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It's complex. When I first moved to Australia I rankled at compulsory voting as I believe that not participating is a valid political act. Countries without co

by d_t_w 5y ago

It's complex. When I first moved to Australia I rankled at compulsory voting as I believe that not participating is a valid political act. Countries without compulsory voting talk about the turnout as relative to previous years, and if it falls too far there will be questions about a mandate to govern. In Australia that can't happen as turnout is always high, this leads to very little opportunity to overhaul the mechanism of elections to make it more applicable to the community, or to overhaul political parties entirely. Red team or Blue team are guaranteed some high proportion of the country voting for them and it gives a false sense of relevance. However I'm now fully in favour of compulsory voting. Why? Look at America, what an absolute shambles of a democratic system. One party spending decades attempting to stop black people voting. Voter suppression and gerrymandering (also not possible in Australia) baked into the political system. No thanks. Australian politicians are no better, they would reach for those tactics in a heartbeat, compulsory voting stops us from heading down that path. There is no utopia, the system has problems, but the trade-off is worth it.

dalyons 5y ago
As an Australian living in America for 10 years you absolutely nailed it; compulsory voting effectively prevents what is the worst part of American democracy - the unceasing efforts to stop people voting . Plenty of other bs, but at least the right to participate is guaranteed.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > compulsory voting effectively prevents what is the worst part of American democracy - the unceasing efforts to stop people voting No, it doesn't; sloppy, deliberately overbroad purges of voter rolls (without notification of the targets) are a key voter suppression technique, and are not at all impaired by compulsory voting.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dalyons 5y ago
    Are you Australian? I’m asking because I’m not aware of of that(very American) tactic being employed in Australia. Imho the requirement of voting moves the window of what’s acceptable in terms of voter rolls - I can’t think of one time I’ve heard of purging being employed inappropriately in aus. And I can’t really imagine a party getting away with it. I could of course just be blissfully unaware, and it actually occurs all the time.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      I am American, and I was reading “compulsory voting effectively prevents what is the worst part of American democracy - the unceasing efforts to stop people voting” as a claim that, applied where those efforts occur, compulsory voting would be an effective and adequate remedy, rather than “In Australia, compulsory voting exists and the efforts seen to suppress voting seen in America do not”. AFAIK (which, I’ll admit, isn’t very far—my knowledge of domestic Australian politics is more of a very light random smattering than the result of any focussed study), you are correct that those don't tend to occur in Australia.
      - dalyons 5y ago
        I understand your point now, thanks! I agree somewhat; if all you changed tomorrow in the USA was to make voting compulsory, you would immediately see redoubled efforts in purging rolls etc. I agree I probably overstated, there would still be ways to stop people voting. Although it cuts out many many avenues, so you would imagine(hope?) the overall disenfranchisement would be significantly less, and decrease over time as the attitude of voting entitlement sets in.
- softveda 5y ago
  They are trying. Bit by bit. We can pre-poll in Australia from almost a month back, this is getting reduced to just 12 days. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/24/labor-to-back-electoral-reforms-that-could-deregister-dozens-of-minor-parties https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/24/labor...
lettergram 5y ago
> Look at America, what an absolute shambles of a democratic system. One party spending decades attempting to stop black people voting. Voter suppression and gerrymandering (also not possible in Australia) baked into the political system. No thanks. It’s always interesting to see this essentially fake narrative. No one is trying to stop anyone from voting. It’s made up, to try and role the base, the same way you describe —- it increases turnout for the left. So they push the fake narrative. Anyway, I see your point. But the US is an entirely different beast. As much as people want to knock it, the system is extremely robust. The federal government really isn’t supposed to have a mandate. That’s essentially the entire left and right debate in the US. States rights vs federal rights. The issue you’re seeing in the US are that the left are socialist/Marxists who want a strong federal gov (authoritarian). The right believes that’s anti-American, and believes we should have strong states and personal freedom (Republican). If the left stopped trying to enact federal control (through monetary, economic, political, etc), the right would be totally happy. California would do its thing and Tennessee would do theirs, the best would win. Unfortunately, that’s not what we’re doing. This literally goes all the way back to the founding with the federalists (John Adam’s) and anti-federalists (Thomas Jefferson). The system is dysfunctional by design, the goal was never to have a strong government and while its tense, you have more freedom and security than just about anywhere.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > No one is trying to stop anyone from voting. Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked, "What's the interest of the Arizona RNC in keeping, say, the out-of-precinct ballot disqualification rules on the books?" Carvin responded, "Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game." https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/voting-rights-case-gop-lawyer-says-quiet-part-loud-n1259439 https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/voting-rights-case-...
wrycoder 5y ago
If you are saying the Republican Party has spent decades trying to stop black people from voting, that is simply incorrect. It is what the other party’s propaganda would like you to believe. Same with voter suppression.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Southern conservative as Democrats or Republicans like Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were very much in favor of not letting African Americans vote. Who they caucused with later is unrelated. But yes, to say it was Democrats or Republicans would be very technically inaccurate. It isn’t a coincidence that the states that were practicing Jim Crow before are the same states trying to discourage voting today.
  - mrkstu 5y ago
    What is the reality on the ground though? For instance: "Texas ranks number 10 overall when it comes to engagement among African American voters, including being first overall in proportional representation of blacks in state legislature and national party conventions." https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-are-among-the-most-political-engaged-in-the-us-report-finds https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-...
    - adventured 5y ago
      > What is the reality on the ground though? The reality on the ground is that all Western European nations have stricter voting laws / requirements than the US does and almost nobody on HN will dare to talk about that fact because it's inconvenient to the propaganda game. It's the sick joke of eg Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game from Georgia to protest new voting laws, shifting it to Colorado which already had similar voting laws to those that Georgia wanted to implement. It's all bullshit propaganda. The same is true of immigration restrictions. You're not supposed to talk about how strict most other affluent nations are when it comes to who they let into their countries to become citizens. Can you imagine the global uproar if the US began a cultural genocide program against Muslims like Denmark is aggressively doing? Forcibly taking children away from their parents to be re-educated via nationalist propaganda and forced value systems. How about something less sinister - a national ban on full face veils like France, with punishment by forced re-education. The US would be called draconian, Islamophobic and racist for such treatment. Meanwhile over there's Macron one step away from calling for a cultural crusade. When the US does it, it's bad. When everybody else does it, it's logical and good and progressive.

