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In Australia voting is mandatory. If you're registered to vote and you don't you can get fined. If no one is registered to vote at your address you'll tend to g

by cletus 16y ago

In Australia voting is mandatory. If you're registered to vote and you don't you can get fined. If no one is registered to vote at your address you'll tend to get lots of mail about it (but ultimately, staying off the electoral roll isn't difficult). I used to think this was a bad idea as it forced people to vote who didn't really care. In recent years I've come around to the opposite point of view based pretty much entirely on how badly voluntary voting in the US works. When voting is voluntary there is an incentive with certain groups to dissuade, discourage or simply make it difficult for others to vote. In US elections there have been cases of bribing homeless people to vote with cigarettes or alcohol. Getting into vote can be difficult with long lines. In Australia pretty much all these problems go away because you have to vote and the AEC (Australian Elecotral Commission) has to provide enough capacity to do so so, unless you go in the first hour or two of the morning, you can typically be in and out in 5-10 minutes tops. Politicians love an apathetic population. So by all means go out and vote.

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
And for those who complain about not having the right to abstain, you can get the same effect by turning up and spoiling your ballot paper. You can even make a show of doing it so that everyone can see you're deliberately not casting a valid vote. That makes more of a point that staying home and being invisible.
- andrew1 16y ago
  It might be a similar effect but it's not the same effect. There's a definite difference between wanting to say that you are making the effort to take part in the electoral process but that you don't want to lend your support to any of the candidates; and for whatever reason not correctly filling out the ballot paper. If nothing else it makes for a much more interesting statistic, spoiled ballot papers tell you nothing about the intent of the voter, a 'none of the above' option would help with that.
- joelhaasnoot 16y ago
  This is actually legal in the Netherlands: just turn in a blank ballot.
  - jozo 16y ago
    In Sweden you can vote for whatever you want. It's quite humorous to read the results of these votes after the election, when they are published online. Normally this would be used by new parties who can't afford distributing printed ballots. Being Sweden someone of course had the xkcd-inspired(?) idea to try XSS and SQL-injection. http://alicebobandmallory.com/articles/2010/09/23/did-little-bobby-tables-migrate-to-sweden http://alicebobandmallory.com/articles/2010/09/23/did-little...
- Semiapies 16y ago
  "You can even make a show of doing it" Why should I be forced to show up for your voting-day entertainment?
  - MikeCapone 16y ago
    Good point, but of ALL the things we are forced to do in Western societies, compulsory voting would probably be pretty low on the list of things I'd want to see go away.
    - Semiapies 16y ago
      Thank you, but you respond with no point. You're saying that I should be forced to do something, or else fined or possibly even put in jail for not doing so...but you don't even justify why you're willing to do that to me. If you support my right to write-in Mickey Mouse or select "None of the Above" or void my vote, then you're saying nothing more than that you like people being punished for not filling out what you acknowledge to be meaningless paperwork. (Also, last I checked, there's more than one "Western society" that doesn't have compulsory voting.)
nikcub 16y ago
I always believed that not voting is also a vote, but you are fined in Australia if you do not show up and cast your ballot. The only way to say 'none of the above' is by filing an informal vote. This is a de-facto way of saying that you don't like any of the options, and at least in Australia this informal vote is tracked and parties take notice of it. In the USA if you vote to not vote, Washington bundles you in with everybody else and assumes that you have no interest. The ideal solution would be a) Voting is mandatory, but with a formal 'none of the above' option b) Voting is not mandatory, but representation is allocated based on what portion of total people voted for you, not allocated based on the portion of the total vote. (ie. if in one state all 25M people voted, they should get 5 representatives in congress, while if in another state of 50M people only 5M votes, they should only get 1 seat in congress) With a quota based system based on proportion of population congress/parliament would then be a true representation. It is the only way to reflect the will of the entire population, meaning that those who choose to stay at home can no longer be ignored.
- mbreese 16y ago
  Option B would be pretty interesting, and might provide a decent incentive for people to vote. However, if people aren't likely to vote anyway, why would they care how much representation they have in Congress? We effectively do have a "none of the above" option: don't select anyone and still cast the ballot. However, it would be better if there was an explicit "No vote" option. The biggest problem with voting not being mandatory is that a lot of people don't have the opportunity because they can't get off work. If you made voting mandatory (or at least made election day a paid holiday), this impediment might be alleviated.
