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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 July 2025
Compulsory voting (CV) has been common in Latin America. While research on its effects is burgeoning, little is known about its origins. This article seeks to start filling the gap by focusing on the adoption of CV in democratising polities. It proposes an explanation that rests on two implications of what this institution can reasonably be expected to do, i.e. increase turnout. The first logic suggests that CV was established to curb electoral malfeasance. The second, in turn, posits that it was introduced for damage limitation to those who held power. These hypotheses are tested against alternatives through a comparative historical study of three South American countries.
El voto obligatorio ha sido común en América Latina. Si bien la investigación sobre sus efectos es creciente, se sabe poco sobre sus orígenes. Este artículo busca comenzar a llenar el vacío centrándose en la adopción del voto obligatorio en estados en proceso de democratización. Propone una explicación basada en dos implicaciones de lo que se puede razonablemente esperar que esta institución logre, es decir, aumentar la participación electoral. La primera lógica sugiere que el voto obligatorio se estableció para frenar la corrupción electoral. La segunda, a su vez, postula que fue introducido para limitación de daños a quienes detentaban el poder. Estas hipótesis se ponen a prueba frente a alternativas mediante un estudio histórico comparativo de tres países sudamericanos.
O voto obrigatório tem sido comum na América Latina. Embora as pesquisas sobre seus efeitos estejam crescendo, pouco se sabe sobre suas origens. Este artigo procura começar a preencher essa lacuna, concentrando-se na adoção do voto obrigatório em países em processo de democratização. Ele propõe uma explicação que se baseia em duas implicações do que se pode razoavelmente esperar que essa instituição faça, ou seja, aumentar o comparecimento às urnas. A primeira lógica sugere que o voto obrigatório foi criado para coibir a má conduta eleitoral. A segunda, por sua vez, postula que foi introduzido para limitação de danos aos que detinham o poder. Essas hipóteses são testadas contra alternativas por meio de um estudo histórico comparativo de três países sul-americanos.
1 Ley 21524, Modifica la carta fundamental para restablecer el voto obligatorio en las elecciones populares: https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?i=1187324&t=0 (all URLs last accessed 30 April 2025). Subsequent legislation spelled out the penalties for non-compliance.
2 Ley 28859, Suprime las restricciones civiles, comerciales, administrativas y judiciales; y reduce las multas en favor de los ciudadanos omisos al sufragio: https://www.gob.pe/institucion/congreso-de-la-republica/normas-legales/364350-28859; Ley 26571, Democratización de la representación política, la transparencia y la equidad electoral: https://www.electoral.gob.ar/nuevo_legislacion/pdf/Ley%2026571%20v2.pdf; Ley 26774, De ciudadanía argentina: https://www.electoral.gob.ar/nuevo_legislacion/pdf/26774.pdf.
3 For example, Gabriel Cepaluni and F. Daniel Hidalgo, ‘Compulsory Voting Can Increase Political Inequality: Evidence from Brazil’, Political Analysis, 24: 2 (2016), pp. 273–80; Fernando Feitosa, André Blais and Ruth Dassonneville, ‘Does Compulsory Voting Foster Civic Duty to Vote?’ Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, 19: 1 (2020), pp. 19–44; Shane P. Singh, Beyond Turnout: How Compulsory Voting Shapes Citizens and Political Parties (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).
4 Unlike other researchers, I do not draw on IDEA International’s definition (https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/voter-turnout/compulsory-voting) because it includes among CV cases countries whose constitutions and/or electoral codes enshrine voting as a duty but do not provide for sanctions in the event of unjustified abstention. In previous work, I have explained why such polities should be regarded as instances of voluntary voting: Karina Cendon Bóveda, ‘Making People Vote: The Political Economy of Compulsory Voting Laws’, unpubl. PhD diss., Yale University, 2013, chap. 1.
