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The Forum > Article Comments > Optional voting > Comments

Optional voting : Comments

By Greg Lees, published 29/6/2011

If voting were optional then politicians would need to appeal to working class voters less, for the better of all.

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I would expect all the candidates in that electorate to very quickly revise their policies.
The first step would be to do some serious polling to establish exactly why all candidates were considered unacceptable, and what candidates had to do to get a result.
This is Capitalist Democracy. If your product doesn't sell, either take it off the shelves or change it.
It's interesting that all this discussion about so called 'Boguns' hasn't touched much on causes, so much as effects.
Why don't so many people consider voting to be important?
Most common reason I've heard, is that many people reckon it just doesn't matter who gets in; they're all as bad as each other.
And as Hazza pointed out, what's the principle differences in policy between the majors these days anyway?
Perhaps people would feel more connected, or feel that their representatives were more connected, if the Reps didn't make 5 times more money than the median of the people they are supposed to represent.
I doubt if many council labourers lose a lot of sleep over the latest drop in BHP's share price.
Posted by Grim, Sunday, 10 July 2011 2:45:53 PM
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Its a possibility Grim, but it is something that parties will try to get on top of in other ways; the main one is they might simply continue their existing tactics (but invest in even heavier local advertising) and ride on the voters eventual fatigue of being continuously dragged back to the voting booths. Of course, they could simply make an empty promise (which brings us to a second point that once elected, the government has way too little accountability until the next election).

But another problem with NOTA is- by extension of the problem of an uninformed person voting a party on a whim, is that there is a risk that an uninformed voter might vote NOTA and scuttle other parties they didn't even bother to learn about, on a similar whim because they didn't like the two majors and probably the Greens- and made an assumption that the rest are definitely the same.
Posted by King Hazza, Sunday, 10 July 2011 3:09:09 PM
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Hazza, if a majority of people in a majority of electorates vote NOTA it is surely a trigger for a DD and possibly a plebiscite. I think that such a result is extremely unlikely. Most people will still vote for their rusted-on choice, although I could see a possible problem if a party engaged in the shenanigans that saw Gillard supplant Rudd.

Let's face it, too, we have a Presidential-style campaign model these days. Many people would not be able to name even one of their local candidates: they vote on the basis of who leads the party. If neither party cannot choose a public face that is sufficiently acceptable to the majority of voters then they need to revisit their decision.

Furthermore, by making the candidates stump up a large deposit, forfeited in the event of a NOTA vote reaching a certain threshold (say 25% of the electorate), the costs to the taxpayer of holding a by-election can be reduced, possibly even covered completely.
Posted by Antiseptic, Monday, 11 July 2011 6:01:06 AM
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Antisceptic that is actually unlikely

Governments such as those we have now would NEVER, ever, even dream of resorting to DD just to streamline an election; if they were desperate enough to change the system, they would probably terminate NOTA or disqualify the NOTA votes. Or they would simply throw another election with a raft of bogus promises or spookie stories about anarchy if nobody is elected until the result is different.
The idea they would allow the one thing that would kill their gravy train forever and strip away their favorite powers- just because they are placed in a stalemate with the other parties (and still being in the best position to turn it around)- is like saying if I were a used car salesman faced with a client who wasn't buying my car, I would offer him my house and control of my business as added extras.

And the above problems I mentioned would still be there.
Posted by King Hazza, Monday, 11 July 2011 10:38:23 AM
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