=Compulsory Voting.=—Compulsory voting does not exist anywhere in the United States at the present time although it has been frequently proposed. Voting has been made compulsory, however, with legal penalties for failure to vote, in several foreign countries, notably in Belgium, in Spain, and in New Zealand. The usual procedure is to impose a fine upon every voter who, without good excuse, stays away from the polls on election day, or, for repeated absences, to strike his name off the voters’ list altogether. [Sidenote: The arguments for compulsory voting.] Compulsory voting rests upon the argument that, in a democracy, the right to vote imposes a duty to vote. The citizen must serve on a jury in time of peace and in the army during war whether he likes these forms of public service or not. Why, then, should he be allowed to shirk his duty to vote, a duty which must be performed if democratic government is to survive? If one voter has the right to stay away from the polls, every other voter has the same right. And if all followed this policy, we could not maintain a “representative” form of government. But there is another side to the question. The voter who goes to the polls because he will be fined if he stays away will not cast his ballot with much discrimination, intelligence, or patriotism. [Sidenote: Are they valid?] Would the votes of such men be worth counting? Would they contribute anything to the cause of good government? Moreover, it has been demonstrated by foreign experience that while you can compel a voter to go to the polls and drop a ballot in the box you cannot compel him to mark his ballot properly, for he marks it in secret. In one of the Swiss cities some years ago it was found that the chief result of compulsory voting was to induce many hundreds of reluctant voters to drop blank ballots in the box. It can well be argued that voting is a duty, but it is a duty which ought to be performed from motives of patriotism and not from dread of the penalties. Most citizens do not require compulsion and it is questionable whether forcing others to vote would, in the long run, serve any useful purpose. [Sidenote: The merits and defects of voting machines.]