All the people saying mandatory voting is bad are misinformed. It is essential for democracy, and should be applied everywhere.
Australia has mandatory voter turnout, but you do not need to submit a vote. You just need to show up on polling day.
Everyone has political interests and needs to be politically represented, but some people are too tired after work to take themselves to the polling centre. Others are incarcerated. If anything, those people are more in need of political representatives.
American conservatives spend billions trying to prevent poor overworked people from reaching polling places or exercising their right to vote. Mandatory voting prevents that.
Make no mistake, Australian democracy is healtheir than whatever clusterfuck in going on in the US.
Not only that, but Australia's actual ballot is leagues better, too. Ranked ballots are a great way to weaken (unfortunately not eliminate) the two party system, which is unfortunately also the reason the United States will never see anything like it. (At least not in the foreseeable future.)
Yeah we do have single member seats in the lower house though which is a completely broken system.
Most of Europe recognises that, our frienemies across the ditch recognise that.
Consensus seeking and coalitions are much more representative forms of government than single member winner takes all seats.
Yep, this is why the Senate is much more representative, and why the big parties who control the House of Representatives hate it so much.
Whether mandatory voting is bad or not, certainly it's way better than the American situation, where one particular party's strategy to win elections is to discourage and actively prevent people from voting. In Australia, every political party seeks to win by collecting votes.
Yeah I hate the fact that one party’s strategy is actively invalidating votes for one of the candidates.
I don't pay too much attention to Australian politics, but whenever I see headlines it's always something like "MP literally destroying the barrier reef with his own bare hands" or "Corruption whistleblower sentenced to one thousand years in jail"
The important thing to note is: Australia has a genuinely solid chance of removing the right-wing nutjobs / spineless centrist two-party system BECAUSE of mandatory voting. Young people in USA have appalling voter turn out. But young people in Australia are seriously turning the tides. See the results by age group for the 2019 election. The boomers are still voting in right-wing nutjobs (Liberal party), most groups have strong centrist representation (Labor), and Gen Z are bringing in a third, non-major, left-aligned party (Greens). It brings so much hope for younger generations and the fact that voting doesn't feel futile.
Things like "MP approves funding for new hospital" don't make headlines. Even moreso for any world headlines to rise above the din of American politics it usually has to be something pretty outrageous.
It’s because you do hear about it. We recently had an mp forced to retire because they could control policy over something his mother has shares in.
Australia has mandatory voter turnout, but you do not need to submit a vote. You just need to show up on polling day.
So just to clear up a technical misconception here - the wording in the Electoral Act is quite clear. All enrolled electors are legally required to vote. It's only a consequence of the secret ballot that makes this provision unenforceable, so someone can turn up and get their name marked off while not submitting a vote without facing any consequences, but it is technically an illegal act.
If the AEC were to come up with some way to determine that you didn't vote without betraying that secret ballot, they would be within their rights to issue a you a fine.
When you go to vote they check you off on either a physical or digital list - so they can work out who didn't vote. What they can't work out is whether you submitted a legit ballot
I'm using 'didn't vote' to include submitting an empty ballot, which for the purposes of the Electoral Act, is the same thing.
"Should be mandatory everywhere" ima stop you right there, I couldn't give a single flying fuck about politics so having to vote results in me showing up not caring because I don't want a fine and I'll vote for a random candidate which will result in just picking a name out of a hat if an entire country did it
You don't have to vote in Australia. You just have to show up so it proves you were able to vote without impediment if you so choose to. You could draw a penis on it if you even could be bothered.
Voting typically takes place over a weekend in Australia and you have plenty of time to do it. You can also postal vote or absentee vote in advance fairly easily if you wish too. Polling places are literally like every school so there's always one nearby too.
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Spoiling your ballot is an established and documented form of political protest. Nothing says "fuck all these chumps" like drawing a big cock and balls on the ballot.
If a person is too tired to vote that means resting is more important to them than voting. Forcing that person to vote is invalidating their own prioritization.
IDGAF if they're so selfish as to prioritize a moment of wellbeing over civic duty. So yeah, I'm invalidating them.
If their civid duty requires them to sacrifice their health, the civic duty is misconstrued.
Are you talking about feeling too tired to spend 20 minutes voting 3 times every 4 years or cutting out your own heart to give to someone?
Cause in the the latter case I agree and in the former I say buck up mate, we live in a society and that means doing stuff for people when we don't always feel like it.
