The Conceptual Origins of Compulsory Voting: A Study of the 1893 Belgian Parliamentary Debate...

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THE CONCEPTUAL ORIGINS OF COMPULSORY VOTING:A STUDY OF THE 1893 BELGIAN PARLIAMENTARY

DEBATE

Anthoula Malkopoulou1,2

Abstract: In 1893, Belgian conservatives sponsored compulsory voting to countersocialist and liberal backing for universal and plural voting, respectively. They alliedwith progressive Liberals to circumvent opposition from their own right wing whoinsisted on a self-motivated ‘duty’ to vote that loses its value when enforced. In con-trast, moderate Catholics argued that compulsion would protect the freedom ornon-dependence of voters from being forced to abstain by employers. Furthermore,voting was re-described as a special right or ‘mandate’ that entailed responsibilitiestowards the disenfranchised. Hence, compulsory voting was immediately defended asa liberal anti-corruption measure and a paternalistic norm of social protection.

The adoption of compulsory voting in Belgium in the late nineteenth centurycoincided with the extension of franchise, which had raised concerns about apossible increase of electoral abstention among old census voters and the radi-cal effects this might have on the Belgian political map. As a result, the intro-duction of a mechanism to produce political inclusion became a priority issueon the Catholic government’s agenda. However, little is known about the pre-cise conditions, arguments and ideas that led to the first adoption of compul-sory voting on a nationwide level in Europe. A close look at the constitutionaldiscussions of 30–31 May 1893 reveals a fusion of ideological views withpragmatic political interests to such an extent that ideology and strategyappear to coalesce. Thus, contrary to the contemporary debate on compulsoryvoting where formal political theory is separated from political analysis, inthis parliamentary reform there is a clear linkage between political ideas andpolitical practice.

Compulsory voting was introduced in the Belgian Constitution during the1893 reform, a few months after universal suffrage.3 It had until then beenconsistently rejected by both the ruling Conservatives (Parti Catholique,1869) and their long-term rivals, the Liberals (Parti Libéral, 1846), the two

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXXVII. No. . ?? 2016

1 Assistant Professor of Political Science, Uppsala University, Department of Gov-ernment, PO Box 514, 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. Email: [email protected]

2 I am grateful to Kari Palonen, Mika Ojakangas, the editor and two anonymousreviewers for comments that greatly improved the manuscript. I would also like to thankMarie-Christine Boilard for assistance with translation.

3 Other European countries such as the Netherlands and Austria also introduced com-pulsory voting in the early twentieth century, but abolished it later. In contrast, Belgiumextended it: in 1921 to provincial elections, in 1932 to communal elections, and in 1989to European Parliament elections.


party blocs that had alternately governed the country for half a century. How-ever, the newly founded Belgian Workers’ Party (Parti Ouvrier Belge, 1885)had been fighting to extend voting rights through a relentless campaignthat included general strikes and violent demonstrations. An agreement wasfinally reached through the brokerage of a fourth player, the left-leaning Pro-gressive Liberals (Parti Progressiste, 1887–1900),4 who had split away fromthe Liberal Party, now dominated by right-wing doctrinal liberals (doctri-naires). With the dissent of the latter and a dozen confessional Catholics, theBelgian parliament on 18 April 1893 abolished census suffrage which, thoughdiminished in 1848, had been in use since 1831.

The infamous downside of this democratic reform, however, was thesimultaneous introduction of plural voting, a system of supplementary votesfor ‘the better qualified members of the community’.5 One additional votewas granted to the heads of family above thirty-five years of age who ownedproperty or paid a minimum residence tax, while two additional votes werereserved for those with a certain degree of education. As a result, while uni-versal suffrage brought the number of voters up from 137,000 to 1,371,000,plural voting produced 850,000 voters with a single vote, 290,000 with a dou-ble vote and 220,000 with a triple vote.6 This prevented a ‘sudden rush’ ofradical-socialist votes,7 drawn from the now enfranchised working class at theexpense of conservatives and liberals. Hence, the moderation of universalsuffrage by a system of plural voting was a compromise designed to accom-modate the demands of Belgian workers without endangering the electoraldominance of the ruling forces. Since this reform enjoyed the support of allthree major political forces, what additional reasons prompted the adoption ofcompulsory voting six weeks later?

This article examines the electoral interests — and even more, the rhetori-cal moves and political ideas — that influenced the debate on compulsory vot-ing. The fact that the reform did not win the unanimous support of either of thetwo established parties, but brought to the fore internal divisions and dissent-ing voices, underlines the ideological differences that — above and beyondstrategic political calculations — played a significant role in the adoption ofpolitical positions. These different approaches are evident in the constitutional

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4 E.Witte, Political History of Belgium from 1830 onwards (Brussels, 2001), pp.85–91. The Progressive Liberals, led by Paul Janson, adopted a radical agenda thatfavoured social reforms and voting rights based on capacities, while the Doctrinal Liber-als supported a laissez-faire capitalism and insisted on property-based-only qualifica-tions for voters.

5 A. Nerincx, ‘Compulsory Voting in Belgium’, Annals of the American Academy ofPolitical Science, 18 (September 1901), pp. 87–90; for a general appraisal of voting atthe time see J.S.Mill, Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (London, 1859), pp. 22–4.

6 P. Errera, Traité de Droit Public Belge (Paris, 1909), pp. 139–46; X. Mabille,Histoire Politique de la Belgique (Brussels, 1992), p. 193.

7 Nerincx, ‘Compulsory Voting’, p. 87.


CONCEPTUAL ORIGINS OF COMPULSORY VOTING 3

debate on compulsory voting, as well as in the legislative discussion of thesanctions. The main concepts, on which orators tended to build their parlia-mentary rhetoric, acted as keys for unlocking different strands of politicalthinking. As a result, the Belgian voting debates constitute monuments ofapplied political thinking on key political concepts, such as electoral repre-sentation, the nature of voting, liberty and citizenship.

IPolitical Context: Mobilizing the Conservative Vote

The constitutional section (Article 48) that contained compulsory voting wassponsored by the same alliance that had introduced universal and plural vot-ing a month earlier: the moderate conservatives (Catholics) and the moderateliberals (Progressive Liberals). It was opposed by the conservative liberals(Doctrinal Liberals) and the confessional right of the Catholic Party (led byCount Woeste), while one can only imagine that the extra-parliamentary left(Workers) only reluctantly accepted it, just as they had reluctantly acceptedthe previous franchise reform.8 Of course, the elimination of the votingrequirements was a victory for the Workers, while the establishment of a dou-ble vote for the educated poor (capacitaires) was a triumph for the Progres-sives. This double concession had to be balanced by a pro-conservativemeasure to help Catholics retain their electoral strength against their socialistand liberal adversaries. Compulsory voting was considered a perfect solutionsince it would help the incumbent party use the participation of old and newvoters to their own advantage.

It was expected that the adoption of universal suffrage one month earlierwould cause a drop in turnout. The example of France was adduced there, fourdecades after introducing universal suffrage in 1848, less than half the voterswere showing up at the polls.9 As a side-effect of creating more voters, theextension of suffrage there had also produced more abstainers. Likewise, par-ticipation rates in Belgium were expected to fall, because new voters wouldinclude not only the ‘enlightened’ and ‘civic-minded’ bourgeoisie, who hadmaintained participation rates at relatively high levels until 1893, but also ‘ig-norant’ farmers and workers.10 A solution was needed to prevent the ‘national

8 The adoption of plural voting parallel to the long-awaited franchise extensiondisappointed the working-class demonstrators, who thought their leaders compromisedtoo soon. Although they agreed to end the strike, a gap was forming between the leader-ship and the rank and file of the Belgian socialist movement. J.L. Polosky, ‘A Revolutionfor Socialist Reforms: the Belgian General Strike for Universal Suffrage’, Journal ofContemporary History, 27 (3) (1992), pp. 449–66, pp. 453–4.

