Voting is mandatory in Australia and it works very well together with preferential (ranked) voting.
John Berry, the former US ambassador to Australia said that compulsory voting was “the main thing I will try to take home with me.”
The effect of making voting mandatory is that it forces the major parties to aim their campaign to the centre rather than their base. The conservative base will still vote for the major Conservative party, or at least allocate their secondary preferences to them pretty much no matter what their other policies are, so there is no need for the conservative leaders to indulge in extreme rhetoric or policies in order to motivate their base to turn out for them - they have to turn up to vote anyway. Same goes for the progressive side of politics.
The result is a more moderate government no matter which side is in power and a less polarised society.
I'm starting to think maybe ranked voting might theoretically work as a way of building momentum for third parties in the US. I mean, most Trump voters would probably rather eat glass than vote for Biden and vice versa, but it could be cool if people could give one ranked vote to the Greens or the LIbertarians without automatically feeling like they'd helped put the other major party in power... maybe over time it would create a political landscape that reflected what voters actually wanted, instead of just which option they despised the least... I dunno, I can dream ;)
I'm guessing that mandatory voting would only work here if we implemented it together with some combination of automatic voter registration, free voter IDs, and making election day a national holiday - can't very well demand people choose between getting fined or losing their jobs. Do you guys have any or all of those over there?
We don’t have any of those.
Elections take place on a Saturday. There is a push to make enrolement to vote automatic, but it isn’t currently - it would be better if it was. There are no voter ID laws and voter fraud is insignificant in Australia.
Australia benefits from having the Australian Electoral Commission which is an independent body set up to run elections. The AEC is responsible for setting up and manning voting stations and drawing up electoral boundaries which shift pretty regularly. Gerrymandering is practically non existent as a result.
Ranked voting doesn’t really help get third parties elected (proportional representation helps 3rd parties way more). In Australia, the parliament is dominated by two major parties with only a smattering of minor parties and independents - this is because preferences almost always end up flowing back to the major parties.
What is good about preference/ranked voting and mandatory voting is that it forces the major parties to target the centre rather than their base. Politicians who target their own base are wasting their time (they will never vote for the other side), so they have to target the swinging voters in the centre. The other side have to counter by doing the same, so their policies tend to end up very moderate, and the people who go into politics tend to be more moderate as well.
You have to appeal to 50% of ALL the voters because everyone has to vote. You can’t get elected by just getting 25% of your base riled up and angry enough to get out and vote on a Tuesday. Nut bags just don’t get elected.
Lmfao its horrible we get threats of fines if we don't vote and preferential voting can be rigged , various groups direct there supporters to vote for or against other people in how they place their votes .
How would you like to be threatened with fines to vote when you dont like any of the canidates .
All the major parties here milk the taxpayer as they get paid for how many votes they get.
Current election funding rate
From 1 January 2022 to 30 June 2022
$2.914 per eligible vote
nearly 3 bucks a vote these thieves get win or lose
Election funding
How it works
Election funding is payable in relation to any candidate or group who receives at least four per cent of the total first preference votes in an election.
The value of the election funding entitlement is calculated by multiplying:
Automatic payment
The AEC will automatically pay an amount to the agent of each eligible political party, candidate, or Senate group, as soon as practicable after 20 days after the polling day for an election. The automatic payment amount is indexed every six months and its current value can be found on the
election funding rates page.
Claims for further funding
In order to receive election funding of greater than the automatic payment a claim setting out electoral expenditure incurred must be lodged with the AEC by the agent of the eligible political party, candidate, or Senate group.
Payment of election funding is limited to the lesser of:
- the calculated election funding entitlement; or
- the amount of demonstrated electoral expenditure.
https://aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/public_funding/Current_Funding_Rate.htm
I refused to vote in our recent election because they stopped doing democracy snags due to COVID.
I still haven't got my fine.
f**k Australia by the way.
You don’t have to vote. You just have to turn up and have your name ticked off. You can toss your ballot paper away after that.
The funding per vote is what allows independents to stand for election without losing money. That is a good thing as it stops the creation of a true two party system.
The major parties don’t make money out of elections, they spend way more on a campaign than they make. They are also not profit generating entities - they rely on donations from their members and the public to operate.
