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Australia fines citizens $20 if they don't vote....I wonder what impact that would have on voting in the US?

by jb775 7y ago

Moru 7y ago
So how many percent is voting before and after the fine was put in place? Did it help any?
- patrec 7y ago
  WP: > One of the strongest factors affecting voter turnout is whether voting is compulsory. In Australia, voter registration and attendance at a polling booth have been mandatory since the 1920s, with the most recent federal election in 2016 having turnout figures of 91% for the House of Representatives and 91.9% for the Senate.[77]
cmroanirgo 7y ago
NB: Voting is mandatory (in Oz) only if you're registered. However the government pesters you to register to vote when a) you turn 18 and b) you move. (It does this by monitoring driving licence registrations). You may also be called upon for jury duty at the same time. The only way to deregister is to move overseas (I checked: conscientious objection and religious reasons do not qualify)
- docdeek 7y ago
  > "I checked: conscientious objection and religious reasons do not qualify” That’s not entirely accurate, though in practice it has been the case so far. Subsection 245(14) of the Electoral Act, and section 13A of the Referendum Act, provides that “the fact that an elector believes it to be part of his or her religious duty to abstain from voting constitutes a valid and sufficient reason for failing to vote.” [1] That said, you’re right that concientious objection to voting (or a personal moral objection) is insufficient reason, and there is yet to be a religious duty that has been held by a court to be sufficient reason to avoid the obligation to vote. Indeed, I think it would be tough to think of a religion where a central tenet is “don’t vote”. Perhaps there is one, but it doesn’t come easily to mind. [1]: https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/backgrounders/compulsory-voting.htm https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/backgrounders/...
  - schoen 7y ago
    I believe Jehovah's Witnesses have an official, explicit religious teaching against voting and that their rejection of secular government authority is pretty core to their religion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_and_governments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_and_gove...
    - docdeek 7y ago
      Indeed, it seems you are right. I am a little smarter than I was before - thank you. :)
  - cmroanirgo 7y ago
    I called the Electoral Commission about this. My wording is correct wrt to de-registration. The alternative is to not vote, wait for the 'fine' to come in and then declare reasons on why your 'fine' should be lifted. This was also explained to me on the same call. The whole phone call was highly skewed towards: you may as well vote (even informally), as it's easier.
erentz 7y ago
This would just be a fine on poor people. In many US states there are active efforts to disenfranchise and suppress voting such as moving voting places, not providing enough booths so there are big queues and delays, automatically removing people from rolls, etc. The US first needs to establish an independent electoral commission to set district boundaries and run the elections fairly like in other countries.
- dane-pgp 7y ago
  A great idea, but I think the problem is convincing politicians to appoint independent commissioners that may remove their electoral advantage. Perhaps a necessary step is to come up with a rule that can objectively determine how gerrymandered a given set of boundaries are, and then convince enough people in both parties to agree to the same limit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Efficiency_gap_calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Efficiency_gap_...
  - thu2111 7y ago
    The UK has such a commission. It hasn't worked out well. The commissioners turned out to be very publicly stating strong political opinions (which were mostly homogenous). If you want to run elections that's the sort of behaviour it should go without saying you don't engage in. Their decisions are regularly criticised for being extremely biased and they've been slapped down by judges in some high profile cases, where the judges basically said the commission didn't understand electoral law and/or appeared to be deliberately engaging in political harassment. The UK commission doesn't set electoral boundaries though, Parliament does that. They just run other aspects of elections.
    - dane-pgp 7y ago
      > Their decisions are regularly criticised for being extremely biased Regularly criticised by whom? I'm guessing the side that is found to be breaking electoral rules. > they've been slapped down by judges in some high profile cases, where the judges basically said the commission didn't understand electoral law and/or appeared to be deliberately engaging in political harassment. Maybe the law was vague, or maybe, get this, the judges were biased and the commissioners were actually correct. Unfortunately we're now living in a world where politicians and institutions and court cases are evaluated not based on any objective truth, but on whether "my side" beats "the other side". Perhaps it's always been like that, as the history of gerrymandering shows, but it does seem that the polarisation and tribalism is more extreme or more blatant now.
Gibbon1 7y ago
You could reverse that. Pay people $20 for voting.