  - paradoja 16y ago
    «The biggest problem with voting not being mandatory is that a lot of people don't have the opportunity because they can't get off work. If you made voting mandatory (or at least made election day a paid holiday), this impediment might be alleviated.» An alternative, as it's done in Spain, is to give everyone the right to leave their jobs in order to vote. To alleviate things for businesses, all elections happen on Sundays.
mahmud 16y ago
I am Yank, Arab and Somali (I hold three passports) and I will soon be an Aussie, via marriage. I have spent a year in Australia. My feeling is that Aussies are not really as political as Americans. American voting is under-informed and has low turn out, but at least the few percentage of electorate that vote actually care. Aussies .. I am not sure if they don't care, or if they're just good at hiding their political views. It's far easier to speak to an American and learn about his/her political stances. Aussies are much more opaque, in my experience, and seem to be equally resentful of all politicians. For all their bureaucracy, Aussies are far more anarchic and egalitarian than any other nation that I am familiar with, except maybe Somalis. Australians, at least the ones in NSW that I have come to know, consider the government and politicians "a bunch of wankers". They're very pessimistic about the people they elect; which is both nice, and also harmful. Having said that .. Aussie Aussie Aussie! [Edit: People should harden the fuck up and visit Australia; everyone should live there at least once. Just thinking about that place brings a smile to my face. They're a nation of good-natured jokers, thoroughly beautiful I tell ya. But be prepared to be bull-shat left and right; you will have a hard time if you're a self-righteous prick]
- dools 16y ago
  I think you'll find that people in NSW wholly consider the state government to be mindless wankers, because they are. State governments all over Australia are completely inept. Most people will have someone in Federal politics that they like, though and I think the view generally of Federal politics is far less cynical, and where true political allegiances come to light.
- RuadhanMc 16y ago
  Australian's by and large are not very ideological. With the exception of the Green's movement, there isn't really another "issues" political group that gets much attention -- or members. Politicians are a bunch of wankers. They wouldn't be politicians if they weren't. I don't mean that in a really bad way, I just mean, being a successful politician takes a certain personality type. If you aren't rough as guts, a bit of a prick and full of yourself, you won't survive in Australian politics. As for compulsory voting, I dig it. You should too.
imeikas 16y ago
In Estonia you can vote from almost anywhere if you have ID-card and working internet connection. It's really convenient and people are using this more and more. For example last elections 15.75% of votes were made using internet. Official statistics can be found from http://vvk.ee/voting-methods-in-estonia/engindex http://vvk.ee/voting-methods-in-estonia/engindex Also there are talks that they want to enable voting with mobile phones (there are already solutions where you can log in to banks and other websites with mobile phones).
- bali 16y ago
  This is even much better than to penalize. Why isn't there a startup helping the government? :) http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/23/the-goldmine-of-opportunities-in-gov-2-0/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/23/the-goldmine-of-opportuniti...
- mahmud 16y ago
  In Estonia you can vote from almost anywhere if you have ID-card and working internet connection. By any chance, is your most recently elected president called "moot"? Is there or has there ever been a legal motion to rename the country to "4chanistan"? I think I might know what caused your recent problems, and it's not Russia or the EU.
  - TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
    No, you have it all wrong. Anonymous for President. Name change to /B/stonia I jest, I jest :) Still, I've heard of some cool governmental tech over there. Voting, as grandparent said, along with cell-phone payment of gasoline, painless e-banking with 2 factor auth, and other cool stuff. I also remember a pyramid that was built in that area that was on History International... I _think_ it was there, as it talked more about the architecture than the location, other than temps going from 80F to -30F.
    - steveklabnik 16y ago
      Yes, /e/stonia would be an... interesting place.
bali 16y ago
Great idea! There is a ton of social science about why it is irrational to vote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance). If one had to pay even a low penalty similar to Australia that may help to convince rational but disappointed, ignorant and hopefully peaceful people to vote..
jdub 16y ago
Plus, we vote on Saturday. Weekday voting is incredibly disenfranchising.
