In politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

, voter fatigue is the apathy

Voter apathy

In politics, voter apathy is a term used to describe a perceived apathy among voters in an election. Voter apathy is often cited as a cause of low turnout among eligible voters....

 that the electorate can experience when they are required to vote too often.

It is often used as a criticism of the direct democracy

Direct democracy

Direct democracy is a form of government in which people vote on policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then vote on policy initiatives. Direct democracy is classically termed "pure democracy"...

 system, in which voters are constantly asked to decide on policy via referenda

Referendum

A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...

. However, proponents often counter that voter fatigue may be lessened by direct democracy as voters will feel their vote has more effect.

Voter fatigue can cause notoriously low voter turnout

Voter turnout

Voter turnout is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election . After increasing for many decades, there has been a trend of decreasing voter turnout in most established democracies since the 1960s...

 rates, and potentially more protest vote

Protest vote

A protest vote is a vote cast in an election to demonstrate the caster's unhappiness with the choice of candidates or refusal of the current political system...

, and supposedly occurs for a variety of reasons:

• voters are not interested in the issue.
• voters are bothered by the inconvenience of physically voting.
• voters feel their vote will not count / the election has "already been won" by one side.
• voters feel that it is not worth their while to educate themselves as to the issues and hence their vote would not be worth making. This is related to the concept of rational ignorance
  Rational ignorance
  Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide.Ignorance about an issue is said to be "rational" when the cost of educating oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh any...
  
  .
• voters have to vote for too many institutions (too often).

Amongst the methods that can be used to combat voter fatigue are:

• Making it mandatory to vote, as e.g. in Australia
  Australian electoral system
  The Australian electoral system has evolved over nearly 150 years of continuous democratic government, and has a number of distinctive features including compulsory voting, preferential voting and the use of proportional voting to elect the upper house, the Australian Senate.- Compulsory voting...
  
  , Belgium
  Elections in Belgium
  Elections in Belgium gives information on election and election results in Belgium.Belgium elects its bicameral federal legislature, the Federal Parliament Elections in Belgium gives information on election and election results in Belgium.Belgium elects its bicameral federal legislature, the...
  
   or Brazil
  Elections in Brazil
  Brazil elects on the national level a head of state – the president – and a legislature. The president is elected to a four-year term by the people. The National Congress has two chambers. The Chamber of Deputies has 513 members, elected to a four-year term by proportional...
  
  .
• Using sortition
  Sortition
  In politics, sortition is the selection of decision makers by lottery. The decision-makers are chosen as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates....
  
   to choose those eligible to vote (thus increasing the worth of a single vote).
• E-democracy
  E-democracy
  E-democracy refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes...
  
  , proxy voting
  Proxy voting
  Proxy voting has two forms: delegable voting and delegated voting, which are procedures for the delegation to another member of a voting body of that member's power to vote in his absence, and/or for the selection of additional representatives, as in the case with transitive proxies...
  
   and delegated voting.