5 Anthoula Malkopoulou, The History of Compulsory Voting in Europe: Democracy’s Duty? (New York: Routledge, 2015).
6 Rocío Rebata Delgado, ‘Ciudadanía, voto obligatorio y penalidades por no votar en el Perú (1823–1993)’, in Manuel Valenzuela (ed.), Sanciones, multas y abstencionismo electoral en el Perú. Tres estudios sobre participación electoral y voto obligatorio (Lima: ONPE, 2019), pp. 57–133.
7 Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971), chap. 1.
8 J. Samuel Valenzuela, Democratización vía reforma: la expansión del sufragio en Chile (Buenos Aires: Ediciones del IDES, 1985).
9 The latter would meet this article’s scope conditions as long as the pro-democratic reforms have not been rolled back and the polity has either not become autocratic in the meantime or experiences a full transition to democracy within a year. This is verified using the ‘Boix-Miller-Rosato Dichotomous Coding of Democracy, 1800–2020’, Harvard Dataverse, V1: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/FENWWR.
10 For a comprehensive list, primary sources, and further details, see Karina Cendon Bóveda, ‘Compulsory Voting. A New Dataset and Brief Case Studies from Three Continents’, Working Paper, Oct. 2024, prepared for the 2025 General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (available from the author upon request).
11 In Chile there was an attempt to establish mandatory voting in 1925, as the country plunged into autocracy, but it was not implemented (in-person interview by the author with Juan Ignacio García Rodríguez, Director Nacional del Servicio Electoral de Chile, 30 July 2010) and 1962 is considered the year of adoption of the legal obligation to vote. See: Atilio A. Borón, ‘El estudio de la movilización política en América Latina: la movilización electoral en la Argentina y Chile’, Desarrollo Económico, 12: 46 (1972), p. 231; Tomás Moulian, ‘El gobierno de Ibáñez: 1952–1958’, Material Docente sobre Historia de Chile, Programa FLACSO-Santiago de Chile, No. 2, January 1986, p. 44; Jorge Saldaña, ‘Crisis en la participación electoral y debate sobre la obligatoriedad del voto en Chile’, in Patricio Navia Lucero, Mauricio Morales Quiroga and Renato Briceño Espinoza (eds.), El genoma electoral chileno: dibujando el mapa genético de las preferencias políticas en Chile (Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Universidad Diego Portales, 2009), p. 59.
12 The cases of adoption and use of CV under autocracy (i.e. the second and third subsets) have been the most common in Latin America.
13 Carles Boix, Democracy and Redistribution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
14 For a distinction among types of electoral manipulation, see Eduardo Posada-Carbó, ‘Electoral Juggling: A Comparative History of the Corruption of Suffrage in Latin America, 1830–1930’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 32: 3 (2000), pp. 611–44.
15 Robert A. Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1956).
16 Thomas R. Palfrey and Keith T. Poole, ‘The Relationship between Information, Ideology, and Voting Behavior’, American Journal of Political Science, 31: 3 (1987), pp. 511–30; Richard R. Lau and David P. Redlawsk, ‘Voting Correctly’, American Political Science Review, 91: 3 (1997), pp. 585–98; Martin P. Wattenberg, Where Have All the Voters Gone? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), chap. 3.
17 Malcolm Feeley, ‘A Solution to the “Voting Dilemma” in Modern Democratic Theory’, Ethics, 84: 3 (1974), pp. 235–42; Peter A. Hall and Rosemary C. R. Taylor, ‘Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms’, Political Studies, 44: 5 (1996), pp. 946–50.
18 Gretchen Helmke and Bonnie Meguid, ‘Endogenous Institutions: The Origins of Compulsory Voting Laws’, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, 3–6 April 2008.
19 Malkopoulou, The History of Compulsory Voting in Europe; Jean-Benoit Pilet, ‘Choosing Compulsory Voting in Belgium: Strategy and Ideas Combined’, Paper presented at the ECPR Workshop ‘Compulsory Voting: Principles and Practice’, Helsinki, 7–12 May 2007, p. 4. In Latin America there was considerable variation in the ideological orientation of adopters when mandatory voting was enacted and practised under autocracy. When it was introduced along with democratisation, with the partial exception of Chile and Venezuela, it was right-leaning incumbents that promoted it, and it was used against both leftist and non-leftist parties (see below).
