Mandatory voting! My understanding is that in Australia voting in federal elections is mandatory and you will be fined if you do not vote (with apparently a few reasons acceptable why you can not vote). Could our Australian members comment on this. How does it work? How is voter registration handled? Do you have absentee ballots? Do you only have one day elections, or are elections held over a couple of days? What if you do not care for any of the candidates? Please fill us Yanks in on this interesting idea.
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Under the (Australian) Commonwealth Electoral Act and the related state laws, voting is compulsory in Commonwealth, state and territory elections. Voting is also compulsory in local government elections, except in South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania.
waitingforgodo
Level 8
Mar 25, 2022
1
Yes we have mandatory voting at Federal and State elections, but not local level.
All eligible people must register to vote in the state/federal seats in which they live.
Elections are held on a Saturday, with voting from the opening to the closing hours of that day.
Electors can also postal vote for some weeks up to the election day. You apply for a postal vote, receive the voting material, complete it with a supporting signature, and forward it to the Australian Electoral Commission, the bureaucratic agency which conducts elections.
You can also pre-poll vote. Polling booths are open for many days in all electorates up to just before election day, and this voting option has been extended in recent years as more and more people do this. You have to give a reason to prepoll vote, like you will be away or working, but they are not rigorous about this.
If you don't vote, and do not have a good reason, there is a fine.
Voting is compulsory, but what you put in your vote is up to you, so in a sense it's compulsory attendance in the voting process.
America should look into it, including preferential voting, and a non political electoral commission, instead of the political partisanship of US election voting.
The idea of political parties determining electoral boundaries to favour themselves -- gerrymandering-- as happens in America is just appalling, and though electoral mapping is never an exact science, and there are grumbles here sometimes about how it is done, I'll take an independent agency doing it over partisan hacks any day.
David1955
Level 8
Mar 25, 2022
4
I can not tell you anything about Australia, but Just viewing from the UK perspective. In the last USA election, we saw films of long lines of people waiting outside you polling stations, and there was even a debate about whether it was OK to hand out water to them. All I can say is that in the UK, ( which is itself far from being a world beating democracy, ) if the governing authorities did not provide enough polling stations so that everyone could walk more or less directly in on polling day, it would be regarded as a national shame, by all parties and sectors of the population. What is wrong with America ? I once thought that it was a true world leading democracy, but it seems that the boast was always hollow, and it is not getting any better. In the late eighteenth century the USA may have led the world in democracy, but Americans need to get out more and understand just how much a huge lot of the rest of the world has moved on, while you seem to be sliding backwards.
Fernapple
Level 9
Mar 25, 2022
4
There are those of us here that are also mortified by the decline and by how boldly the anti-democracy contingent has become. Sadly, I believe we're a rapidly-shrinking minority with an inability to combat the inevitable.
America is all about marketing, and it has done a great job of pulling the wool over the eyes of the world. As we now see, the King is not wearing any clothes. We are a third rate democracy, and slipping.
Yes, it's embarrassing that some states are adopting these policies of closing voting places in populous counties, making it nearly impossible for working folks to vote, with no mail-in or drop off ballots allowed, while the rich are able to use absentee voting to avoid actually going to the polls. It's very sad.
In my state, we make it super easy to vote, in person with "early voting" for 20 days prior to the elections, and also by mail-in or drop off ballots collected in secure boxes. There is no reason any person who cares about the elections can't vote if they want to. We don't have any fine for folks who don't vote, but we all have the freedom to vote.
I'm all for it! I'm sure our Australian members can give you more important information, but I have some Australian friends who always brag to me that they can get Democracy Sausages at the polls - as well as other food - and that's the kind of spirit I can get behind!
Lauren
Level 8
Mar 25, 2022
4
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