Australia fines citizens $20 if they don't vote....I wonder what impact that would have on voting in the US?

by jb775 7y ago

Australia fines citizens $20 if they don't vote....I wonder what impact that would have on voting in the US?

Moru 7y ago

So how many percent is voting before and after the fine was put in place? Did it help any?

patrec 7y ago
WP: > One of the strongest factors affecting voter turnout is whether voting is compulsory. In Australia, voter registration and attendance at a polling booth have been mandatory since the 1920s, with the most recent federal election in 2016 having turnout figures of 91% for the House of Representatives and 91.9% for the Senate.[77]

cmroanirgo 7y ago

NB: Voting is mandatory (in Oz) only if you're registered. However the government pesters you to register to vote when a) you turn 18 and b) you move. (It does this by monitoring driving licence registrations). You may also be called upon for jury duty at the same time. The only way to deregister is to move overseas (I checked: conscientious objection and religious reasons do not qualify)

docdeek 7y ago
> "I checked: conscientious objection and religious reasons do not qualify” That’s not entirely accurate, though in practice it has been the case so far. Subsection 245(14) of the Electoral Act, and section 13A of the Referendum Act, provides that “the fact that an elector believes it to be part of his or her religious duty to abstain from voting constitutes a valid and sufficient reason for failing to vote.” [1] That said, you’re right that concientious objection to voting (or a personal moral objection) is insufficient reason, and there is yet to be a religious duty that has been held by a court to be sufficient reason to avoid the obligation to vote. Indeed, I think it would be tough to think of a religion where a central tenet is “don’t vote”. Perhaps there is one, but it doesn’t come easily to mind. [1]: https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/backgrounders/compulsory-voting.htm https://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/backgrounders/...
- schoen 7y ago
  I believe Jehovah's Witnesses have an official, explicit religious teaching against voting and that their rejection of secular government authority is pretty core to their religion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_and_governments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses_and_gove...
  - docdeek 7y ago
    Indeed, it seems you are right. I am a little smarter than I was before - thank you. :)
- cmroanirgo 7y ago
  I called the Electoral Commission about this. My wording is correct wrt to de-registration. The alternative is to not vote, wait for the 'fine' to come in and then declare reasons on why your 'fine' should be lifted. This was also explained to me on the same call. The whole phone call was highly skewed towards: you may as well vote (even informally), as it's easier.

erentz 7y ago

This would just be a fine on poor people. In many US states there are active efforts to disenfranchise and suppress voting such as moving voting places, not providing enough booths so there are big queues and delays, automatically removing people from rolls, etc. The US first needs to establish an independent electoral commission to set district boundaries and run the elections fairly like in other countries.

dane-pgp 7y ago
A great idea, but I think the problem is convincing politicians to appoint independent commissioners that may remove their electoral advantage. Perhaps a necessary step is to come up with a rule that can objectively determine how gerrymandered a given set of boundaries are, and then convince enough people in both parties to agree to the same limit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Efficiency_gap_calculation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering#Efficiency_gap_...
- thu2111 7y ago
  The UK has such a commission. It hasn't worked out well. The commissioners turned out to be very publicly stating strong political opinions (which were mostly homogenous). If you want to run elections that's the sort of behaviour it should go without saying you don't engage in. Their decisions are regularly criticised for being extremely biased and they've been slapped down by judges in some high profile cases, where the judges basically said the commission didn't understand electoral law and/or appeared to be deliberately engaging in political harassment. The UK commission doesn't set electoral boundaries though, Parliament does that. They just run other aspects of elections.
  - dane-pgp 7y ago
    > Their decisions are regularly criticised for being extremely biased Regularly criticised by whom? I'm guessing the side that is found to be breaking electoral rules. > they've been slapped down by judges in some high profile cases, where the judges basically said the commission didn't understand electoral law and/or appeared to be deliberately engaging in political harassment. Maybe the law was vague, or maybe, get this, the judges were biased and the commissioners were actually correct. Unfortunately we're now living in a world where politicians and institutions and court cases are evaluated not based on any objective truth, but on whether "my side" beats "the other side". Perhaps it's always been like that, as the history of gerrymandering shows, but it does seem that the polarisation and tribalism is more extreme or more blatant now.

Gibbon1 7y ago

You could reverse that. Pay people $20 for voting.