by d_t_w 5y ago

dalyons 5y ago

As an Australian living in America for 10 years you absolutely nailed it; compulsory voting effectively prevents what is the worst part of American democracy - the unceasing efforts to stop people voting . Plenty of other bs, but at least the right to participate is guaranteed.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> compulsory voting effectively prevents what is the worst part of American democracy - the unceasing efforts to stop people voting No, it doesn't; sloppy, deliberately overbroad purges of voter rolls (without notification of the targets) are a key voter suppression technique, and are not at all impaired by compulsory voting.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dalyons 5y ago
  Are you Australian? I’m asking because I’m not aware of of that(very American) tactic being employed in Australia. Imho the requirement of voting moves the window of what’s acceptable in terms of voter rolls - I can’t think of one time I’ve heard of purging being employed inappropriately in aus. And I can’t really imagine a party getting away with it. I could of course just be blissfully unaware, and it actually occurs all the time.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    I am American, and I was reading “compulsory voting effectively prevents what is the worst part of American democracy - the unceasing efforts to stop people voting” as a claim that, applied where those efforts occur, compulsory voting would be an effective and adequate remedy, rather than “In Australia, compulsory voting exists and the efforts seen to suppress voting seen in America do not”. AFAIK (which, I’ll admit, isn’t very far—my knowledge of domestic Australian politics is more of a very light random smattering than the result of any focussed study), you are correct that those don't tend to occur in Australia.
    - dalyons 5y ago
      I understand your point now, thanks! I agree somewhat; if all you changed tomorrow in the USA was to make voting compulsory, you would immediately see redoubled efforts in purging rolls etc. I agree I probably overstated, there would still be ways to stop people voting. Although it cuts out many many avenues, so you would imagine(hope?) the overall disenfranchisement would be significantly less, and decrease over time as the attitude of voting entitlement sets in.
softveda 5y ago
They are trying. Bit by bit. We can pre-poll in Australia from almost a month back, this is getting reduced to just 12 days. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/24/labor-to-back-electoral-reforms-that-could-deregister-dozens-of-minor-parties https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/aug/24/labor...