- riffic 16y ago
  In 1845, the United States was largely an agrarian society. Farmers often needed a full day to travel by horse-drawn vehicles to the county seat to vote. Tuesday was established as election day because it did not interfere with the Biblical Sabbath or with market day, which was on Wednesday in many towns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States)
  - jdub 16y ago
    That's great, but it's not 1845, and I know that not all Americans are Constitutional fundamentalist nutjobs. :-)
  - SkyMarshal 16y ago
    So why not Saturday? That article doesn't mention it. Neither sabbath nor market day, yet still a weekend day. Or did people back then consider Saturday a regular work/week day too?
    - rue 16y ago
      Not Saturday because it would, presumably, take that same whole day to get back.
      - btilly 16y ago
        And note that market day tended to be in the same town where you voted, so arriving a day early was much of a hardship.
- philwelch 16y ago
  I voted on Saturday, too. Some of the more enlightened states in the US allow voting by mail.
tjogin 16y ago
I'm not against compulsory voting, but I'd just like to add that I don't think it's necessary in order to get a good voter turnout. We have voluntary voting in Sweden, and yet we get about 86% turnout. In the US, there are a number of problems with the voting procedure, too many to count really, I think facing and addressing those issues would be far better than making voting compulsory.
- riffic 16y ago
  this is by design.. obfuscate the process to discourage participation.
  - devmonk 16y ago
    I think it is just incompetence. The more you spend time with government, the more you see that, even though we'd imagine they have things under control, they really don't.
- cletus 16y ago
  A few days ago there was a post on HN about how economists solved the problem of having prisoners live that were shipped from the UK to Australia 200 years ago: by giving the right incentive (paying for live prisoners at the other end and not just how many you load on in England). When voting is voluntary, certain groups are incentivized to encourage or discourage other groups from voting. This manifests itself as bribery, legitimate "get out the vote" efforts, making the process of voting difficult and so on. Basically you've created an incentive for such practices by making voting voluntary. All of that goes away when voting is compulsory. I'm reminded of the Spce Shuttle Challenger disaster in 2003. I saw a TV show about the investigation into that. After launch there was concern about the visible debris coming off the shuttle. The investigation afterwards showed that there was significant resistance within NASA to investigating that prior to re-entry. Certain people wanted to use satellite imagery to see if there was any damage to the shuttle. Other groups resisted. The reason this was contentious was that such practices weren't required. The solution? The investigation resulted in NASA instituting a policy requiring such imagery be taken of all shuttle flights. Once something is mandatory, all sorts of incentives (and the problems they create) simply go away.
kmfrk 16y ago
Compulsory voting is a needless encroachment on people's freedom to do as they please. People can't be bribed to vote when they're required to vote? :) It may seem weird, but there are families so destitute that they may have better things to do than vote. The voter turnout will be just fine without compulsory voting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#International_differences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#International_dif.... Looking at the comments again, tjogin summed it up pretty well.
dstein 16y ago
Australia's system of democracy sounds rather... authoritarian.
mseebach 16y ago
Voting is to democracy as telescope is to astronomy.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."
metellus 16y ago
I really doubt that making voting mandatory would make a difference in the US. A large fine for not voting would be unreasonable and universally disliked while a small fine would be ignored. For example, we take the census, a short questionnaire, every 10 years. Filling out the census is mandatory and the government makes a considerable effort to make sure that every household finishes their census form. However, this year there were many people who took it as a point of pride not to fill out the form, even though it is much easier to do than voting and is compulsory.
Quarrelsome 16y ago
Politicians also love an ill-informed population. By forcing everyone to vote you also force people who don't have an interest or opinion to vote. I mean sure that makes it more representative but I wonder if it is not better that these people don't vote, especially if they don't exactly appreciate why they are voting or the differences between the parties and policies.
Stevenup7002 16y ago
I hate to say it, but mandatory voting == The majority of the voters are clueless and don't really care
- swah 16y ago
  Yep. Brazil just had a record abstention in the last election (21.5%) and voting here is mandatory, probably because the voting day overlapped with a extended holiday. Might as well let only the interested ones vote, no?

