4 ms·

Is Australia a mandatory voting jurisdiction?

• hnick 5y ago
  Yes but enforcement is lax and fines are low.
  • e1g 5y ago
    Still ~90-95% voter turnout (vs ~60% in the USA)
    • asteroidbelt 5y ago
      And lower than 90% turnout is better, right? Because when people are forced to vote, they are on average more likely to vote for a random name they heard on TV than for a candidate with a program they read and the background they studied.
      • e1g 5y ago
        A democratic society, where all votes are equal, benefits when everyone votes, even without a testing how well-informed they are. It encourages personal ownership of collective problems. For every apathetic member who is voting based on ignorance, there is a zealous member voting based on dogma. The more votes we collect, the more accurate is the representation of the whole.
        • godelski 5y ago
          > The more votes we collect, the more accurate is the representation of the whole. This isn't true. If voters are voting randomly (or effectively randomly) then that's just noise in the system. Worse, if voting is based on candidate exposure (i.e. voting on who had more TV ads rather than policy) then the votes are explicitly not representative of voter preference (unless the candidate that advertises the most also happens to be the true preference of voters, but we should not assume this to be true). Your statement is only true given a large amount of assumptions which typically do not hold true in practice. It holds true if voters are both informed, vote purely honestly (no strategy or no manipulation which includes through ads), and candidates are fairly representative of public opinions. I don't think anyone would argue that these three assumptions hold true in most elections. Real world doesn't have idealistic conditions. So no, more voters does not result in better representation.
          • weswpg 5y ago
            I think you're making an assumption about the assumptions of the person you're replying to. Many voter beliefs are implicit and how we express our political preferences can sometimes be reducible to a simple matter of group allegiance. People don't need to be highly informed to effectively participate if the voter's top priority is to support a certain group interest (i.e., a union member supporting labour) rather than individual legislators or laws.
          • Gatsky 5y ago
            Very odd argument indeed, particularly because it equally applies to non-mandatory voting. The deisre to vote could be based on randomness and candidate exposure. Thus whatever underlying assumptions one makes, more people voting gives better representation for any meaningful definition of representation.
            • godelski 5y ago
              > because it equally applies to non-mandatory voting Yes, this is because voting is often non-intuitive. There's a reason we haven't found an amazing system in thousands of years. The problem is that people are trying to apply "common sense" rules and not testing them to check if their assumptions hold true. It follows the typical rule of "if people think the solution to a long standing problem can be solved with common sense it probably cant." Which should be obvious since the problem is long standing... But here's the thing, we've done a lot of testing and aren't going in blind. Unfortunately when solutions are "common sense" we end up not looking at data because why would we? We already know the answer ;)
        • asteroidbelt 5y ago
          > the more accurate is the representation of the whole Accurate representation is not a goal. The goal is freedom, wealth, stability, happiness, etc. Also, people who vote for a random names just because they are forced to, are not exactly represented by those who they are technically voted for.
      • ab737 5y ago
        The argument is if you're compelled to vote you're compelled to take interest. You have to register to vote anyhow, those who wish to remain apolitical are free to do so.
      • SilverRed 5y ago
        In an optional voting society, parties are incentivized to radicalize and enrage their supporters so they bother to go vote. In Australia everyone knows the two parties and has a rough idea what they support. I doubt there is very much "random name voting" going on which is shown by the consistent voting patterns over the years.
      • rswail 5y ago
        There is a problem with what is called the "donkey vote" where the person at the top of the ballot is more likely to get a "1" vote than the person at the bottom. However, in practice, people accept voting guides from parties that direct their preferences and they vote the way their choice of party decides. That's why there is horse trading between parties before the election on "preference deals" where they agree to different ordering on the guides. Smaller parties use this to engage larger parties by demanding some of their policy requests in return.
    • hnick 5y ago
      Yes, was just saying if you really object it's not a big deal legally. Although most people don't as you say. Having elections on Saturdays definitely helps.
      • Gustomaximus 5y ago
        Also loads of locations and little queuing. Also increasingly you get sausage sizzles that seems to becoming a tradition to go get your sausage sandwich. I find it amazing hearing about people in USA queuing for hours year after year. It doesn't have to be that way.