lettergram 5y ago

> Look at America, what an absolute shambles of a democratic system. One party spending decades attempting to stop black people voting. Voter suppression and gerrymandering (also not possible in Australia) baked into the political system. No thanks. It’s always interesting to see this essentially fake narrative. No one is trying to stop anyone from voting. It’s made up, to try and role the base, the same way you describe —- it increases turnout for the left. So they push the fake narrative. Anyway, I see your point. But the US is an entirely different beast. As much as people want to knock it, the system is extremely robust. The federal government really isn’t supposed to have a mandate. That’s essentially the entire left and right debate in the US. States rights vs federal rights. The issue you’re seeing in the US are that the left are socialist/Marxists who want a strong federal gov (authoritarian). The right believes that’s anti-American, and believes we should have strong states and personal freedom (Republican). If the left stopped trying to enact federal control (through monetary, economic, political, etc), the right would be totally happy. California would do its thing and Tennessee would do theirs, the best would win. Unfortunately, that’s not what we’re doing. This literally goes all the way back to the founding with the federalists (John Adam’s) and anti-federalists (Thomas Jefferson). The system is dysfunctional by design, the goal was never to have a strong government and while its tense, you have more freedom and security than just about anywhere.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dane-pgp 5y ago
> No one is trying to stop anyone from voting. Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked, "What's the interest of the Arizona RNC in keeping, say, the out-of-precinct ballot disqualification rules on the books?" Carvin responded, "Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game." https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/voting-rights-case-gop-lawyer-says-quiet-part-loud-n1259439 https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/voting-rights-case-...

wrycoder 5y ago

If you are saying the Republican Party has spent decades trying to stop black people from voting, that is simply incorrect. It is what the other party’s propaganda would like you to believe. Same with voter suppression.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Southern conservative as Democrats or Republicans like Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were very much in favor of not letting African Americans vote. Who they caucused with later is unrelated. But yes, to say it was Democrats or Republicans would be very technically inaccurate. It isn’t a coincidence that the states that were practicing Jim Crow before are the same states trying to discourage voting today.
- mrkstu 5y ago
  What is the reality on the ground though? For instance: "Texas ranks number 10 overall when it comes to engagement among African American voters, including being first overall in proportional representation of blacks in state legislature and national party conventions." https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-are-among-the-most-political-engaged-in-the-us-report-finds https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-...
  - adventured 5y ago
    > What is the reality on the ground though? The reality on the ground is that all Western European nations have stricter voting laws / requirements than the US does and almost nobody on HN will dare to talk about that fact because it's inconvenient to the propaganda game. It's the sick joke of eg Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game from Georgia to protest new voting laws, shifting it to Colorado which already had similar voting laws to those that Georgia wanted to implement. It's all bullshit propaganda. The same is true of immigration restrictions. You're not supposed to talk about how strict most other affluent nations are when it comes to who they let into their countries to become citizens. Can you imagine the global uproar if the US began a cultural genocide program against Muslims like Denmark is aggressively doing? Forcibly taking children away from their parents to be re-educated via nationalist propaganda and forced value systems. How about something less sinister - a national ban on full face veils like France, with punishment by forced re-education. The US would be called draconian, Islamophobic and racist for such treatment. Meanwhile over there's Macron one step away from calling for a cultural crusade. When the US does it, it's bad. When everybody else does it, it's logical and good and progressive.