by cletus 16y ago

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago

And for those who complain about not having the right to abstain, you can get the same effect by turning up and spoiling your ballot paper. You can even make a show of doing it so that everyone can see you're deliberately not casting a valid vote. That makes more of a point that staying home and being invisible.

andrew1 16y ago
It might be a similar effect but it's not the same effect. There's a definite difference between wanting to say that you are making the effort to take part in the electoral process but that you don't want to lend your support to any of the candidates; and for whatever reason not correctly filling out the ballot paper. If nothing else it makes for a much more interesting statistic, spoiled ballot papers tell you nothing about the intent of the voter, a 'none of the above' option would help with that.
joelhaasnoot 16y ago
This is actually legal in the Netherlands: just turn in a blank ballot.
- jozo 16y ago
  In Sweden you can vote for whatever you want. It's quite humorous to read the results of these votes after the election, when they are published online. Normally this would be used by new parties who can't afford distributing printed ballots. Being Sweden someone of course had the xkcd-inspired(?) idea to try XSS and SQL-injection. http://alicebobandmallory.com/articles/2010/09/23/did-little-bobby-tables-migrate-to-sweden http://alicebobandmallory.com/articles/2010/09/23/did-little...
Semiapies 16y ago
"You can even make a show of doing it" Why should I be forced to show up for your voting-day entertainment?
- MikeCapone 16y ago
  Good point, but of ALL the things we are forced to do in Western societies, compulsory voting would probably be pretty low on the list of things I'd want to see go away.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    Thank you, but you respond with no point. You're saying that I should be forced to do something, or else fined or possibly even put in jail for not doing so...but you don't even justify why you're willing to do that to me. If you support my right to write-in Mickey Mouse or select "None of the Above" or void my vote, then you're saying nothing more than that you like people being punished for not filling out what you acknowledge to be meaningless paperwork. (Also, last I checked, there's more than one "Western society" that doesn't have compulsory voting.)

nikcub 16y ago

I always believed that not voting is also a vote, but you are fined in Australia if you do not show up and cast your ballot. The only way to say 'none of the above' is by filing an informal vote. This is a de-facto way of saying that you don't like any of the options, and at least in Australia this informal vote is tracked and parties take notice of it. In the USA if you vote to not vote, Washington bundles you in with everybody else and assumes that you have no interest. The ideal solution would be a) Voting is mandatory, but with a formal 'none of the above' option b) Voting is not mandatory, but representation is allocated based on what portion of total people voted for you, not allocated based on the portion of the total vote. (ie. if in one state all 25M people voted, they should get 5 representatives in congress, while if in another state of 50M people only 5M votes, they should only get 1 seat in congress) With a quota based system based on proportion of population congress/parliament would then be a true representation. It is the only way to reflect the will of the entire population, meaning that those who choose to stay at home can no longer be ignored.

mbreese 16y ago
Option B would be pretty interesting, and might provide a decent incentive for people to vote. However, if people aren't likely to vote anyway, why would they care how much representation they have in Congress? We effectively do have a "none of the above" option: don't select anyone and still cast the ballot. However, it would be better if there was an explicit "No vote" option. The biggest problem with voting not being mandatory is that a lot of people don't have the opportunity because they can't get off work. If you made voting mandatory (or at least made election day a paid holiday), this impediment might be alleviated.
- paradoja 16y ago
  «The biggest problem with voting not being mandatory is that a lot of people don't have the opportunity because they can't get off work. If you made voting mandatory (or at least made election day a paid holiday), this impediment might be alleviated.» An alternative, as it's done in Spain, is to give everyone the right to leave their jobs in order to vote. To alleviate things for businesses, all elections happen on Sundays.