9 Beernaert, Woeste, Bergé, Annales Parlementaires, Chambre des Représentants,30–31 May 1893, pp. 1539–69, pp. 1540–1, 1552, 1557.

10 E.g. abstention in Belgium was only sixteen percent in the 1892 elections.L. Dupriez, L’Organisation du Suffrage Universel en Belgique (Paris, 1901), pp. 130–2,


disgrace’ of a drop in turnouts, and obligatory voting seemed well-suited tothis end. This was one of the reasons why the reform was described as a ‘cor-rective, temporary, uncertain and tentative’ solution.11

Firstly, the main motivation behind compulsory voting — and plural votingfor that matter — was to contain the socialist movement and the rise of theBelgian Workers Party, which stood to gain enormous strength with theenfranchisement of thousands of workers. It was generally anticipated thatsocialist supporters would become enthusiastic voters who would attend thepolls by any means possible. Therefore, it was feared that electoral abstentionmight ‘leave the government of the country and the power of the legislaturecompletely in the hands of the professional politicians and their disreputablesupporters’.12 The socialist menace was seen as an internal enemy that mighttake the parliament by storm, as had already occurred in local councils inFrance, Britain and Germany. In his emblematic speech introducing the bill,the Prime Minister and leader of the Catholic Party, Beernaert, explicitlynamed two French cities (Marseille and Roubaix) where the political leader-ship had been taken over by socialists precisely due to a poor turnout in thelocal elections.13 In Belgium this could be prevented, however, if non-social-ist (i.e. conservative and liberal) voters could be punished for not participat-ing in elections.

Conversely, legal obligation was a measure to re-mobilize those voters whohad the franchise before 1893 and make sure they did not discontinue comingto the polls in as large numbers as before. There was a generally held beliefthat abstention would harm mainly the conservatives, as it was their voterswho — according to the French example — would abstain the most.14 Indeed,the Catholics wanted to make sure that the conservative bourgeoisie wouldnot react to the enlargement of the electorate by a massive abstention. Theyargued that, with the abolition of the census system, the old 150,000-strongelectorate might feel it ‘condescending’ to go to the polls along with over onemillion new voters of low social and educational status.15 Enlarged participa-tion would probably demotivate bourgeois voters by making them feel theyhad lost influence. Therefore, the use of plural votes was an incentive toensure that the higher classes remained dominant, despite the extension of the

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147–52. It is interesting to note that, while today compulsory voting is justified mainly asa way to bring up low turnout levels, in the past it was designed in advance of an expecteddrop in turnouts, that is, as a preventative rather than corrective measure.

11 A. Adolphe, Le Vote Obligatoire (Paris, 1901), p. 101.12 Nerincx, ‘Compulsory Voting’, p. 88.13 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1540.14 To some extent, the previous claim that ‘ignorant’ farmers and workers would lead

the drop in turnouts was contradicted by this central argument, i.e. that abstainers comemainly from the conservative bourgeoisie. N. Quiri, Le Vote Obligatoire (Paris, 1908),p. 120.

15 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1540.



franchise to more than ten times their voting number. The constitutional legis-lators had devised a system that granted them increased political power rela-tive to their numbers. This design, however, would work only if the rich andeducated made use of their double and triple votes. Because it aimed at mobi-lizing the conservative vote, Beernaert openly described compulsory votingas ‘an excellent conservative innovation’.16

Secondly, the Catholics, in addition to increasing the influence of theirbourgeois voters and as a means of defeating their old Liberal rivals, hopedthat obligatory voting would bring out the peasant vote.17 In fact, while theparty drew their electorate from craftsmen and the conservative bourgeoisie,their main stronghold was undoubtedly among wealthy farmers and big land-owners in rural Flanders.18 The latter had previously kept up a voter clientelethrough economic pressure and by systematic vote-buying (sponsoring vot-ers’ exhausting journeys to the voting centres).19 However, with the increasein the electorate the cost of sustaining this clientele would no longer be afford-able. Therefore, it is not surprising that in addition to compulsory voting itwas agreed that district voting centres be moved to the smaller communes.20

The abolition of voting requirements opened a large untapped electoralresource for the Catholics: the uneducated Flemish peasants and artisans,whose devout religiosity was coupled with a growing nationalist sentiment.The Catholics quickly absorbed them into their political creed, ‘yet not alto-gether willingly’; since the Catholic confessional wing opposed compulsoryeducation, their Flemish supporters were condemned to inferior educationand an illiteracy rate that remained as high as forty percent in 1910.21

Thirdly, the enforcement of electoral participation aimed at preventingemployers from illegitimately pressuring their dependent employees to abstain.Concern for the working classes was in line with the Catholics’ effort torecover and re-Christianize them, in reaction to socialist initiatives.22 Thismovement followed the adoption of a social agenda by the Catholic Churchunder Pope Leo XIII, who in 1891 issued the famous encyclical Rerum

16 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 31 May 1893, p. 1562.17 P. Delwit, La Vie Politique en Belgique de 1830 à Nos Jours (Brussels, 2010),

p. 63.18 Witte, Political History, p. 110.19 J. Stengers, ‘Sur l’Influence Électorale des Grands Propriétaires Fonciers en

Belgique au XIXe Siècle’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 82 (1–2) (2004), pp.293–309, p. 305.

20 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1542.21 E.L. Evans, The Cross and the Ballot: Catholic Political Parties in Germany,

Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands, 1785–1985 (Boston, 1999), p. 141;B.A. Cook, Belgium: A History (New York, 2002), p. 80.

22 Mabille, Histoire Politique, pp. 175–8; P. Delwit, ‘Partis et Systèmes de Partis enBelgique en Perspective’, in P. Delwit, J.-B. Pilet and E. Van Haute, Les PartisPolitiques en Belgique (Brussels, 2011), pp. 7–33, p. 10.


Novarum on Capital and Labour. It encouraged the formation of Christianpeasant associations and workers-only trade unions that, though not led byemployers as previously, were yet loyal to capitalist principles and opposed toviolent action and strikes.23 In this context, the Catholics tried to devise mea-sures for the protection of working-class voters through forbidding illegallyforced abstention. This would allow the party to shield them, e.g. from theinfluence of the Franquillons, the liberal Francophone nobility that domi-nated Flemish cities. Of course, inasmuch as the measure also protected Wal-loon industrial workers and Ghent textile labourers, it would also benefit theBelgian Workers’ Party.

In any case, the first elections following the reform were held on 14 Octo-ber 1894 and proved how cleverly the reform had been designed by its incum-bent protagonists. It brought to the parliament 102 Catholic deputies, 17Liberals and 27 Socialists.24 Hence, the introduction of plural voting require-ments and fines for abstention, as well as the retention of a majoritarian sys-tem (despite calls from the Liberals for proportional representation) led to acrushing defeat of the largely urban Liberal Party in the elections of 1894. Atthe same time, it offered the Belgian Workers’ Party an opportunity to maketheir political debut. Hence, compulsory voting was effective in consolidatingthe electoral domination of the Catholic Party over their traditional Liberalrivals, while containing their new challengers from the extreme left.25 There-fore, it can be argued with little uncertainty that the calculation of electoralspoils played a major role in the debate over obligatory voting.

The political affiliation of the speakers in the debate defined not only thechoice of sides in favour of or against the new measure, but also their parlia-mentary rhetoric and the outcome of the vote. From the Catholics, the protag-onist in the debate was Auguste Beernaert, the moderate conservative PrimeMinister and Minister of Finances from 1884 to 1894.26 He was supported byRosseeuw, De Montpellier and De Sadeleer from his own party and the Pro-gressive Liberal Bergé, who endorsed compulsory voting in principle. On theother side, most of the dissenting voices came from the Doctrinal Liberals,such as Charles Graux and Léon Vanderkindere, who had previously alsoopposed universal suffrage.

