 60% of registered voters voted, with half voting for Bush and half for Kerry. Therefore, 30% of voters chose Bush, which, my math tells me, is quite a bit less than the 40% who chose no one, but the runner-up to no one (Bush) was given the presidency. (Yes, I know we don’t choose the president by national majority vote; it’s just an example.)
A more interesting question: In your view, why can people not get what they vote for? Why does everyone have to live under what the majority (or largest minority) votes for? If Skip and I vote for “None of the above,” why can’t we be allowed to live under the rule of “None of the above”?
Because people can’t be trusted to govern themselves? Because the majority (or largest minority) is more important than individuals and minorities? Because the world just doesn’t work that way?
Seriously. In addition to an economics website, this is supposed to be a website to discuss philosophy (at least, I’m claiming it is). My moral code says no one is fit to govern me except myself, and no one is fit to govern you except yourself. What about your moral code contradicts that assertion, and why? Why does your choice matter more than my choice?
Chad,
that is exactly why you will never see that option available.
Regarding this comment from Chad —
“Also, it seems a bit misleading to quote a figure of 15.6% of the entire Canadian population ‘consenting’ to the results to the election when a large portion of the total population would be too young to vote or to even comprehend the process and the candidates’ platforms.”
The voting age itself — like all government mandates regarding the so-called “age of majority” — is an arbitrary construct unrelated to an individual’s capabilities.
That said, it’s not particularly relevant to my argument. Even infants and young children are subject to the authority of the state regardless of whether they are able to vote or understand a party platform. Indeed, millions of children are forcibly institutionalized by the state under the pretest of “public education.” So I think it’s perfectly fair to look at the total population rather then merely those permitted by the state to participate in the franchise.
Original blog post: “This means that just 15.6% of the Canadian people actually consented to the rule of Harper and the Conservatives. Of course, the remaining 84.4% of the country is expected to obey every command of ‘their’ government.”
It is the implication in the quoted text above that every single Canadian expressed explicit consent or dissent (15.6% versus 84.4%) regarding this new government that bugs me. This is because a significant portion of Canada’s total population (young children, etc.) is totally incapable of registering any sort of consent or dissent in a conscious and/or informed manner while a large percentage of those who were capable of doing so through voting chose not to bother. Yes, I know I am being a bit nitpicky, but nuance matters greatly when discussing ideas. I would suggest the following rewording:
“This means that while only 15.6% of the Canadian people actually voted for Harper and the Conservatives in this election, the remaining 84.4% of the nation will now be expected to obey every command of this new government, one which supposedly represents the interests of ‘all Canadians’ despite the fact that 26% of the Canadian people outright voted against it.”
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Relevant numbers based on the link provided:
33,311,389 Canadians
23,445,715 eligible voters
(70.4% of total population)
13,832,972 total votes
(59% of all eligible voters)
5,205,334 voted for Conservatives
(37.6% of votes, 22.2% of eligible voters, 15.6% of total population)
8,627,638 voted against Conservatives
(62.4% of votes, 36.8% of eligible voters, 25.9% of total population)
Chad –
I reject your suggestions. It’s my post and I chose my language deliberately. I could care less about your “nuance.”
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