mahmud 16y ago

I am Yank, Arab and Somali (I hold three passports) and I will soon be an Aussie, via marriage. I have spent a year in Australia. My feeling is that Aussies are not really as political as Americans. American voting is under-informed and has low turn out, but at least the few percentage of electorate that vote actually care. Aussies .. I am not sure if they don't care, or if they're just good at hiding their political views. It's far easier to speak to an American and learn about his/her political stances. Aussies are much more opaque, in my experience, and seem to be equally resentful of all politicians. For all their bureaucracy, Aussies are far more anarchic and egalitarian than any other nation that I am familiar with, except maybe Somalis. Australians, at least the ones in NSW that I have come to know, consider the government and politicians "a bunch of wankers". They're very pessimistic about the people they elect; which is both nice, and also harmful. Having said that .. Aussie Aussie Aussie! [Edit: People should harden the fuck up and visit Australia; everyone should live there at least once. Just thinking about that place brings a smile to my face. They're a nation of good-natured jokers, thoroughly beautiful I tell ya. But be prepared to be bull-shat left and right; you will have a hard time if you're a self-righteous prick]

dools 16y ago
I think you'll find that people in NSW wholly consider the state government to be mindless wankers, because they are. State governments all over Australia are completely inept. Most people will have someone in Federal politics that they like, though and I think the view generally of Federal politics is far less cynical, and where true political allegiances come to light.
RuadhanMc 16y ago
Australian's by and large are not very ideological. With the exception of the Green's movement, there isn't really another "issues" political group that gets much attention -- or members. Politicians are a bunch of wankers. They wouldn't be politicians if they weren't. I don't mean that in a really bad way, I just mean, being a successful politician takes a certain personality type. If you aren't rough as guts, a bit of a prick and full of yourself, you won't survive in Australian politics. As for compulsory voting, I dig it. You should too.

imeikas 16y ago

In Estonia you can vote from almost anywhere if you have ID-card and working internet connection. It's really convenient and people are using this more and more. For example last elections 15.75% of votes were made using internet. Official statistics can be found from http://vvk.ee/voting-methods-in-estonia/engindex http://vvk.ee/voting-methods-in-estonia/engindex Also there are talks that they want to enable voting with mobile phones (there are already solutions where you can log in to banks and other websites with mobile phones).

bali 16y ago
This is even much better than to penalize. Why isn't there a startup helping the government? :) http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/23/the-goldmine-of-opportunities-in-gov-2-0/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/23/the-goldmine-of-opportuniti...
mahmud 16y ago
In Estonia you can vote from almost anywhere if you have ID-card and working internet connection. By any chance, is your most recently elected president called "moot"? Is there or has there ever been a legal motion to rename the country to "4chanistan"? I think I might know what caused your recent problems, and it's not Russia or the EU.
- TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
  No, you have it all wrong. Anonymous for President. Name change to /B/stonia I jest, I jest :) Still, I've heard of some cool governmental tech over there. Voting, as grandparent said, along with cell-phone payment of gasoline, painless e-banking with 2 factor auth, and other cool stuff. I also remember a pyramid that was built in that area that was on History International... I _think_ it was there, as it talked more about the architecture than the location, other than temps going from 80F to -30F.
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    Yes, /e/stonia would be an... interesting place.

bali 16y ago

Great idea! There is a ton of social science about why it is irrational to vote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance). If one had to pay even a low penalty similar to Australia that may help to convince rational but disappointed, ignorant and hopefully peaceful people to vote..

jdub 16y ago

Plus, we vote on Saturday. Weekday voting is incredibly disenfranchising.