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23 G.A. Almond, ‘The Political Ideas of Christian Democracy’, The Journal of Poli-tics, 10 (4) (1948), pp. 734–63, pp. 741–2; S.N. Kalyvas, The Rise of Christian Democ-racy in Europe (Ithaca, 1996), pp. 187–92; Witte, Political History, pp. 107–11.

24 Delwit, Vie Politique, p. 64.25 R. Van Eenoo, ‘Systèmes Électoraux et Élections, 1830–1914’, in Histoire de la

Chambre des Représentants de Belgique 1830–2002, ed. E. Gubin et al. (Brussels,2003), pp. 49–61.

26 R. Demoulin, ‘Beernaert, Auguste’, in Biographie Nationale, Académie Royalede Belgique edition, 33 (Brussels, 1965), pp. 69–105.



However, some Catholics disagreed, most prominently Charles Woeste,27

the archconservative president of the Fédération des Cercles Catholiques etdes Associations Conservatrices, who represented the confessional rightwithin the Catholic Party.28 In fact, this internal Catholic dissent meant thatBeernaert had to rely on the Progressive Liberal vote to reach the two-thirdmajority needed for a constitutional amendment. This alliance is reflected inthe successful outcome of the vote: with 138 deputies present, compulsoryvoting was approved with 94 votes in favour (Catholics and Progressives), 38against (comprising 26 Doctrinal Liberals, 9 confessional Catholics and 3Progressives) and 2 abstentions.29 Thus, by a two-third’s Catholic-Liberalmajority, compulsory voting was written into the Belgian constitution.

IIThe Rhetoric of Exact Representation

A central idea behind compulsory voting was that the representation of thenational will should be ‘true’, ‘exact’ and ‘complete’. The national assemblyhad to be a faithful and accurate reflection of the nation, which was the sourceof the national will. Beernaert, the main advocate of compulsory voting,wrote:

To make sure that the law is an expression of the national will, that thosewho are charged with law-making represent it accurately, it is necessarythat the national will be expressed, manifested and known, which it obvi-ously is not when voters fail to get to the polls. Then, not only may thenational will remain unknown, but too many abstentions can distort itsexpression by displacing the majority.30

27 Contrary to Liberal opponents of compulsory voting, the Catholic opponentWoeste had supported the enfranchisement of the lower classes, on the grounds hatworkers and farmers would ‘naturally’ adjust to the dominant social (i.e. conservative)norms. Mabille, Histoire Politique, p. 190.

28 Count Charles Woeste was a traditional conservative and a member of the cabinetof the previous Catholic PM, who was replaced by Beernaert in 1884 after Liberal pro-tests. He supported bourgeois and confessional ideas and clashed with the Liberals on thequestion of educational laws. R. Demoulin, ‘Woeste, Charles’, in Biographic Nationale,Académie Royale de Belgique edition, 27 (Brussels, 1938), pp. 382–92.

29 The 1892 parliament had 152 seats and comprised 92 Catholics and 60 Liberals.Because of the two-thirds supermajority requirement for constitutional reform, theCathoics needed external support even if their confessional faction had supported thereform (which it did not).

30 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1540 (emphasis added):‘pour que la loi soit l’expression de la volonté nationale, pour que ceux qui ont à la faire lareprésentent exactement, il faut que cette volonté s’exprime, qu’elle se manifeste,qu’elle soit connue, et, évidemment, elle ne l’est pas si les électeurs négligent de serendre au scrutin. Non seulement alors la volonté nationale n’est pas connue, mais de tropnombreuses abstentions peuvent en fausser l’expression en déplaçant la majorité’.


Beernaert complained that because of abstention, ‘the election results are notany more the true image of public opinion: the majority is distorted or may bedistorted’.31 The visual metaphor used by Beernaert and the correspondingideal of exact representation32 were rhetorical tools that could be used to jus-tify universal suffrage and also proportional representation.33 Likewise,obligatory participation would guarantee ‘the most perfect and most sincereexpression of the will of the electorate’.34

‘Accuracy’ in the expression of the national will demanded that all eligiblevoices be considered, in order to encompass the wide diversity of interests inthe country. These included the three main political cleavages that accordingto the theory of ‘pillarisation’ were emerging in Belgian society: philosophi-cal (secular/Catholic), socio-economic (property-owners/workers) and lin-guistic-demographic (urban French/rural Flemish).35 Whereas until the 1894elections the Belgian parliament had clearly reflected the first dichotomy, the1893 reform was a recognition of the emergence of the second: its goal was tofurther the parliamentary representation of all social classes.36 Universal suf-frage would bring to parliament the lower classes, while plural and compul-sory voting would ensure the representation of the higher classes (les classessupérieures).37

Compulsory voting would protect the political instability that emanatedfrom representative elections. Abstention produced ‘a vote that is insignifi-cant, ridiculous, reduced to a relatively infinitesimal expression’38 and as suchgave grounds to the parliamentary opposition to challenge election results.39 Itwas a means of discounting voting outcomes, since losing parties usuallyargued that absent votes would have gone to them. Consequently, it under-mined the ‘morality’ and ‘veracity’ of claims about the legitimacy of existing

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31 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 1 March 1893, p. 812 (emphasis added): ‘lesrésultats de l’élection ne sont plus l’image vraie de l’opinion publique : la majorité estfaussée ou, du moins, elle peut l’être’.

32 At first sight, ‘exact’ representation resembles the concept of descriptive represen-tation. However, here the focus is on the composition of the electorate (through compul-sory universal suffrage) and not on representatives and their relationship to the repre-sented. See also H.F. Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley, 1967), pp. 60–91.

33 See, for example, the Belgian parliamentary debates of 16–18 May 1894 on pro-portional representation.

34 E. Bouvier, ‘Du Vote Obligatoire en Belgique’, Revue de Belgique, XIII, 5 (1881),t. 38, pp. 138–44, p. 144: ‘l’expression la plus parfaite et la plus sincère de la volonté ducorps électoral’.

35 Delwit, ‘Partis et Systèmes’, p. 9.36 A. Nyssens, ‘Le Mouvement Politique et Sociale en Belgique, La Reforme

Sociale: Bulletin de la Société d’Économie Sociale, XV, 3 (1895), t. 10, pp. 34–50, p. 38.37 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1540.38 Bouvier, ‘Vote Obligatoire’, p. 140.39 Dupriez, L’Organisation du Suffrage, p. 141.



power and raised doubts about the ‘authority’ of governments.40 In fact,abstention created artificial governments and was described as a source ofCaesarism and other calamities.41 In other words, eliminating abstentionwould restore the mathematical validity of electoral outcomes and thereforethe epistemic legitimacy of the system of representation.

Worse yet, lack of full participation produced ‘distorted majorities’. Insteadof real numerical majorities, i.e. those counted on the basis of all eligiblevoters, weak participation allowed small partisan minorities to commandparliamentary majorities.42 Already in 1871, Senator Pirmez had noted thatabstention carried political advantages for parties with small but loyal supportbases and disadvantages for those that drew on moderate (i.e. conservative)voters.43 It was feared that devious parties would dominate the electoral pro-cess and take over the state through duplicity and dirty tricks. ‘Laws, contri-butions and sacrifices are imposed on them and they cannot complain if thosewho subjugate them were elected by only a handful of voters, being thereforeonly an accidental, surprising and hazardous majority?’44 With compulsoryvoting, such recklessness would disappear and only candidates with clearmajorities would prevail.

