@article{2014:klein:die_gesell,
title = {Die gesellschaftliche Akzeptanz einer gesetzlichen Wahlpflicht in Deutschland. Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Bevölkerungsumfrage},
year = {2014},
note = {Against the background of declining voter turnout in Germany, the
introduction of a legal duty to vote has been proposed. Those who
advocate the introduction of compulsory voting expect a significant
increase of voter turnout. It can be argued, however, that this effect
only comes to pass when a legal duty to vote meets the population’s
acceptance. To date, this has hardly been studied empirically in
Germany. This paper presents the results of a representative
population survey, which was conducted on behalf of the authors right
before the 2013 German federal election. It turns out that compulsory
voting finds only little acceptance among German citizens. Only a
third of the population supports its introduction. Is compulsory
voting connected with sanctions for non-voters, support drops even
lower. In this case, only eleven percent of the population is in
favour of introducing a legal duty to vote. Adoption compulsory voting
in Germany would therefore encounter significant resistance in the
population. Under such circumstances, it seems quite questionable
whether compulsory voting would actually enhance the level of turnout.
[ZParl, vol.  45, no.  4, pp.  812 - 824]},
journal = {ZParl Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen},
pages = {812--824},
author = {Klein, Markus and Ballowitz, Jan and Holderberg, Per},
volume = {45},
number = {4}
}