Hi Ludwig - my big problem with optional preferential voting is that it favours the Laberals and works to keep smaller parties and Independents out of parliament, particularly in electorates where many candidates stand. On the other hand, I'm not persuaded at all that any theoretical benefits that derive from forcing unwilling citizens to vote outweigh the undemocratic aspects of compulsion.

Hi Antiseptic - nice to agree on something, and to see you back.

I'd prefer we moved to Internet voting in any case. Hopefully this issue will become redundant in a decade or 2.

I object to compulsory voting, partly because line-ups for the booths are too long.

Would rather see a system where one can vote once for a party, and that vote continues "forever", unless one turns up at a voting booth (or completes a form at any time, not just near elections) to change their recurrent vote. It's an application of the old 80/20 rule - 80% of people would hardly ever change their vote (or do so only 1 out of 5 elections).

Yes I know, it would be considered by the pollies and Electoral Commission to be too difficult to organise and maintain privacy - but thats what we have computers for.

Here we go again: "... not persuaded at all that any theoretical benefits that derive from forcing unwilling citizens to vote outweigh the undemocratic aspects of compulsion."

Australia was the first country to recognize in its laws that voting is like jury duty - it is not a right, nor even a privilege, but a duty. A duty which helps safeguard everyone else's rights.

Serving in a jury is not a right; it is a duty that a citizen may be required to perform, to fulfill the rights of another - the right to fair trial by jury.

In the same way, voting is not a right; it is a duty a citizen will be required to perform, to fulfill the rights of all other citizens - the right to be ruled only by responsible, accountable government.

If you take issue with compulsory voting, it follows that you should also take issue with jury obligation. And if you take issue with jury obligation, it follows that you do not value the right to trial by jury enough to help safeguard it.

The only two countries in the world, which have compulsory voting, are Australia and the USSR, which bequeathed it to the present Russia.
It makes a mockery of Democracy for one main reason. It assumes that all voters are equal.
This is obviously not the case if you look around at the people you meet in everyday life.
Mostly (approx 40%) do not give a fig for the way the country is run and whether it is being run efficiently or causing the least harm to the environment.
The thing that concerns them most are the price of cigarettes, the cost of booze and the terrible price of petrol. Also they are very concerned about how their “footie” team is going and other non-vital concerns.
The election brings to the fore the main parties bribing mechanism, who endeavor to be the party giving the biggest incentive to vote for them at the last moment and sway the swinging voters into their camp for the day of the election.
After the election, all bets are off. The excuses for not enacting the pre election promises come tumbling out.
It does not matter. Those 40% who are up for sale have put the Government in for the next three years.
If by some miracle the voting act was changed and it was not compulsory, a large percentage (maybe 40%) would not bother to vote. These would be the same voters who give no thought to the reasons for voting for the parties on offer but only for the best bargain on offer.
If some of those same voters actually got off their butt and gave the pub a miss for an hour or what ever distraction was luring them at the time, it would take a certain amount of reasoning and this would be good. At least their vote would not be sold to the most enticing bribe.

[If you take issue with compulsory voting, it follows that you should also take issue with jury obligation]

I don't see why that is the case.

Albeit that it is reasonable to call voting it a "duty" (as well as being a right within democracies)- for jury duty the level of personal involvement and one's ability to affect the outcome far exceeds that of voting (apart from once in a blue moon). So to assume one should automatically also take issue with compulsory jury duty seems a bit misplaced to me.

Voting is an "unreal" thing, we tend to vote in an abstract sense. We vote for parties, not directly for individual policies (which is what would be possible with internet voting - all elections should include voting on major policies). Jury duty is not.

Hi federalist,

<< Australia was the first country to recognize in its laws that voting is like jury duty - it is not a right, nor even a privilege, but a duty. >>

Your analogy between jury duty and compulsory voting is based on your interpretation of J.S. Mill. That's fair enough and you're perfectly entitled to that opinion, but I'll just point out that his ideas didn't persuade the parliament of his own country, where voting is still not compulsory.

<< If you take issue with compulsory voting, it follows that you should also take issue with jury obligation >>

Only if I subscribe to your logic, which I don't. The negatives of compulsory voting are well expressed by sarnian above. I won't labour his/her points by repeating them.