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.
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?
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”