Of course, the concepts of ‘majority’ and ‘representation’ used here werenot based on the ‘one man, one vote’ principle of equal correspondencebetween the number of citizens and their political value. They were them-selves ‘distorted’ by the system of plural voting, which validated socialinequalities by transposing them into the parliament as a matter of ‘correct-ness’. Additional votes and hence greater influence on legislation weregranted on the basis of property, family and age, which were the main pillarsof conservative ideology, alongside income and education,45 which expressedmore progressive values. The criteria for acquiring additional votes reflectedspecial guaranties of stability, morality, capacity and having a sound concep-tion of things. For Catholics, family, property and science were the ‘primor-dial elements’, or the ‘fundamental institutions of society’ that deserved to

40 M. De Haerne, Le Vote Obligatoire — Discours Prononcé à la ConférenceFrançaise du Jeune Barreau de Gand (Ghent, 1892), p. 13.

41 Bergé, Annales Parlementaires, 21 March 1893, p. 981.42 J. Barthélemy, L’Organisation du Suffrage et l’Expérience Belge (Paris, 1912),

pp. 475–84.43 Pirmez, Annales Parlementaires, Sénat, 27 May 1871, p. 236.44 Bouvier, ‘Vote Obligatoire’, p. 140: ‘On leur impose des lois, des charges et des

sacrifices et ils ne pourraient pas se plaindre si ceux qui les y soumettent ne sont les élusque d’une poignée d’électeurs, que d’une majorité d’accident, de surprise et de hasard?’

45 The special weight of education on the one hand and income that is no based onproperty on the other were the two indicators of capacity that caused the split between theProgressive and the doctrinaire faction of the Liberal Party.


be provided with extra political strength.46 The system of additional votesoffered a motivation, for citizens who did not meet the criteria, to acquirethem over time and in that way pay tribute to conservative and progressivevalues. If plural voting defined the terms of political inequality, compulsoryvoting was a means to ensure that this aristocratic inequality would not besubverted by excessive political activism or voluntarism.

IIIThe Concept of Voting Mandate

Perhaps rhetorically the most challenging task for the advocates of compul-sory voting was to disentangle the old dichotomous right-or-duty conceptionof voting. The two principles were traditionally antagonistic and mutuallyexclusive, since they had developed as counter-concepts in the politicalstruggle for universal suffrage: proponents argued that voting was a naturalbirthright, while opponents claimed it was a positivistic duty. With the intro-duction of universal and plural suffrage one month earlier, both notions had tobe accommodated: the natural-right doctrine was the philosophical justifica-tion of universal suffrage, while positivist ideas lay behind plural voting crite-ria. The latter also appeared as the logical basis of the legal obligation to vote.

To reconcile the two theories, Beernaert tried to show that they were notantithetical, but complementary. A middle ground was found in the new con-cept of the ‘voting mandate’. Beernaert explained that voting was a socialfunction as well as a right, but a right that he felt could be clearly demarcated.By twisting the very concept of ‘right’, he ultimately transformed it into anobligation. His redescription of voting as a non-natural and non-private rightshould be understood in this intellectual context. In his opening speech of theparliamentary debate, he proclaimed:

No one, indeed, has argued here that suffrage would be a natural right.There was also no claim that it would be a private right or, in some way, per-sonal. On the contrary, everybody seems to agree in recognizing that, thisbeing a right, one can neither abandon nor renounce it, nor delegate or giveit away. Whoever would presume to sell it would fall within the scope ofcriminal law and anyone who would use it solely for his personal interestswould be, for this reason, despicable.47

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46 Nyssens, ‘Le Mouvement Politique’, pp. 39–41.47 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1539: ‘Personne, en effet, n’a

soutenu ici que le suffrage électoral constituerait un droit naturel. On n’a pas prétendudavantage que ce serait un droit prive ou, en quelque sorte, personnel. Tout le mondeparait, au contraire, d’accord pour reconnaitre que, ce droit, on ne pourrait nil’abandonner, ni y renoncer, ni le déléguer, ni le céder. Celui qui prétendrait le vendretomberait sous l’application de la loi pénale et quiconque en userait au seul point de vuede ses intérêts personnels se rendrait, par cela même, méprisable.’



In other words, the Catholic leader rejected the idea that voting was a naturalright. Echoing the legal positivism of the time,48 he firmly declared that votingwas not a product of nature, but could be granted and regulated by the state.He held that it was law that, as an expression of the national will, granted theright to vote to those whom lawmakers selected for their ability to use it in thebest interests of society. Hence, despite the adoption of universal suffrage inthe same constituional reform, the head of government repeatedly declaredhis firm opposition to political equality by nature49

Beernaert next argued that voting was neither a private nor an absoluteright. By both law and custom, selling it was punishable by law while using itexclusively for one’s private advantage was condemnable by the standards ofsocial morality. One may not abandon, renounce, transfer or sell this right. Inthe words of MP Bouvier, ‘the right to vote is thus not a property, but a trust,which one is not allowed to give away’.50 Openly attributing his ideas to JohnStuart Mill,51 Beernaert claimed that since suffrage was not a commodity, theright to vote was unlike the right to material ownership.

Drawing on the distinction between private and public rights, Beernaertdeclared suffrage to be a public or social right. He explained that, unlike pri-vate rights whose exercise had an impact only on the individual, the use of apublic right such as suffrage had consequences for the whole society.52 There-fore, individuals had full authority over their private, but not public rights.Likewise, voters did not have an absolute authority over their voting right,because the vote had indirect consequences for the whole of society. ‘Hisright, as regards elections, to do what he wants and to abstain is limited by therights and the liberty of others and by the public safety.’53 Abstention violatedan obligation to others and therefore was harmful to the society. As a result,voters did not have an individual liberty to ignore their voting obligation.

In fact, the voter was an agent of society and of the disenfranchised popula-tion, whose interests he had the responsibility to express and protect. InBeernaert’s words, the vote was ‘a mandate from two points of view: from the

48 Errera, Droit Public, p. 128; O. Orban, Le Droit Constitutionnel de la Belgique(Liège, 1908), p. 14.

49 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires,, 18 April 1893, p. 1181.50 Bouvier, ‘Vote Obligatoire’, p. 139: ‘Le droit de suffrage n’est donc pas une

propriété, mais un dépôt, dont il n’est pas permis de se dépouiller.’51 J.S.Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (London, 1999 [1861]),

ch. 10. Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1539.52 Ibid., p. 1539.53 L. Crombez, ‘Fraudes en Matière Électorale’, Rapport fait au nom de la section

centrale, Documents Parlementaires n.203, Chambre des Représentants, 2 June 1865,p. 99: ‘Son droit, en matière d’élection, de faire ce qu’il veut et de s’abstenir a pourlimites les droits et la liberté d’autrui et la sécurité publique.’


society that confers it and a mandate with regard to non-voters’.54 Since noteveryone had the right to vote, those who could vote (males over twenty-fiveyears old, registered in a commune and not deprived of their right to vote for avalid reason) had to take into consideration not only their own interests, butthe interest of society as a whole as well as the particular interests of thosewithout the franchise. In the words of a Catholic senator, ‘the voter is chargedwith a real mandate, even from the non-voters, such as minors, women, andthe incapacitated, he is called upon to defend their interests via the ballot’.55 Inshort, voters were obligated to vote, because they had to express the interestsof non-voters in the same way as they expressed their own.

This paternalistic interpretation56 of the right to vote was based on theassumption that males with certain capacities had an obligation towards lesscapable members of society. In this sense, voting was described as the equiva-lent of military duty, for which not all were fit, in peacetime.57 It was alsocompared to parental or guardianship duty, as well as to jury service.58 Yet theconcept of duty embedded in the voting mandate had to be distinguished fromthe old idea of voting duty. In both cases, voters were morally accountable tocitizens who lacked voting rights and to the public at large. But whereas ‘vot-ing duty’ (fonction) expressed an organic ethic of social functionality rootedin natural inequalities, ‘voting mandate’ reflected a paternalistic logic ofsocial solidarity in the face of pragmatic i.e. not natural differences ofcompetence.

