Quebec Turnout Offers Sharp Contrast to U.S. : Elections: Experts agree on why Americans are less inclined to vote. But they don’t have a firm answer of how to change it.

The numbers from Quebec were stunning. In last week’s momentous election on the fate of the predominantly French-speaking province, 93.5% of eligible voters cast ballots.

Since almost all Quebec citizens are registered to vote, that meant that nearly all voting-age residents there went to the polls. Some stood in line for up to two hours, braving snow flurries and temperatures in the 30s.

The question of whether Quebec would separate from the rest of Canada, of course, was especially dramatic. Still, the turnout cast America’s voting figures in bold relief.

In 1994, less than 39% of the voting-age population in the United States cast general election ballots--and that was up from 36.5% in the off-year congressional elections of 1990, according to the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. Even for the 1992 presidential contest, turnout was a mere 55.2% of the voting-age populace, though that too was up from 50.1% in 1988.

Political and social scientists who have studied the issue agree on a number of things: that non-voters are responding to a general softening of the community ties and social compacts that compelled us to vote in the past; that younger people, the less educated and those making less money tend to vote proportionately less; and that there are small, but still arguable changes in public policy that can result from so large a portion of the electorate opting out.

Few of the academics believe that the recent turnout upticks signify a trend. They do not, however, have a firm answer to the most obvious question: What to do about it?

To be sure, there are some generally acknowledged solutions. Make registration easier, for one. Educate potential voters, for another. But even the most optimistic political scientists would be floored if any such changes radically altered the status quo among non-voting America.

It has not always been thus. In specific periods in the nation’s history, turnout has inched toward the Canadian standard. But for the last three decades--with slight exceptions--turnout has been on a steady downward trend.

“America is not a country of people who have ever been in love with government, period,” said California Secretary of State Bill Jones, who is in charge of the state’s elections. “The whole country is based on a kind of anti-government approach from the start.”

Other democracies not only have different heritages, they have far different voter-registration systems. In Canada, Britain and many European countries, for example, the government takes the initiative to register citizens to vote--whereas in the United States, citizens must seek out registration. In Quebec, government enumerators go door-to-door to register voters, leaving instructions for those who are not home.

In Australia, non-voting is punishable by a fine. In Belgium, newborns are issued a registration card that is forwarded to them on their 18th birthdays. In other European nations, voting is required by law, according to Steve Bennett, a University of Cincinnati political science professor who has studied non-voters for years.

Turnouts in these other nations are tremendously higher than here, according to a study by the University of Houston’s Raymond Duch cited in Ruy Teixeira’s 1992 book, “The Disappearing American Voter.”

Averaging elections from 1980-89, Duch found that turnout in Belgium was 94%, in Austria 92%, in Australia 90%. Even in France, where the voter registration system most closely approximates that in the United States, turnout averaged 70%. During the same period, the United States averaged 53%.

But some of the tactics employed in other nations to achieve high turnout raise troubling questions. How appropriate is it, really, to force people to vote?

Paul Abramson, a Michigan State University professor, argues that it is an individual’s responsibility to vote, and that cannot be commanded.

“It should be made easy to register and to vote,” he said. “But requiring people to vote is undemocratic. You have just as much right not to vote as to vote.”