Why was the voluntary vote passed in Chile? Reasons and arguments that drove reform

Abstract

Theoretically, a voluntary vote results in low voter turnout and a stronger tendency to vote among the rich than the poor, generating what the literature calls class bias. So what leads politicians to opt for a voluntary voting regime? The object of this article is to identify the reasons that led to the reform in Chile. In methodological terms, we used three sources of information: legislative discussion, opinion polls and an unpublished survey applied to 100% of deputies some months after the reform was passed. Our results indicate that the reform was passed as a result of interaction between the strategic interests of the (center-left) government coalition and the opposition. While the coalition pushed for reform thinking that new voters would be primarily center-left, the right wing supported the proposal in the belief that their new voters would be more likely to vote given their higher income. To this was added broad citizen support for the reform expressed in opinion polls, which may have pressured the deputies. We found that in the center-left there were quick signs of repentance, since in a survey carried out some months after the reform 70% of the deputies were in favor of compulsory voting.