Beernaert’s political thought was somewhat eclectic, influenced as it wasby the ideas of liberal and social Catholicism. A doctor of law from the Catho-lic University of Louvain, he was influenced by Thonissen, a staunch Catholicdefender of such human rights as religious freedom and liberty of the press.59

Another decisive factor was the intensification of Catholic social actionand the emergence of the Christian democratic movement in the last two

12 A. MALKOPOULOU

54 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1539 (emphasis added):‘c’est même un mandat à un double point de vue: mandat de la part de la société qui leconfère, mandat aussi relativement aux non-électeurs’.

55 Lammens, Annales Parlementaires, Sénat, 12 July 1893, p. 421: ‘L’électeur estchargé d’un véritable mandat, même de la part des non-électeurs, tels que les mineurs, lesfemmes, les incapables; il est appelé à défendre leurs intérêts par le bulletin de vote.’

56 On paternalism as an intermediary phase between social Catholicism and Christiandemocracy in Belgium, see R. Rezsohazy, Origines et Formation du CatholicismeSocial en Belgique, 1842–1909 (Louvain, 1958).

57 Vanderkindere, Annales Parlementaires, 31 May 1893, p. 1568.58 Beernaert, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1540.59 G. Guyot de Mishaegen, Le Parti Catholique Belge de 1830 à 1884 (Brussels,

1946), pp. 193 ff.



decades of the nineteenth century.60 This left turn in Catholicism replacedultramontane paternalism, which treated workers as ‘big children’, with a cor-porate reorganization of society that aimed to empower them as Christianworkers.61 Both socialist collectivism and liberal individualism were thusrejected and the principle of association was established in their place. Therapid spread of Christian insurance associations was decisive in popularizinga sense of moral responsibility, social duty and solidarity.62 In this context,Beernaert could interpret the obligation to vote as a public right cum socialright, in the light of a broader Christian ethic of social justice.

IVTwo Concepts of Voting Liberty

Progressive Liberals: Liberty as Effective Participation

In the debate over obligatory voting, another contested concept was the lib-erty of the voter. Catholics and Progressives wanted to protect ‘free’ partici-pation in elections by poor citizens in general and especially the workingclasses. For them, voting liberty meant an absence of pressure, intimidationand interference with the voter’s right to participate. On the other hand, theDoctrinal Liberals and conservative Catholics saw voting liberty as givingvoters the option to dispose of their right to vote as they pleased, whichincluded choosing not to vote. For them voting liberty was seen as synony-mous with the right to abstain. The liberty to effectively participate was thusjuxtaposed against the liberty to not participate. These conflicting viewsexpressed the profound antagonism between the two liberalisms (progressiveand doctrinaire) that marked Belgian politics in the late nineteenth century.

Supporters of the reform maintained that compulsory voting would protectcitizens’ ‘freedom’ to vote. According to Progressive MP Bergé, obligatoryvoting ‘will provide the voter a greater freedom’;63 it would secure ‘the free

60 H. Maier, Revolution und Kirche: zur Frühgeschichte der Christlichen Demokratie(Munich, 2006), pp. 310–1. Almond, Christian Democracy, pp. 741–2; Kalyvas, Chris-tian Democracy, pp. 187–92; Witte, Political History, pp. 107–11.

61 J. De Maeyer, ‘La Ligue Démocratique Belge et ses Antécédents’, in Histoire duMouvement Ouvrier Chrétien en Belgique, t.2, ed. E. Gerard and P. Wynants (Leuven,1994), pp. 18–67.

62 On the Christian insurance movement, see E. Gerard, ‘Les Mutualités Chrétiennes’,in Histoire du Mouvement Ouvrier Chrétien en Belgique, t.2, ed. Gerard and Wynants,pp. 76–9.

63 Bergé, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1552: ‘assurera à l’électeur uneplus grande liberté’.


and sincere manifestation of a conscientious vote’.64 In this context, freedomwas understood as the lack of physical, mental and psychological coercion toabstain, coercion as effected through acts of pressure or intimidation.65 Earlierpractices of vote-buying or vote-control through marked or pre-filled ballotshad died out after the criminalization of electoral fraud, the introduction ofofficial ballots and especially the introduction of secret voting in 1877.66 Incontrast, forced abstention through indirect employer pressure had become acommon phenomenon. Obligatory voting would thus serve as ‘[a] means toavoid the pressure that is exercised on the voter to obtain his abstention andcause him to stay at home instead of going to vote when he does not share theopinion of the one who exercises this moral violence on him’.67

The intent was to eliminate the politically vulnerable position employeeswere in due to their financial dependence. Besides employers, voters were alsooften pressured to abstain by party bosses and by the social pressure resultingfrom political divisions; for example, partisan groups sometimes obstructedtheir adversaries’ physical access to the polls.68 Hence, with compulsory vot-ing ‘the intelligent men who know what a public duty is would exercise itfreely and would not anymore be the slaves of cliques who threaten to corruptthe representation of the nation’.69 Accordingly, compulsory voting was notonly a political method of inclusion, but also a tool against electoral fraud inthe form of abstention-buying, controlling turnout by illegitimate means andunfair party competition. In this context, voting liberty was understood aslack of coercion, but more so as the absence of political dependence on

14 A. MALKOPOULOU

64 Annales de l’Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales,Troisième Session, Congrès d’Amsterdam (Brussels, 1865), pp. 56–7 (emphasis added):‘l’expression de la libre et sincère manifestation d’un vote consciencieux’.

65 J. Barthélemy, ‘Pour le Vote Obligatoire’, Revue du Droit Public et de SciencePolitique, 5 (1) (1923), pp. 102–67, p. 121. See also M. Hauchecorne, Le Suffrage enQuestions: Une Étude des Débats autour du Vote Obligatoire (Australie, Belgique,États-Unis, France), MA thesis (Institut d’Etude Politique de Paris, 2004), p. 17.

66 M.L. Anderson, Practicing Democracy: Elections and Political Culture in ImperialGermany (Princeton, 2000), pp. 234, 259 n.64.

67 Bockstael quoting Bergé, Annales Parlementaires, 8 May 1877, p. 709: ‘un moyend’éviter la pression qui s’exerce sur l’électeur pour obtenir son abstention et obtenir qu’ilreste chez lui au lieu d’aller voter quand il ne partage pas l’opinion de celui qui lui fait uneviolence morale’.

68 De Sadeleer, Annales Parlementaires, 31 May 1893, p. 1557.69 Dognée-Devillers in Annales de l’Association Internationale, p. 142 (emphasis

added): ‘les hommes intelligents qui savent ce que c’est qu’un devoir public, l’exerceraientlibrement et ne seraient plus les esclaves des coteries qui menacent de corrompre lareprésentation nationale’.



employers for socio-economic reasons as well as on party bosses who couldinfluence voters through threats and intimidation.70

For the Progressive Liberals, liberty was synonymous with effective partici-pation by all citizens in political life. The voters had to be taught to know andunderstand the mechanisms of the institutions in which they were called toparticipate. Only such instruction could instil ‘civic virtue’ and eliminate allpossibility of electoral corruption.71 Progressive Liberals, who comprisedmainly journalists, lawyers and teachers of low income (and hence disenfran-chised), placed higher value on education than on wealth as a prerequisite forparticipation. As a result, since the 1860s, they had connected their demandsfor universal suffrage to the introduction of compulsory education.72 Withobvious parallels to the French Ferry laws on republican education in the1880s,73 the Belgian ‘political catechism of the citizen’ involved raising thepolitical competence of citizens.74 Their general aim was to help the lowerclasses attain a higher cultural level, in order to integrate them harmoniouslyinto the political process.75

Like plural voting, punishing abstention was a way to turn political processesinto a civic education project.76 Because the poor and uneducated were ‘igno-rant’ and unable to think politically by themselves, the state had to motivatethem to achieve a higher intellectual and moral standing under the guidance ofan enlightened minority. For this reason the Progressive Party, influenced bythe Swiss institutional tradition of obligatory suffrage,77 endorsed obligatoryvoting in their founding meeting in 1887 as one educational stimulus for theworking classes. Obligatory poll attendance would provide training in civics

70 On the history of liberty as absence of dependence, see Q. Skinner, Liberty beforeLiberalism (Cambridge, 1998).

71 E. Gubin and P. Lefèvre. ‘Obligation Scolaire et Société en Belgique au XIXeSiècle: Réflexions à propos du Premier Projet de Loi sur l’Enseignement Obligatoire(1883)’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 63 (2) (1985), pp. 324–76, p. 358.