20 Natalio Botana, El orden conservador (Buenos Aires: Hyspamerica, 1985), chaps. 4–6.
21 Fernando Devoto, ‘De nuevo el acontecimiento: Roque Sáenz Peña, la reforma electoral y el momento político de 1912’, Boletín del Instituto de Historia Argentina y Americana ‘Dr. Emilio Ravignani’, 3: 14 (1996), p. 105.
22 Under the incomplete list electoral system, citizens vote for a maximum of two thirds of the seats to be filled in their district. The slate with the most votes gets 66.7 per cent of seats, and the remaining third is allotted to the runner-up.
23 Yrigoyen had laid down similar conditions in his meetings with President Figueroa Alcorta. See
Hipólito Yrigoyen, ‘Memorial a la Corte Suprema, Isla Martín García, 24 de agosto de 1931’, in Senado de la Nación, Documentos de Hipólito Yrigoyen, Biblioteca del Congreso de la Nación (BCN-Ar), Buenos Aires, 1986; Honorio A. Díaz, Ley Sáenz Peña: pro y contra (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1983), pp. 66–7.
24 Gabriel del Mazo, El radicalismo, ensayo sobre su historia y doctrina, vol. 1 (Buenos Aires: GURE, 1957), pp. 131–2.
25 Edward L. Gibson, Class and Conservative Parties: Argentina in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 48–9; Luciano de Privitellio, ‘¿Qué reformó la reforma? La quimera contra la máquina y el voto secreto y obligatorio’, Estudios Sociales, 43: 1 (2012), pp. 29–58.
26 Ezequiel Gallo (H.) and Silvia Sigal, ‘La formación de los partidos políticos contemporáneos: la Unión Cívica Radical (1890–1916)’, Desarrollo Económico, 3: 1/2 (1963), pp. 173–230.
27 For a history and an in-depth analysis of the UCR, see Paula Alonso, Between Revolution and the Ballot Box: The Origins of the Argentine Radical Party in the 1890s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
28 Miguel Angel Cárcano, El estilo de vida argentino en Paz, Mansilla, González, Roca, Figueroa Alcorta y Sáenz Peña (Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1971), p. 135 (my translation).
29 Quoted in Hugo Leguizamón, La abdicación conservadora (Buenos Aires: Libros de Hispanoamérica, 1987), p. 45 (my translation).
30 Gallo and Sigal, ‘La formación de los partidos políticos contemporáneos’, p. 187; David Rock, Argentina, 1516–1987. From Spanish Colonization to Alfonsín (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), p. 186.
31 In 1910 the average national turnout rate was 21 per cent of eligible citizens. See Darío Canton, ‘El sufragio universal como agente de movilización’, Documento de Trabajo No. 19, Centro de Investigaciones Sociales, Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, 1966, p. 14.
32 Mario Justo López, ‘La nueva ley electoral’, in Mario Justo López (ed.), De la república oligárquica a la república democrática: estudio sobre la reforma política de Roque Sáenz Peña (Buenos Aires: Lumière, 2005), pp. 280–5.
33 All citizens eligible to vote need to be on the electoral rolls in order to cast a ballot. Electoral registration refers to the procedure by which this is done. Ley 8130, Formación del padrón electoral, Registro Nacional de la República Argentina, Buenos Aires, July–Sept. 1911, pp. 13–15; Ley 8871, Ley electoral, Congreso Nacional: Leyes Sancionadas, 10 Feb. 1912, BCN-Ar, Buenos Aires, pp. 791–807.
34 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 57a Reunión, 4a Sesión de Prórroga, 6 Nov. 1911, BCN-Ar, Buenos Aires, p. 113 (my translation).