Voting quality doesn’t improve with greater turnout. There’s a duty here, if we declare it to be such, but it yields no benefit.
So firstly that is a non sequitur. Either we are talking about whether the sacrifice demanded is unethically steep or we are talking whether the initiative is ineffective.
Lets put that aside though, just making a note this is a separate point to explore.
I would first ask what you mean by voting quality. Could you explain?
They mean some people shouldn't vote because their opinion is low quality and should be ignored. It's an anti democratic belief that the stupid/misinformed shouldn't vote.
Found this online:
According to the Australian Electoral Commission, the decline in voter turnout was the driving force behind the introduction of mandatory voting. It said that voter turnout dropped from 71 per cent in the 1919 election to less than 60 per cent in the 1922 elections.
In order to address the problem, a private member’s bill to amend the Electoral Act was introduced in the Senate in 1924. At the time, it was only the third private member’s bill to be passed into law since 1901.
As a result of the law, the voter turnout at the 1925 election rose to over 91 per cent.
Gradually, states across the country introduced compulsory voting starting from Victoria in 1926, New South Wales and Tasmania in 1928, Western Australia in 1936 and South Australia in 1942.
When enrollment and voting at federal elections was introduced for Australian Aborigines in 1949 it was voluntary, and continued to be so until 1984 when enrollment and voting became compulsory for all eligible electors.
Maybe it should be mandatory in the US. It would make voter suppression harder, if not impossible.
Follow-up question: If voting is mandatory, but you don't want to vote for any of the parties, what are you expected to do?
You go to vote and invalidate the ballot. Mark none or all of the boxes or write 'fu' on it. It's not that hard.
Isn't that illegal? I think it's legal in the UK though, someone told me it's tradition to draw a big cross on the whole ballot paper and they actually count no-votes as distinct from non-votes, or something like that.
How do you think they would verify or sanction an invalid ballot? Given that voting is secret and therefore there's logically no personal information on the ballot, this would be rather tricky - or extremely worrisome for democracy. ;) So no, it's definitely not illegal in any somewhat democratic nation. And yes, most countries do count invalid votes separately. This can be an important indicator that something went wrong. Eg if suddenly all districts report much higher numbers of invalid ballots, something might have gone wrong in the counting process or just the ballot design might be too confusing. Definitely worth looking into, though. And if a single district shows an unusual count of invalid ballots compared to others, that also is worth looking into.
Many that intentionally vote invalid claim to do so to show their frustration with all party options. However, this hurts democracy. Even if do not love or even like any of the parties/candidates, you still should vote.
Vote for the "least of the bad". A vote for a democratic candidate that has a boring mix of policies planned that you don't fully support is still a lot better than anything on the other end of the spectrum, with radical extremists working to undermine society or democracy itself. By voting invalid, your missing vote ends up being "shared" by everyone, and I'm certain there's some on the list that you really don't want to even have the tiniest shred of your vote.
This issue for me personally is that it’s still a choice between a douche and turd sandwich. I don’t think our political system is anything to write home about.
But to answer this, I have to go to the polling station, get my name marked off a list by some delusional person, go into a booth and hope that someone appreciates the quality of the veiny dick and balls improving over the years when they unwrap the origami that is my ballot paper.
Nice South Park reference! I guess you probably haven't been penalised in any way or you'd know, so you can probably can get away with that. But isn't it technically illegal to not cast a proper vote in Australia? (I think compulsory voting is stupid so I don't blame you btw)
Another way for conservatives to warehouse people who voted against them in prisons? I'm surprised it's not already law.
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The idea gets raised periodically here, especially since the huge drop in turnout starting in 1997.
There's a Research Briefing on it in the Commons Library.
I haven't read it but it's a terrible idea. Just another way for the parties to avoid having to offer anything worth voting for.
Not really. Plus we have alot more independents/minor parties due to our preferential voting system that people can vote for. What it does is forces people to are more about politics and policy
I haven't read it but it's a terrible idea.
"Yeah sure I don't know what I'm talking about, but here's my strong opinion anyways"
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I haven't read this specific report, that doesn't mean I'm making shit up on the spot.
No one has yet explained why Australia has a far-right party called Liberal and a centre-right party called Labor. Compulsory voting is why, IMO.
FYI: eagles don't really scream. That fake scream from movies/tv, etc. is from a red tailed hawk.
It's easier to get a recording of a hawk that never shuts up. Eagles let out a screech too, but not often. Try stealing a fish from a bald eagle. Bring a tape recorder...and some bandages.