Why the f**k should I be forced to waste up to 2 hours of my time waiting in line to not vote
The funding is waste of taxpayers money and is milked by the major parties that win most of the seats not independents and many of these so called independents direect their prefences to major parties anyway.
You clearly are a idiot as the labor party is funded by unions as all labor party members have to be in a union and the liberals and nationals are funded by big companies , and they all expect to get their money worth from this .
More than $68 million in unexplained money flooded into political parties in the past financial year, making up almost 40 per cent of all donations, with integrity advocates warning the secrecy around who donates to Australia’s political powerbrokers must end.
An analysis from the Centre for Public Integrity published on Friday found the hidden money, which parties are not legally required to reveal the source of, is more than all other declared donations and other receipts combined for the 2020-21 financial year.
“This secrecy needs to stop,” he said.
He sees three “fundamental flaws” in the system: too much money being thrown around, it allows “rich people and big business to influence politicians”, and voters don’t know where the money is coming from.
In documents published by the Australian Electoral Commission on Tuesday, political parties disclosed a combined $176.7 million of income for 2020-21.
Of this, $15.5 million was in declared donations, $30.6 million “other receipts” – a category that can include tax refunds but also covers things such as money paid to a party for tickets to fundraising events – and $55.4 million in public funding. A further $7 million came through subscriptions, loans, capital transfers and party branches shifting money between themselves.
Over two decades since 1998-99, the origin of nearly $1.4 billion out of $4.5 billion in political party income has been hidden.
Almost 36 per cent of the Coalition’s reported income of more than $2 billion since that year is unexplained, while for Labor, 24.5 per cent of the almost $1.8 billion came from unknown sources.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hidden-money-political-parties-rake-in-68-million-from-mystery-sources-20220203-p59tg4.html
Two hours to vote? Come on - that’s just not true. Every Australian reading that knows they don’t have to wait in a line for two hours. 10 minutes maybe.
The funding of the AEC is completely justified and is clearly not milked by the major parties. The liberal party has just over $120 million to spend on the coming election, which is the most it has ever amassed for an election (it includes donations - probably about $40 mil would be it’s own money). At the last election they received 4 million votes, translating to less than $12 mil refunded - at 10% return on their outlay.
So the idea that major parties make money out of elections is … not something that anyone who knows what they are talking about thinks.
But generally speaking - independent and small parties do benefit from the payment. The average independent needs to fund their campaign from their personal savings, and a return of $12k from 3000 votes can make it worthwhile to try a run. The vast majority don’t win, but the fact that they are there means that the major parties do have to moderate their policies to combat them or get their preferences. It has a positive effect on the political system as a whole and is well worth the piddling expense to the tax payer.
The AEC is one of the best value and most worthwhile institutions in Australia. Absolutely world leading.
You clearly are not australian then
Voted in more than 20 federal/state/local elections a referendum and plebiscite.
[background color=var(--bbc-body-bg-color)]
Never waited more than 20 minutes. Often walk straight through to the desk to get my name ticked off and then to the booth. Longest wait would be maybe 20 minutes. [/background]
[background color=var(--bbc-body-bg-color)]Never even met anyone who had to wait 2 hours or anything close to it. [/background]
Only thing mandatory I wanna see in place by law, is uncorrupted politicians that only tell the truth and are not only transparent in their actions and speaking, but actually represent the people again that pay their salary with taxes and can be accountable for their actions during and after they served their period of time within any governmental position of their respective country.
I, too, want a million dollars and a pony
I hear it worked well for Putin.
"How would you like to be threatened with fines to vote when you dont like any of the canidates ."
you can still make a blank vote lol
just do a blank vote, if you dont vote at all no one will consider your opinion, if you do a blank one it gets the message across the the population wants something new.
or vote on a joke candidate. anything, really.
I usually write get f**ked but you have to arrive 45 mins early to vote if its the election day then wait in line plus the time wasted traveling
I'm in the US, so definitely not. Mandatory anything smacks of totalitarianism. I would however vote for a prerequisite test of general knowledge required to vote.
Here's a novel idea, submit any name of a real person you'd like to see as leader. Who ever get's the most votes, get's to choose to accept or not. If that person doesn't accept, then goes to the 2nd person voted most for and so on.
:)
One condition, they'd have to born in that country and maintain citizenship, with no dual citizenship.
Bad idea, not even talking about the bureaucracy involved doing that.
let's just make a thought experiment out of such