35 See, for instance, Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 67a Reunión, 29 Nov. 1911, p. 502; Botana, El orden conservador, pp. 280–1.
36 Germán López, ‘Un estudio sobre la reforma electoral conservadora de 1907 y sus posibilidades democratizadoras’, Saitabi, 48 (1998), p. 188.
37 La Prensa, 19 Dec. 1911, File SOD6-HD6, Hemeroteca de la Biblioteca del Congreso de la Nación, Buenos Aires; Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 64a Reunión, 22 Nov. 1911, p. 304.
38 Eugenio Ull Pont, ‘El sufragio universal en España (1890–1936),’ Revista de Estudios Políticos, 208/209 (1967), pp. 114–5.
39 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 57a Reunión, 4a Sesión de Prórroga, 6 Nov. 1911, pp. 113 and 114–6.
40 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 58a Reunión, 8 Nov. 1911, p. 150.
41 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 67a Reunión, 29 Nov. 1911, p. 503 (my translation).
42 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 57a Reunión, 4a Sesión de Prórroga, 6 Nov. 1911, pp. 127 and 129; Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 58a Reunión, 8 Nov. 1911, p. 155.
43 Mario Justo López, ‘La nueva ley electoral’, pp. 254 and 286.
44 This clause became Article 85 of Law #8871. See Diario de Sesiones del Senado, Continuación de la 21a Sesión de Prórroga, 7 Feb. 1912, p. 377.
45 Darío Canton, ‘El sufragio universal’, p. 17.
46 Quoted in Exequiel César Ortega, ¿Quiera el pueblo votar?: historia electoral argentina, desde la Revolución de Mayo a la ley Sáenz Peña, 1810–1912 (Bahía Blanca, Argentina: V. M. Giner, 1963), p. 595 (my translation).
47 Díaz, Ley Sáenz Peña, p. 75.
48 Roque Sáenz Peña, Escritos y discursos, vol. 2 (Buenos Aires: Casa Jacobo Peuser, 1935), p. 48.
49 Diario de Sesiones del Senado, Continuación de la 21a Sesión de Prórroga, 2 Feb. 1912, p. 320.
50 Ramón Cárcano, José Fonrouge, Indalecio Gómez, Joaquín V. González, Carlos Ibarguren, Ezequiel Ramos Mejía, Adolfo Mugica, etc.
51 Devoto, ‘De nuevo el acontecimiento’, p. 111.
52 Alonso, Between Revolution and the Ballot Box, pp. 161–2. Alonso refutes this view with data for Buenos Aires, the wealthiest city in the country and one that policymakers frequently named when they lamented that the rich did not vote.
53 First extract from Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 57a Reunión, 4a Sesión de Prórroga, 6 Nov. 1911, p. 133; second extract from Diario de Sesiones del Senado, Continuación de la 21a Sesión de Prórroga, 3 Feb. 1912, p. 346 (my translation).
54 This information was available to decision-makers and mentioned in the congressional debate.
55 Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Diputados, Acta de la 88a Reunión, 12a Sesión de Prórroga, 8 Feb. 1912, pp. 551–5.
56 See Ana Virginia Persello and Luciano de Privitellio, ‘La reforma y las reformas: la cuestión electoral en el Congreso (1912-1930)’, in Lilia Ana Bertoni and Luciano de Privitellio (eds.), Conflictos en democracia: la vida política argentina entre dos siglos (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2009), pp. 89–122.
57 Illiterates had a long history of electoral participation in Argentina, especially through their enmeshment in clientelistic networks, and they continued to vote after the Sáenz Peña Law came into force – their turnout was not hampered by the provisions for voting secrecy because the ballots could be legally obtained from party operatives ahead of election day or before arrival at the polling station. Analyses of the first elections after the RSP reform show that, just like in the past, Conservative forces drew heavily on illiterate constituencies. See Noam Lupu and Susan C. Stokes, ‘The Social Bases of Political Parties in Argentina, 1912–2003’, Latin American Research Review, 44: 1 (2009), pp. 58–87.