72 P. Lafitte, Le Suffrage Universel et le Régime Parlementaire (Paris, 1888), p. 154.See also Poullet, Annales Parlementaires, 30 July 1895, p. 2332. The most enthusiasticadvocate of this joint cause, Paul Hymans, paved the way for the introduction of manda-tory education (1914) and the abolition of plural suffrage (1919).

73 Evans, The Cross and the Ballot, p. 142 n.14.74 P. Combes, Les Systèmes de Votation des Peuples Libres (Verviers, 1885),

pp. 18–19.75 Witte, Political History, pp. 59–60. See similarities with Jules Ferry’s laws on

public education in France.76 Plural voting was thought to promote the political education of the masses by

ensuring that a competent, other-regarding and intellectually superior minority had aparliamentary presence, which was strong enough to guide them through the politicalprocess. J.J. Miller, ‘J.S. Mill on plural voting, competence and participation’, History ofPolitical Thought, 24 (4) (2003), pp. 647–67.

77 A. Malkopoulou, The History of Compulsory Voting in Europe: Democracy’sDuty? (New York, 2015), pp. 57–8.


to new voters and teach them how to vote. It was thought that ‘once caught inthe mesh of political life, the voter would soon develop a taste for it, and hisrespect would increase when seeing the interest his fellow citizens have forit’.78 Progressives saw political participation as having an intrinsic value forits power to transform the individual into a citizen. In this, they differed fromthe Socialists, who demanded universal suffrage for its instrumental value asa means towards their ultimate goal of social reform. As Barthélemy admittedtwo decades later, Belgians became convinced over time that the obligation tovote was an efficient means of political education.79

Doctrinal Liberals: Liberty as Unlimited Rights

For the Doctrinal Liberals and conservative Catholics of the opposition,installing an obligation of participation was a threat to personal liberty. DeHaerne complained that compulsion would kill the liberal soul of the Belgianpeople: ‘obligatoriness is pernicious: it numbs; it kills initiative, independ-ence’.80 The doctrinaire logic of laissez-faire economics was recommendedalso for electoral practices: ‘Let us leave it to freedom; let us have confidence init; it will correct much better than any law the disadvantages of abstention.’81

Similarly, conservative Catholics agreed that participation and abstentionshould not be regulated. In the words of archconservative Woeste, ‘[t]heobligatoriness pressures us; it would like to suffocate us; and yet it is onlylegitimate when it is necessary; when it is not necessary, it is the principle offreedom that must prevail’.82 This view reflected the ultramontane ideologythat state intervention should always be sanctioned by the Church.

Accordingly, the effects of compulsory voting were cast negatively. Thehidden purpose of the reform, according to Rolin-Jaequemyns, was ‘to trans-form indifferent citizens into patriots with the help of the gendarmerie’.83

This resembled the domineering effort to create Christians through the institu-tion of the Inquisition, or to create Catholic converts by regularly taking themto mass. Besides, adding more obligatory functions resembled the most egre-gious aspects of socialism; it risked ‘destroying the liberty of the citizen’ andtransforming the modern state into one large military camp, like ancient

16 A. MALKOPOULOU

78 De Haerne, Vote Obligatoire, p. 19.79 Barthélemy, L’Organisation du Suffrage, p. 483.80 De Haerne, Vote Obligatoire, p. 33.81 Crombez, ‘Fraudes en Matière Électorale’, p. 100: ‘Laissons faire la liberté; ayons

confiance en elle; elle corrigera, bien mieux que toutes les lois possibles, lesinconvénients résultant de l’abstention.’

82 Woeste, Annales Parlementaires, 10 March 1893, p. 898: ‘L’obligatoire nouspresse; il voudrait nous étouffer; et cependant il n’est légitime que quand il estnécessaire; quand il n’est pas nécessaire, c’est le principe de liberté qui doit prévaloir.’

83 G. Rolin-Jaequemyns, De la Réforme Électorale (Brussels, 1865), p. 32.



Sparta, where even religion and childbirth were obligatory.84 In short, obliga-tory voting seemed paternalistic, absurd and exorbitant.85

Hence, those who were the main advocates of the traditional idea thatvoting is a moral duty, i.e. the doctrinaires, vehemently rejected the legalobligation to vote and argued that duties are not obligatory.86 This may appearto be a logical paradox, but it makes sense if we take into account the classicnineteenth-century liberal belief in the self-motivated elite who have anauthentic understanding that voting is a duty:87 ‘The merit of the election is toelicit from the voter a real choice, namely an act of judgment and will.’88 Theconcept of voting function was indeed conditioned by the capacity to makeautonomous decisions, as well as the capacity to recognize by oneself thatvoting is a moral responsibility. Imposing a legal punishment presupposedthat some voters were not able to grasp the moral imperative of participation,in which case they should not be granted the right to vote in the first place.Political inequality was, after all, a result of human nature.89 Hence, enforcingparticipation would be to impose an artificial ethic of civic duty on those whowere by nature unequipped to understand this duty.

Voting differed from other recognized civic duties, like the guardianship ofchildren or the ethical standards of civil servants and politicians. The mainidea was that while the latter were political functions (jus honorum), i.e. exer-cised in the name of the public good and taken up freely, administrative func-tions (jus suffragii) were imposed on individuals involuntarily.90 Ministersand judges had a political duty, according to Graux, since they had deliber-ately chosen to undertake these functions.91 Voting, on the other hand, was anadministrative task imposed by the state. It should therefore remain voluntaryin order to preserve the citizens’ liberty. Graux implied here that a legal obliga-tion to vote was excessive, since voters were already at birth required to acceptthe right (and moral duty) to vote. The lack of any opt-out from electorship,since this was automatically assigned to everyone, made it a non-politicalfunction.

Similarly, voting had to be distinguished from jury duty, although bothwere imposed on citizens without their consent. Jury members were obligedto be physically present not only when issuing the verdict, but also in the

84 Vanderkindere, Annales Parlementaires, 31 May 1893, p. 1568.85 Rolin-Jaequemyns, Réforme Électorale, p. 30.86 Graux, Annales Parlementaires, 31 May 1893, p. 1559; Montefiori-Levi, Annales

Parlementaires, Sénat, 12 July 1893, pp. 423–4.87 F. Guizot, Histoire des Origines du Gouvernement Représentatif, II (Paris, 1880),

p. 247.88 Sainctelette, Annales Parlementaires, 6 May 1892, p. 1192.89 L. Losseau, Le Vote Obligatoire — Conférence donnée au jeune barreau de Mons

(Brussels, 1893), p. 29.90 O. Orban, Le Droit Constitutionnel de la Belgique (Liège, 1908), p. 14.91 Graux, Annales Parlementaires, 31 May 1893, p. 1559.


preceding debates, which helped them form an opinion about the case. On thecontrary, voters in elections were not asked to judge an issue about which theywere informed in advance, but to make a choice between candidates, whoseexistence they may have been ignorant of until that moment;92 ‘the duty tovote . . . does not consist solely, as people seem to believe, in the physicalpresence of the voter in the polling, but in the application of his intelligence informing a reasoned choice’.93 As a result, imposing the formal obligation tobe physically present at the polling station would create voters who did nottake voting seriously and were susceptible to flippancy or subversion. Thus,votes cast as a result of compulsion would be mechanical, haphazard orguided by small-minded considerations that were foreign to the general inter-est. More often than not, these votes would turn out to be blank or spoilt bal-lots.94 Requiring voters to cast ballots without first establishing that they wereinformed, intelligent and committed made the punishment of abstentioncounterproductive.

