Flanders ends mandatory attendance at polling place: will everybody stay home?

Belgium is one of the few countries where voters were still legally obliged to attend a polling place at elections.  Whether you voted after you had reported was your business: many people chose to cast a blank ballot or didn’t vote at all.

To be clear attending a polling place remains mandatory for other elections.  In Brussels and Wallonia attending a polling station at local elections is also still compulsory.

However, the Flemish authorities that are now responsible for the local elections, i.e. elections for municipal, provincial and district councils in Antwerp decided to change the law: Flemings have a right to vote and are no longer obliged to attend a polling station.

Ending compulsory attendance of a polling place in Flanders is an experiment.  It’s never been done before and nobody knows how it will impact on turnout.  Experts predict that up to 30 per cent of Flemings will not use their right to vote next month. The impact on the result is also one large question mark!

Unlike at previous elections Flemings won’t find a so called ‘convocation letter’ (poll card) in their letterbox in coming weeks. This time round the Flemish authorities will send out an invitation to vote in the local elections on 13 October. Following the change in the law Flemings are no longer obliged, but invited to attend a polling station on Sunday 13 October.

More than a century of compulsory attendance

The abolition is a major change. Ever since 1893, Belgium has had compulsory voting for all elections. The right to vote - initially only for men - came also with an obligation. You were obliged to go to the polling station, but compulsory attendance did not mean compulsory voting. Once in the polling booth, you could still decide not to vote, to vote blank or to cast an invalid vote, though that became harder with computerised voting.

The abolition of mandatory attendance was an initiative of the former Flemish home minister, Bart Somers (Flemish liberal/Open VLD). ‘Compulsory voting dates from an era with a view of the citizen that is no longer of our time,’ he argued the decision. ‘We are a much more emancipated society, where we have to appeal to people's civic responsibility, but not always threaten them with punishment to get things done.’

Compulsory attendance was the law but was rarely enforced. In theory, people who did not comply, risked a fine, but this was a punishment rarely meted out. A significant proportion of Flemings had long since stopped attending a polling station on election day. On 9 June, date of the European, federal and Flemish elections just over 300,000 Flemings stayed home.

How many will stay home?

Will the abolition of compulsory attendance cause even more people to stay at home? ‘Definitely,’ says political scientist Bram Wauters (Ghent University). ‘In the previous local elections, the turnout was around 90 per cent, that will now drop to somewhere between 70 and 80 per cent I estimate.’

‘We know from research that even in countries where compulsory voting is not enforced, turnout is still higher than in countries without the obligation. Having that obligation on your poll card does have an impact.’

Only half still vote in the Netherlands

Flemings often enjoy comparisons with the Netherlands. There you can clearly see the impact of the abolition of compulsory voting. In the Netherlands, the obligation disappeared as early as 1970. In 2022, in municipal elections, only half of all citizens bothered to vote.

‘For national elections, the turnout is a lot higher. We learn from the Netherlands that the turnout falls, but that happens gradually. In the Netherlands it did not drop by half from one election to the next.’

Attending a polling place isn’t a habit that suddenly disappears. Experts believe that in the first elections after abolition, many Flemings will continue to turn out.

But not all.  Earlier this year many Flemings indicated that they would not vote on 13 October. In a survey conducted by Antwerp University and commissioned by VRT and daily De Standaard, people were also polled on their motivation to go and vote. Almost a third of respondents said they would probably or definitely not go to the polling station.

44% are sure to vote, 27% will probably, 17% will probably not and 12% won't.

Which party will suffer from stay homes?

In the past, the debate on compulsory attendance always flared up after a good election result for the far-right Vlaams Belang. Opponents saw abolishing it as a way to lower the impact of so-called ‘up-yours’ voters in the hope that they would stay home on election day due to a lack of motivation.

Research does show that compared to other parties, people who voted  Vlaams Belang in 2019 are more likely definitely not to vote on 13 October.  Among voters of Flemish Christian democrat CD&V that percentage is the lowest, at just 2 per cent.

Political scientist Wauters doubts that these percentages will become a reality next month: ‘There have been a lot of surveys and polls and actually it’s rather unclear which party benefits or suffers,’ he says.

‘I question the reasoning that an ‘up-yours’ vote or a vote for an extremist pary, out of anger at politics, is necessarily an unmotivated vote. Anger can just as well be a great motivation to finally speak your mind by voting.’

The impact on parties is unclear, but researchers do know who is unlikely to turn out. Young people, the low-skilled and lower-income groups are less likely to vote without compulsory attendance. ‘These groups will be heard much less in local elections. Abolishing compulsory voting may create problems with regard to inclusion, representation and legitimacy. You may wonder whether politicians will still defend the interests of these groups,’ says Prof Wauters.

Big campaign on the way

Will the abolition of compulsory attendance force politicians to campaign in a different way? They will have to convince voters not only of their own platform, but also of the importance of democracy.

Although Prof Wauters thinks that this will have little impact: ‘Citizens who hesitate to vote are suspicious of politicians and anyway will not be so easily convinced by them to go and vote.’

The Flemish government also sees convincing citizens as its task. It abolished compulsory attendance, but is mounting a major campaign to encourage Flemish people to go to the polls. The Flemish authorities have even hired an advertising agency that also works for brands like Red Bull, Torfs and Jumbo.

From mid-September, expect encouragement to go and vote on 13 October on social media, TV and in the streets.