58 For the safeguards in place, see Botana, El orden conservador, pp. 16 and 299–300.
59 Leguizamón, La abdicación conservadora, chap. 16.
60 Óscar Cornblit, ‘La opción conservadora en la política argentina’, Desarrollo Económico, 14: 56 (1975), p. 627; Gibson, Class and Conservative Parties, p. 50.
61 Díaz, Ley Sáenz Peña, pp. 91–2; Botana, El orden conservador, pp. 330–1.
62 Canton, ‘El sufragio universal’, p. 27.
63 Law #12298: https://www.argentina.gob.ar/normativa/nacional/ley-12298-294300.
64 Timothy R. Scully, Rethinking the Center: Party Politics in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Chile (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), chap. 3.
65 Erika Maza Valenzuela, ‘Catolicismo, anticlericalismo y la extensión del sufragio a la mujer en Chile’, Estudios Públicos, 58 (1995), pp. 196–7.
66 Brian Loveman, Struggle in the Countryside: Politics and Rural Labor in Chile, 1919–1973 (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1976), p. 197.
67 Scully, Rethinking the Center, p. 111.
68 Robert E. Kaufman, The Politics of Land Reform in Chile, 1950–1970 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 25–6.
69 Scully, Rethinking the Center, pp. 131 and 133.
70 An official ballot that lists all parties/candidates for an office in a single format. It is produced by the electoral authorities and distributed through guarded channels on or close to election day, thus providing superior protection of voting secrecy.
71 And sure enough, it did. The cédula única further loosened the Right’s hold over the peasant vote, as its champions had reportedly intended. See Jean-Marie Baland and James Robinson, ‘Land and Power: Theory and Evidence from Chile’, American Economic Review, 98: 5 (2008), pp. 1749 and 1761.
72 Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional (BCN-Ch), Historia de la Ley 12889 (D. Oficial, 31 Mayo, 1958) Ley General de Elecciones (Santiago, Chile: BCN-Ch, 2004), p.1004 (my translation).
73 BCN-Ch, Historia de la Ley 12889, p. 1187 (my translation).
74 Ibid., pp. 1179–80. Electoral participation was indeed weak. For instance, in presidential elections from 1932 to the late 1950s, mean turnout was 30 per cent of eligible citizens. See Ricardo Cruz-Coke, Historia electoral de Chile, 1925–1973 (Santiago, Chile: Editorial Jurídica de Chile, 1984), pp. 37 and 41.
75 In addition to the references in footnote #11, see the Chilean Congress website https://www.bcn.cl/historiapolitica/elecciones/detalle_eleccion?handle=10221.1/63071&periodo=1925-1973; J. Samuel Valenzuela, ‘The Origins and Transformations of the Chilean Party System’, Kellogg Institute Working Paper No. 215, December 1995, pp. 45 and 60.
76 Jaime Antonio Etchepare Jensen, ‘Ibáñez y su revolución de 1952’, Política, 26 (1991), p. 93.
77 Arturo Valenzuela, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Chile (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), pp. 28–33
78 Allende got 36.2 per cent of the vote and Jorge Alessandri 34.9 per cent. Since no candidate had obtained an absolute majority, Congress had to choose the president. Ultimately, the Christian Democrats proved critical to Allende’s ratification. See BCN-Ch, ‘Elecciones presidenciales de 1970’, 9 April 1970: https://www.bcn.cl/historiapolitica/elecciones/detalle_eleccion?handle=10221.1/63763&periodo=1925-1973.
79 J. Samuel Valenzuela, ‘La Constitución de 1980 y el inicio de la redemocratización en Chile’, Kellogg Institute Working Paper No. 242, Sept. 1997, p. 2.
80 The Ortúzar Commission was then made up of conservative lawyers and scholars, representatives of the right-wing parties, and a few Radicals and Christian Democrats that had supported the coup.
