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I’ll never understand the adoration of politicians in America. The rallies, the banners, the concert style appearances, tshirts, celebrity endorsements. Can you imaging such a thing for Albo, Dutton or anyone in Aus? I greatly prefer our attitude - view them all with a healthy disdain and vote for the one you least dislike.
I think not having compulsory voting is part of it because they really have to put on a show to get you motivated to vote.
That's exactly it. If they had compulsory voting, their campaigns wouldn't be so unhinged, as they're trying to convince people to vote in the first place, let alone vote for them
This was mentioned in the book 'From secret ballot to democracy sausage'. Compulsory voting pulls politics towards the centre because you have to appeal to everyone.
Another outlier we have is preferential voting, whichgives smaller parties an opportunity to participate without eating into majorities.
And yeah, it strikes me as weird how they have those massive conventions over in the states, they're like Comicon for the worst and most boring people. And that people will say they don't like politics, then be ride or die for someone like Trump