Finally, unlike military duty, political activity demanded civic conscious-ness and an autonomous opinion about public issues. Voters could not act asdelegates the way soldiers did, for in such case they would have to follow orderson behalf of the unknown masses. As a result, they would be prevented fromdrawing on their own individuality and personal preferences in voting. Thisultimately meant giving up their autonomy, which was a crucial prerequisitefor the capacity to vote.95 In other words, exercising the vote as if mandated bysociety was a compromise of the voter’s individual autonomy and capacity tojudge.

The Doctrinal Liberals concluded that free choice should govern not onlythe content of the vote, but also the decision about whether to vote or not. Inother words, individuals should have the ‘liberty’ or right to abstain. ‘The rea-sons for not voting are many and they belong to the realm of freedom, whichmust be respected.’96 Moreover, according to Vanderkindere, for those whowere not interested in the elections or who believed that their own views hadno chance to prevail, abstention took the character of a legitimate protest.97

Sometimes abstention was indeed a strategy preferred by candidates and theirsupporters in order to spare themselves a humiliating defeat at the polls.Finally, the right of abstention was also a form of civil disobedience againstvarious electoral malpractices, which were common before 1893, but also

18 A. MALKOPOULOU

92 Rolin-Jaequemyns, Réforme Électorale, p. 32.93 Ibid., p. 31: ‘le devoir de voter, qui ne consiste point uniquement, comme on sem-

ble le croire, dans la présence matérielle de l’électeur au scrutin, mais dans l’applicationqu’il fait de son intelligence à la formation d’un choix raisonnable’.

94 Losseau, Vote Obligatoire, p. 17.95 Ibid., p. 23.96 Graux, Annales Parlementaires, 31 May 1893, p. 1559.97 Vanderkindere, Annales Parlementaires, 31 May 1893, p. 1569.



continued later with manipulation of the plural vote.98 Hence, for voters whoconsciously chose to abstain, legal punishment represented a violation of theirconscience. This view reflected a conception of liberty as a self-motivated,voluntary and unimpeded choice.99

Intra-Liberal Antagonism

The Belgian Liberals’ disagreement over compulsory voting represented aprofound conflict between their differing conceptions of liberty, the state andvoting rights.100 The Doctrinal Liberals believed in the unlimited liberty ofpowerful oligarchs, whereas the Progressives believed in the effective libertyof all citizens. The former needed a police-state to enforce their sense oforder, while the latter envisaged a guardian-state charged with the duty toensure that everybody had the possibility to enjoy their full rights. The twofactions were united only in their opposition to the Church and their secularbelief in the independence of the civil authorities.

In addition, both factions believed that voting was conferred by law (notnature) and required a political aptitude defined by a specific criterion. For theDoctrinal Liberals, the criterion was wealth, which determined census suf-frage; for the Progressive Liberals, it was education, which justified capacitysuffrage. Frère-Orban, the leader of the right-wing Doctrinal Liberals, was astaunch opponent of capacity, which he thought was a prelude to universalsuffrage. He thought the right to vote should be reserved only for men inter-ested in the preservation of the established order, i.e. voters who were guard-ians of the state and who were ‘attached, enrooted’ in a society conceived ofas static. On the other hand, the leader of the left-wing Progressive Liberals,Paul Janson, believed in moral, intellectual, socio-economic and politicalequality, not as a present fact, but as a future goal to be achieved through edu-cation, social reforms and the expansion of democratic rights. The right tovote should be ‘enlightened’, i.e. distributed based on capacity and intelli-gence. Compulsory education and suffrage were for the Progressives two sidesof the same coin. For the doctrinaires, they were an insult to personal libertyand an illegitimate interference of the state in their efforts to maintain the estab-lished order. These conflicting agendas explain the official, but temporary splitbetween the two factions of the Belgian Liberal Party at the end of the nine-teenth century.

98 J. Gilissen, Le Régime Représentative en Belgique depuis 1790 (Brussels, 1958),pp. 121–60.

99 I. Berlin, ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (1958), in Isaiah Berlin: Liberty, ed. H. Hardy(Oxford, 2007), p. 170.

100 Gubin and Lefèvre, ‘Obligation Scolaire’, pp. 354–60.


VDebating the Sanctions

A year after the constitutional reform, on 31 May and 6 June 1894, the Bel-gian Chamber debated how to sanction electoral abstention. For a legal obli-gation to become operational, an efficient enforcement mechanism had to beput in place. During this discussion, efforts were made to balance both theefficacy and the symbolic aspects of the punishment. As a result, the mainpenalties that the Catholics put on the table can be divided into two categories:(1) sanctions involving the payment of fines and (2) ‘moral’ penalties, such astemporary suspension of the right to vote. Each penalty reflected a distinctview about the meaning of abstention and each was justified accordingly.

In the first category, fines were linked to the view that abstainers wereguilty of producing skewed electoral results. Since votes should express one’sown interests as well as those of the disenfranchised, abstention concealed thewill of the nation. Hence, it could be understood as an indirect act of electionfraud, broadly conceived, for which legal punishment had been commonlyaccepted. ‘The person who abstains distorts by his abstention the generalresults of the election. He commits a misdeed that needs to be punished andmoral sanctions are likely to be an insufficient punishment, especially forrepeated offences.’101 Hence, a small fine of one to three francs102 was intro-duced that gradually increased to three to twenty-six francs for repeatedabstentions. The rhetorical framing of abstention as fraudulent behaviour andfines as the most efficient and reasonable form of punishment was in line withthe justification of compulsory voting as an anti-corruption measure againstenforced abstention.

However, the imposition of financial sanctions presented a number of diffi-culties. First, they affected rich and poor voters unequally. According to theMinister of Interior: ‘If all citizens are equal before the law, they are notbefore the goddess Fortune!’103 Second, Woeste, who had looked with disfa-vour on compulsory voting mainly because of its implementation difficulties,argued that since imprisonment and property seizure for those who did notpay their fines were ruled out, it was impossible to design an effective mecha-nism for punishing abstention. The perfect sanctions, i.e. those which wouldbe neither too strict nor too soft, i.e. moderate, yet serious, were in fact not

20 A. MALKOPOULOU

101 A. Delbeke, ‘Code Électoral: Titres IV à X’, Rapport fait au nom de la Commis-sion spéciale, Documents Parlementaires n.150, Chambre des Représentants, Séance du24 avril 1894, pp. 9–10.

102 In 1890–1900, five francs was about the daily wage of an industrial male worker,1 Belgian franc being the rough equivalent of 3.20 EUR today. See P. Scholliers, ‘A cen-tury of real industrial wages in Belgium, 1840–1939’, in P. Scholliers and V. Zamagni,Labour’s Reward: Real Wages and Economic Change in 19th and 20th Century Europe(Aldershot, 1995), pp. 106–37.

103 Burlet, Annales Parlementaires, Sénat, 20 June 1894, p. 561.



definable.104 Third, as with a parallel proposal to pay a compensation to votersfor voting, imposing fines was tantamount to assigning a price to a civic duty:it demeaned the symbolic, political and moral value of suffrage.105 In sum, theimposition of abstention fines raised concerns about fairness and efficiencyand was condemned by opponents for diminishing the meaning of suffrage.