81 BCN-Ch, Actas de la Comisión Ortúzar, Tomo II: Actas Oficiales de la Comisión Constituyente, Sesión 73a, 26 Sept. 1974, p. 559 (my translation): https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/consulta/antecedentes_const_1980.
82 Actas Oficiales de la Comisión Constituyente, Sesión 73a, pp. 561–2.
83 Ibid., p. 560 (my translation) and p. 564.
84 BCN-Ch, Actas de la Comisión Ortúzar, Tomo II: Actas Oficiales de la Comisión Constituyente, Sesión 74a, 30 Sept. 1974, pp. 570–1: https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/consulta/antecedentes_const_1980.
85 BCN-Ch, Actas del Consejo de Estado, Sesión 58a, 12 Dec. 1978: https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=recursoslegales/10221.3/31325/4/Sesion58.pdf.
86 At the time, one UTM was equivalent to US$30.
87 It bears mention that there were allegations of fraud against the military government itself on account of its conduct of the 1978 consultation and the 1980 constitutional plebiscite.
88 BCN-Ch, Actas de la Comisión Ortúzar, Tomo II: Actas Oficiales de la Comisión Constituyente, Sesión 83a, 31 Oct. 1974, p. 853: https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/consulta/antecedentes_const_1980. With automatic registration, citizens do not need to file a specific application to be listed on the electoral rolls; the state simply extracts their names and relevant data from a general population registry.
89 BCN-Ch, Actas de la Comisión Ortúzar, Tomo III: Actas Oficiales de la Comisión Constituyente, Sesión 115a, 22 April 1975, pp. 970–4; BCN-Ch, Actas de la Comisión Ortúzar, Tomo XI: Actas Oficiales de la Comisión de Estudio de la Nueva Constitución Política de la República, Sesión 411a, 6 Sept. 1978, p. 1024. Both available at: https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/consulta/antecedentes_const_1980
90 The incumbent may have ultimately deemed voluntary registration advantageous for the plebiscite. See Patricio Navia, ‘Participación electoral en Chile, 1988–2001’, Revista de Ciencia Política, 24: 1 (2004), p. 89.
91 See Tiffany D. Barnes and Gabriela Rangel, ‘Election Law Reform in Chile: The Implementation of Automatic Registration and Voluntary Voting’, Election Law Journal, 13: 4 (2014), pp. 570–82.
92 See, for instance, BCN-Ch, Actas Oficiales del Consejo de Estado, Sesión 67a, 27 March 1979: https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/consulta/antecedentes_const_1980.
93 Robert H. Dix, The Politics of Colombia (New York: Praeger, 1987), chaps. 1–4.
94 For an overview, see Robert A. Karl, Forgotten Peace: Reform, Violence, and the Making of Contemporary Colombia (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017).
95 The ANAPO’s vote share dropped sharply after that contest and it faded away. See Juan Jaramillo and Beatriz Franco-Cuervo, ‘Colombia’, in Dieter Nohlen (ed.), Elections in the Americas: A Data Handbook, vol. 2: South America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 297.
96 Jonathan Hartlyn and John Dugas, ‘Colombia: The Politics of Violence and Democratic Transformation’, in Larry Diamond et al. (eds.), Democracy in Developing Countries: Latin America, 2nd edition (Boulder, CO, and London: Lynne Rienner, 1999), p. 259.
97 Ronald P. Archer, ‘Party Strength and Weakness in Colombia’s Besieged Democracy’, in Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully (eds), Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 192–4.
98 It pulled in 26.82 per cent of the vote, doing much better than the Conservative Party. The Liberals had fielded multiple different slates, so it was only their joint vote share, 28.38 per cent, that put them ahead of the AD-M19. See Base de Datos Políticos de las Américas, ‘Colombia: elecciones para Asamblea Constitucional de 1990’, Georgetown University (1999): https://pdba.georgetown.edu/Elecdata/Col/coelasa.html.
