COMPULSORY VOTING. COMPULSORY VOTING IN THE UNITED STATES. At the present time compulsory voting does not exist anywhere in the United States. Many years ago the State of Missouri inserted in the charter of Kansas City a provision to the effect that a poll tax of $2.50 should be levied upon every male resident of legal age, but exempted from payment of this tax all those who voted at the general election. In Kansas City v. Whipple, 136 Mo. 481, this law was held to be contrary to the State Constitution as discriminatory and as imposing a penalty upon electors for failure to exercise the free right of suffrage, an action which could not be made compulsory.1 There was at the time considerable discussion as to the merits of this decision, and it is not certain that other courts would regard it as a precedent to be followed. A measure similar to the Missouri statute was recommended by Governor Butler of Massachusetts in 1883, but no action was taken upon it. This recommendation was made, however, not because of any desire on the part of the Governor to compel electors to vote, but only as a means of assisting in the repeal of the law which made voting dependent upon the payment of a poll tax.2 By an act adopted in Oklahoma in February, 1916, it is declared to be "the duty of every qualified elector in this State to register as an elector under the provisions of this act." No attempt is made to enforce registration, but the act provides that the registration of any voter who fails to vote at three successive elections held in his precinct shall be cancelled.3 Compulsory voting is mentioned in only one of the constitutions of the forty-eight States. This is the Constitution of 1 See Harvard Law Review, X, 439, 440. 2 Massachusetts Senate Doc. No. 1 (1883). 15. 1 Session Laws of Oklahoma, 1916, ch. 24, sec. 2. Since this bulletin was prepared, a constitutional amendment providing for compulsory voting has been adopted in Massachusetts. For the text see post, 239. |