My youngest son ain't exactly an activist, like his old man. In fact he is pretty scornful of my silly efforts to change the world. That's not surprising - I'm nearly old enough to be his granddad, and anyway, it's his job to be different to me - that's the nature of things.

Yet when his voting enrolment papers arrived on his eighteenth birthday, a slight change came over him. It was like he had been handed the keys to the world. Go-on son, take the wheel. It was palpable.

Now I don't know who he votes for - that's his business - and I don't care, as long as he does it. All I know is that this one tiny social obligation has helped to make a better man of him.

I appreciate your arguments for voluntary voting, but would also add that the US and UK experience suggests that this is one import we could well do without.

I appreciate your dissatisfaction with middle spectrum politics – though there is a reasonable argument that centralisation of policy approximates representation more than diversity of policy. You may like diversity, I may like diversity but does the majority? I guess any view depends on which diversity we’re talking about and what we understand representation to mean.

I applaud your dissatisfaction with the two party domination of Australian politics. But I’m missing the reasoning in your argument to abolish compulsory voting. You named the complaints: 2 party domination and centralised policy; you named the logical suspects: compulsory preferential voting and single member electorates. But then you move on from what might have been an interesting discussion about those topics to call for an end to compulsory voting.

Do you have any evidence that voluntary voting would diminish the two party domination? Do you have any evidence that voluntary voting would produce more representative policy or indeed that centralised policy – whether we like it or not – is unrepresentative? In the US, there is much evidence to support the proposition that voluntary voting produces extremist policy in as much as parties (the two major ones that always gain office) need to inspire potential supporters to get out and vote for them. One way of doing this is to offer policy carrots to the extremists who are most likely to rally to the call to vote. There’s evidence that the US ends up with a range of policies that are representative of small, angry groups of conservatives and oppressive to the more liberal majority who were pehaps too appathetic to think about the consequences of not voting.

So, back to your original points: could we overcome the problems that you (I think rightly) point to by considering the effect of having compulsory preferential voting (or indeed any kind of preferential voting) and would we think about reshaping our lower house electorates making multi-member rather than single member electorates? Like the upper houses.

Maybe if the parties had to give a reason to encourage potential voters out their homes to vote for them we might just end up with a better calibre of politician.

Hmm... this is an issue I'm torn on.

Yes, I want to see more influence given to independents and minor parties, as this would lead to a much healthier democracy.

But I tend to think the best way to do this is to get rid of preferences and preference deals.

If people are forced to vote, and they are disgusted with the major parties, this opens a potential opportunity for the minor parties and independents.

As I grew up, I simply assumed most democracies had compulsory voting. I was quite surprised to find out as a teen that we were the exception to the rule.

However, having thought about it, and having spent a great deal of time watching US politics, I think it is the better way. Whilst there are many practical reasons for this, at the core of this is that as a citizen in a democracy, there is not only a *right*, but a *responsibility* to participate in the democratic process.
It is very true that not all people take an interest in politics, or are apathetic towards the politicians. Whether these people take an active, informed interest in politics or not is beside the point. They still, as citizens require representation and have legitimate political views.
In a non-compulsory system a situation of effective disenfranchisement can be created. For example in the U.S (which has one of the lowest voter turn outs in a liberal democracy) the inner city low income blacks do not have representation. Traditionally, these citizens have a low likeliness of turnout, thus, politicians do not bother to appeal to them. This further justifies the low turnout and so on & so forth. The end result is an entire subset of the population is not represented and never likely to be.

On another angle, compulsory voting has more of a chance to centralise the vote. Since politicians & parties must appeal to an absolute majority, neither can be too far away from the centre or they will alienate too many potential voters. Hopefully, this acts as a bulwark and we end up with a relatively stable government, with only ‘shifts of focus’ instead of massive swings either left or right. Once again, we can turn to the U.S to see, despite the inertia of a large govt, the shift to the far right is quite startling and threatening to their political system.

In the end, I find the threat of an unrepresentative democracy as bad as any other unrepresentative system of government.

Australia doesn't have compulsory voting. This furphy is so old it has a long, grey beard. Australian voters are registered on the electoral roll. They are then required to get their names crossed off the roll when they enter a polling station to indicate they (and nobody impersonating them) have showed up. Then they can go home, do some shopping or make an aeroplane out of the ballot paper. Nobody forces them to vote. And gee, how terrible it is to vote. Lucky North Koreans don't have that arduous duty imposed on them.