99 Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ‘Comisión Primera, informe de la Subcomisión Tercera’, 10 April 1991, pp. 33, 37, 47 and 77: https://babel.banrepcultural.org/digital/collection/p17054coll28/id/270; Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ‘Informe de la sesión de la Comisión Primera del 3 de mayo de 1991’, pp. 22–4: https://babel.banrepcultural.org/digital/collection/p17054coll28/id/36; Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ‘Informe de la sesión plenaria del 11 de febrero de 1991’, pp. 37–42: https://babel.banrepcultural.org/digital/collection/p17054coll28/id/65/rec/8
100 Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ‘Proyecto de acto reformatorio de la Constitución Política de Colombia no. 50, presentado por el Delegatario Antonio Navarro Wolff y otros’, 7 March 1991: https://babel.banrepcultural.org/digital/collection/p17054coll28/id/470; Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ‘Informe de la sesión de la Comisión Primera del 3 de mayo de 1991’, p. 24.
101 See, for example, Otty Patiño Hormaza’s remarks in Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ‘Informe de la sesión plenaria del 18 de junio de 1991’, p. 253: https://babel.banrepcultural.org/digital/collection/p17054coll28/id/187/rec/61.
102 Asamblea Nacional Constituyente, ‘Democracia participativa, reforma y pedagogía de la Constitución. Ponencia: Subcomisión Tercera’, 21 May 1991, pp. 38–9: https://babel.banrepcultural.org/digital/collection/p17054coll28/id/249/rec/3
103 Hartlyn and Dugas, ‘Colombia: The Politics of Violence and Democratic Transformation’, p. 290.
104 Several explanations have been suggested. See, for example, El Tiempo, ‘AD-M19: Todos en el suelo…’, El Tiempo, 20 March 1994: https://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-79666; Lawrence Boudon, ‘Colombia’s M-19 Democratic Alliance: A Case Study in New-Party Self-Destruction’, Latin American Perspectives, 28: 1 (2001), pp. 73–92.
105 Steven L. Taylor, Voting Amid Violence: Electoral Democracy in Colombia (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2009), chap. 6.
106 Elisabeth Ungar, ‘Lo bueno, lo malo y lo feo del voto obligatorio en Colombia: un debate inconcluso’, in Arturo Fontaine et al. (eds.), Modernización del régimen electoral chileno (Santiago, Chile: PNUD, 2007), pp. 211–7. In some locales, armed groups coerced citizens to abstain, and although none of the CV proposals attempted to justify it as a remedy for this serious issue – and rightly so – none of them gave it proper consideration either.
107 See, for example, Corte Constitucional de Colombia, Sentencia C-551-03, p. 175: https://www.corteconstitucional.gov.co/relatoria/2003/C-551-03.htm.
108 Registrador Nacional del Estado Civil de la República de Colombia, ‘Oficio del 28 de marzo de 2011 enviado al Magistrado Sustanciador de la Corte Constitucional, Expediente PE-031’, Archivo de la Registraduría Nacional, Bogotá.
109 Hartlyn and Dugas, ‘Colombia: The Politics of Violence and Democratic Transformation’, p. 275.
110 David Bushnell, Colombia: una nación a pesar de sí misma (Bogotá: Planeta, 2004), chaps. 3–5.
111 Karina Cendon Bóveda, ‘Making People Vote’, pp. 845–50; ‘Compulsory Voting’.
112 Chris Ballinger (ed.), Democracy and Voting (London: Hansard Society, 2006); John C. Courtney and Drew Wilby, ‘The Debate about Compulsory Voting’, Canadian Parliamentary Review, 30: 4 (2007), pp. 42–6; E. J. Dionne Jr and Miles Rapoport, 100% Democracy: The Case for Universal Voting (New York: The New Press, 2022).
113 Roberto S. Foa et al., ‘The Global Satisfaction with Democracy Report 2020ʹ, Centre for the Future of Democracy, Cambridge, UK, January 2020.