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In order words, why is voting mandatory in Australia, but not UK, US, Canada or New Zealand?
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)
You’re probably right and I assume the same. And as you can tell, I’m not invested enough in our system to go look up any particulars. If they could find me out without compromising the system I’m sure I’d be hit with the fine. Of course, plenty of ballots aren’t counted because they are not marked correctly. I doubt I’ll ever read a news story about someone being fined because they couldn’t follow the ballot instruction.
When they move to electronic voting systems only all I’ll be able to do is be caught fucking it. 😞
The lengths they have me go.. I tell you!!
Hahah!!
Another way for conservatives to warehouse people who voted against them in prisons? I'm surprised it's not already law.
Mandatory voting would include prisoners.
Not in the US, conservatives would make not voting a felony and use it disenfranchise people, otherwise it would never become law to begin with.
Guess why it's not a law already.
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.
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"
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.