24th November, 2007
LULZ DEMOCRACY!
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LABOUR WON!
Ugh, my district friggin’ sucks in terms of representatives. For the House of Reps, out of the seven choices, one was some Christian party and another was Family First. >
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And I for one welcome our new overlords.
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Wow
So, you vote on Saturdays? Does that lead to high voter turnout or no?
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Like ~Mat [h] said, voting isn’t considered a ‘right’ here; it’s a responsibility that you’re obligated to perform if you want to have a democracy. Okay, well technically all you have to do is show up and get your name marked off; you don’t have to cast a valid vote after you get to the polling station, but since you’re there anyway most people have a go at it.
The aim is to reduce the influence of organised interest groups (e.g. the way the Christian Right currently influences politics in the US). The AEC is a federal office that coordinates voting everywhere, so it’s all standardised all over Australia. They go to some extraordinary lengths to make sure everyone gets a vote, too, since there are some extremely remote areas here. So it doesn’t matter if you’re homeless, live in a cave, a felon, about to die, overseas, whatever; you vote.
That’s also why they hold it on a weekend, but early polling areas are open for a couple of weeks up to the election; I voted last Wednesday, for example, just because there was one across the road from my work. You actually have to try pretty hard not to vote here, and then the AEC slaps you with a $50, “Stop being an idiot, this isn’t America” fine.
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In soviet Australia, you get fined for not voting. Its not optional so turnout is near 100%
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I believe they enforce a similar thing in Belgium.
My mum’s partner, who has been a UK resident for about 6 years now but was originally from Belgium, still gets sent her paperwork to vote and she has to get relatives over there to do it by proxy to avoid a fine.
A tad ridiculous I think.
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Compulsory voting is
and you’ll never convince me otherwise. 
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Oh, I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea of compulsory voting. I think it should be enforced in the UK. However, I don’t see the point in forcing someone who doesn’t even live in the country to vote on things that aren’t going to affect them.