riffic 16y ago
In 1845, the United States was largely an agrarian society. Farmers often needed a full day to travel by horse-drawn vehicles to the county seat to vote. Tuesday was established as election day because it did not interfere with the Biblical Sabbath or with market day, which was on Wednesday in many towns. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States)
- jdub 16y ago
  That's great, but it's not 1845, and I know that not all Americans are Constitutional fundamentalist nutjobs. :-)
- SkyMarshal 16y ago
  So why not Saturday? That article doesn't mention it. Neither sabbath nor market day, yet still a weekend day. Or did people back then consider Saturday a regular work/week day too?
  - rue 16y ago
    Not Saturday because it would, presumably, take that same whole day to get back.
    - btilly 16y ago
      And note that market day tended to be in the same town where you voted, so arriving a day early was much of a hardship.
philwelch 16y ago
I voted on Saturday, too. Some of the more enlightened states in the US allow voting by mail.

tjogin 16y ago

I'm not against compulsory voting, but I'd just like to add that I don't think it's necessary in order to get a good voter turnout. We have voluntary voting in Sweden, and yet we get about 86% turnout. In the US, there are a number of problems with the voting procedure, too many to count really, I think facing and addressing those issues would be far better than making voting compulsory.

riffic 16y ago
this is by design.. obfuscate the process to discourage participation.
- devmonk 16y ago
  I think it is just incompetence. The more you spend time with government, the more you see that, even though we'd imagine they have things under control, they really don't.
cletus 16y ago
A few days ago there was a post on HN about how economists solved the problem of having prisoners live that were shipped from the UK to Australia 200 years ago: by giving the right incentive (paying for live prisoners at the other end and not just how many you load on in England). When voting is voluntary, certain groups are incentivized to encourage or discourage other groups from voting. This manifests itself as bribery, legitimate "get out the vote" efforts, making the process of voting difficult and so on. Basically you've created an incentive for such practices by making voting voluntary. All of that goes away when voting is compulsory. I'm reminded of the Spce Shuttle Challenger disaster in 2003. I saw a TV show about the investigation into that. After launch there was concern about the visible debris coming off the shuttle. The investigation afterwards showed that there was significant resistance within NASA to investigating that prior to re-entry. Certain people wanted to use satellite imagery to see if there was any damage to the shuttle. Other groups resisted. The reason this was contentious was that such practices weren't required. The solution? The investigation resulted in NASA instituting a policy requiring such imagery be taken of all shuttle flights. Once something is mandatory, all sorts of incentives (and the problems they create) simply go away.

kmfrk 16y ago

Compulsory voting is a needless encroachment on people's freedom to do as they please. People can't be bribed to vote when they're required to vote? :) It may seem weird, but there are families so destitute that they may have better things to do than vote. The voter turnout will be just fine without compulsory voting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#International_differences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#International_dif.... Looking at the comments again, tjogin summed it up pretty well.

dstein 16y ago

Australia's system of democracy sounds rather... authoritarian.

mseebach 16y ago

Voting is to democracy as telescope is to astronomy.

Semiapies 16y ago
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."

metellus 16y ago

I really doubt that making voting mandatory would make a difference in the US. A large fine for not voting would be unreasonable and universally disliked while a small fine would be ignored. For example, we take the census, a short questionnaire, every 10 years. Filling out the census is mandatory and the government makes a considerable effort to make sure that every household finishes their census form. However, this year there were many people who took it as a point of pride not to fill out the form, even though it is much easier to do than voting and is compulsory.

Quarrelsome 16y ago

Politicians also love an ill-informed population. By forcing everyone to vote you also force people who don't have an interest or opinion to vote. I mean sure that makes it more representative but I wonder if it is not better that these people don't vote, especially if they don't exactly appreciate why they are voting or the differences between the parties and policies.

Stevenup7002 16y ago

I hate to say it, but mandatory voting == The majority of the voters are clueless and don't really care

swah 16y ago
Yep. Brazil just had a record abstention in the last election (21.5%) and voting here is mandatory, probably because the voting day overlapped with a extended holiday. Might as well let only the interested ones vote, no?