To offset these disadvantages, the Catholics successfully argued in favourof adding administrative penalties with a dimension of moral censure. Theseincluded public posting of abstainers’ names, the temporary suspension ofvoting rights and ineligibility to receive a nomination or promotion in civilservice. Besides their comparative advantage of affecting everybody equally,these penalties were a form of punishment consistent with the spirit of theconstitutional stipulation: they were ‘highly effective and well in line with thebasic idea of the provision’.106 Moral penalties treated abstention as a form ofconstitutional wrongdoing and contributed to raising the value of the right tovote in the eyes of voters.

For example, the practice of public shaming reflected an understanding ofabstention as the abandonment of one’s civic responsibilities. The public list-ing of names was characteristically called the ‘table of incivility and disfa-vour’ (tableau d’incivisme et de défaveur).107 It was thought that this would beall the more effective, since it allowed party bosses to identify those whoabstained so they could try to recruit them to attend the polls in future elec-tions.108 But for the same reason, public shaming was not the best method tofight against corruption, since it would promote party clientelism.

In the end, parliament decided that suspension of voting rights corre-sponded better to the view that abstainers were incapable and morally defi-cient. Since voting was understood as an obligation towards disenfranchisedcitizens, whoever abstained was in fact committing an offence primarilyagainst the latter: the abstaining voter was ‘a social deserter’.109

This is a citizen who refuses to fulfil the civic duties imposed upon himby the Constitution, and the law finds it very natural to pronounce a capitisdiminutio, since he has himself renounced his essential rights as a citi-zen and has done so obstinately, by affirming his formal will not to be acitizen.110

104 Woeste, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, pp. 1549–52.105 De Haerne, Vote Obligatoire, p. 22.106 Nyssens, Annales Parlementaires, 6 June 1894, p. 1794.107 Rosseeuw, Annales Parlementaires, 30 May 1893, p. 1544. Punishment by

affichage was abolished later, at some point after 1937. Hauchecorne, Le Suffrage enQuestions, p. 25 n.44.

108 Adolphe, Vote Obligatoire, pp. 105–6.109 De Haerne, Vote Obligatoire, p. 14.110 Nyssens, Annales Parlementaires, 6 June 1894, p. 1794.


The penalty of having one’s name temporarily removed from the voting listrested on the idea that voters had to possess certain moral qualities.111 Theyhad been selected among other citizens as a sign of trust that they would dem-onstrate high civic competencies. Conversely, abstention was an act of delib-erate renunciation of one’s essential qualities as a citizen. It was ademonstration of political incapacity, which should bear the consequence oflosing the right to vote. For the vote was not a private possession, but some-thing entrusted, an honourable entitlement that could be revoked at any timeby the state should it be deemed necessary. Consequently, the person whoabstained from elections did not merit the title of voter. Clearly, the logic ofsuch moral punishment rested on a conservative concept of enlightened citi-zenship that was realizable through legal enforcement.

In the end, Article 223 of the Electoral Code included all of the suggestedtypes of sanction in a progressive manner. A first abstention would bepunished by a fine of one to three francs. A second and third abstention withinsix years would be fined with three to twenty-six francs, with the third timebringing additionally publication of the abstainer’s name for one month infront of the municipal building. Finally, a fourth unjustified abstention withinfifteen years entailed a loss of voting rights for ten years and a prohibitionagainst holding any position in the civil service. To soften the sanctions,imprisonment for failure to pay the fines was forbidden, while a two-roundelection was counted as one for the purpose of totalling the sanctions.112 Thecombination of fines with public shaming and loss of voting rights reflectedthe double semantics of abstention both as fraudulent behaviour and as a signof civic incapacity.

Conclusion

The successful introduction of compulsory voting in Belgium must be seen inthe light of the balanced compromise forged between the three major politicalforces in the 1893 constitutional reform. Following public pressure and avibrant ferment of ideas, Belgian conservatives, liberals and socialists agreedon mutual concessions on constitutional matters. Hence, while socialists hadobtained universal suffrage and liberals a system of plural votes one monthearlier, conservatives demanded compulsory voting.

Their strategic aim, as voiced by Catholic Prime Minister Beernaert, was topre-empt any abstention of conservative voters. These included, on the onehand, the party’s wealthy supporters who might have sat out in protest againstthe expansion of voting rights, and, on the other hand, devout Flemish peas-ants who had just acquired the right to vote but did not know how to use it. Theruling Catholic Party was expecting to make gains from universal suffrage,

22 A. MALKOPOULOU

111 Hauchecorne, Le Suffrage en Questions, pp. 25–6.112 C. Scheyven and P. Holvoet, Code Électoral Belge (Brussels, 1894), pp. 320–3.



unlike their long-term rivals, the Liberal Party, which was not expected toreceive much support from the newly enfranchised.

Alongside plural voting, compulsory voting was primarily a mechanismfor containing the spectacular growth of the labour movement and the new-born Workers’ Party. In this sense, it was conceived as a measure againstextremism, just like its precedents in antiquity.113 This is further illustrated bythe domination of the moderate factions of each party in the constitutionaldebate and the isolation of their extreme wings. Thus, moderate Catholics pre-vailed over their ultra-conservative peers, while the Progressive Liberals rep-resented a middle way between the Doctrinal Liberals and the socialistdemonstrators who had hitherto been disenfranchised. The collaborationbetween moderate Catholics and Progressive Liberals is reflected in the con-ceptual viewpoints of the arguments that won the debate.

Central in this respect was the Catholics’ eclectic parliamentary rhetoric,which endorsed liberal and socialist values in order to attract the Liberalsupport crucial for circumventing the Catholics’ internal opposition and passthe bill. The Catholic chief’s argumentation concerning ‘exact’ representationand the concept of voting ‘mandate’ must be seen in this context. Concerningthe former, Beernaert argued that optional voting produced fake majoritiesand unreliable election results. His mantra of inclusiveness appealed espe-cially to Progressive Liberals, who used the same idea to campaign for a pro-portional election system. Of course, the Catholic-Progressive commitment toinclusive representation was not strictly speaking egalitarian, but rather ‘pro-portional’ to the inequalities present in society, which were projected onto theparliementary arena through the system of plural votes.

Concerning the concept of voting ‘mandate, Catholics developed it in orderto move beyond the old dichotomy of right vs. duty. Beernaert justifiedenforcement by reinterpreting voting as a positivistic public right, whichreflected the civic virtue of acting for the public good. The meaning of votingduty was thus distinguished from the determinism of noble inheritance andaristocratic capacity and recast in a new light, namely as a paternalisticmorality of social solidarity towards women and the under-aged, who wereineligible to vote. This moralistic interpretation of suffrage as a reward forgood citizenship explains also why Parliament chose to punish abstainerswith a loss of voting rights in addition to fines.

Perhaps the most appealing pro-liberal aspect of the constitutional provi-sion was that it served as an anti-corruption measure. In particular, it was ameans that could be used against the abstention forced by powerful employ-ers, wealthy farmers, public sector supervisors, party bosses and aggressivepartisan groups. Hence, it was argued that structures of dependence jeopar-dized the freedom of voters to attend the polls. This insistence on securingunimpeded access to the polls in the name of liberty corresponded to the

113 Malkopoulou, History of Compulsory Voting, pp. 49–54.


Progressive Liberal view that considered effective participation as a sine quanon of liberty.

In fact, the debate over compulsory voting exposed fierce infighting withinthe liberal camp. Contrary to the Progressive Liberals, the Doctrinal Liberalsinsisted that the liberty of privileged citizens should be unlimited and unre-stricted by electoral obligation. The duty to vote, they said, must result fromauthentic self-motivation, which was itself indicative of the worthiness tovote. Hence, the ideological differences between the Progressives and thedoctrinaires, reflected in their conceptualizations of liberty and participation,became a decisive factor behind their internal split which led to the successfulconstitutionalization of compulsory voting.

Anthoula Malkopoulou UPPSALA UNIVERSITY

24 A. MALKOPOULOU

The Conceptual Origins of Compulsory Voting: A Study of the 1893 Belgian Parliamentary Debate...

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