Compulsory voting ensures that those that don't really care are forced to vote based on the latest sound bite that drifts through their head.

This leads to populist media driven goverments where rational long term policies are a liability.

If you don't want to have a part in selecting your goverment why on earth should you. Whimsical voting leads to whimsical government.

“Clever try at confusing the logic.”

Compared to your not so clever attempt to confuse the logic, eh Liberty?

I can’t make head nor tail of your post, and what’s with the whacky four-bracket business and the haphazard paragraph spacing, with variously four lines, one line or no space between them? (:>/)

Consider this: You see someone commit assault or robbery in the street. Is it not both your right to do something about it by way of going to the police and your duty as a good citizen to do so? Why shouldn’t voting be seen in just the same way?

A right and a duty are not mutually exclusive.

It might be hard enforce a good community spirit for everyone who witnesses unlawful activities, but it is not hard to get all eligible citizens to vote. Given that it is administratively practicable, it should be done.

I find it quite bizarre that anyone would think that a significant portion of the populace not bothering to vote would be acceptable.

If the vast majority of citizens voted of their own free will, then I wouldn’t be worried about making it compulsory. But with such a large part of the community foregoing their right, privilege or in-principle duty in countries where voting is voluntary, I think compulsory voting has to be upheld in Australia.

Ludwig,

Free speech is a right, but I am awfully glad it's not compulsory. Reporting a crime is a duty, but not compulsory. You are the one confused between a right, a duty and a law.

Charity is a right, some might consider it a duty. Income tax is compulsory.

The more the state dictates what you do, the less freedom you have.

This is why most modern democracies don't have this archaic system.

There are simply too many internal contradictions in this argument to count, which makes it extremely difficult to frame a response.

>>Compulsory voting does not just mean a duty to attend a polling booth<<

"Compulsory voting" in Australia does, in fact, mean exactly that: registering your attendance at a polling both.

Strike one.

>>it also implies a moral duty to cast an informed vote<<

Only, surely, if there is a concomitant "moral duty" incumbent upon politicians to both present their policies in an informative way, and then - when elected on those policies - to carry them out. Blatant shirking by politicians, over many years, of any inclination to do this has completely annulled any requirement for the electorate to be forced to vote for them.

Strike two.

>>Voting is a precious right that is the basis of democracy but needs to be exercised thoughtfully to be really effective<<

How is it both? That isn't rational. Surely, it is just as precious a democratic right, when you find yourself faced with no candidate worthy of your vote, to withhold it? Thoughtfully.

Strike Three.

You're already on your way back to the dugout, but this bit is too good to pass over.

"The importance of [the right to vote] is probably lost as a result of the massive over concentration on the major parties in the media. That imbalance needs to be addressed urgently."

The media are irrelevant to any discussion on the nature of voting, compulsory or otherwise, precious right or painful necessity. And their concentration on major parties surely only reflects that predominance of those major political parties on our electoral landscape?

Which brings us full circle to the reason that compulsory voting is a sham.

Tweedledum, anybody?

Or how about Tweedledee?

Phanto

“The reality is that there is no such thing as compulsory voting in Australia”.

True. But if you were to blatantly drop your ballot paper in the bin or otherwise make it obvious that you were casting an informal vote, you could be charged. We are legally required to cast a legitimate vote.

Like you, I don’t wish to vote for either major candidate. And we can’t vote for minor candidates without our vote ending up counting for one of the two big mongrels. Thus is our rotten compulsory preferential system.

So as I said in my first post, essential reforms are needed – the abandonment of compulsory preferential voting and the formalisation of the null vote, for example.

I agree that our government is basically forcing a lot of us to vote in a way that is not consistent with how we think or feel. But this shouldn’t mean that voting be made voluntary. It means that urgent reforms are needed within the compulsory voting system.

“It is my right to vote but a right is not an obligation”.

I respect this view. But I personally strongly feel that a core principle of democracy should be an obligation for citizens to do certain things and act in certain ways, for the common good. Democracy does not mean total freedom. It means living under considerable restrictions and practicing communal responsibilities so that a reasonable degree of fairness and a half-decent quality of life can prevail for all citizens.

One of the obligations must surely be to have a certain amount of input into how one’s society is run. I don’t think it is fair and reasonable for any normal citizen, let alone a large part of any society, to not have this basic input. Voting is perhaps the most tangible and the least arduous way of ensuring that all citizens have at least this minimum degree of input.

But of course along with compulsory voting, we MUST be able to direct our vote and preferences to where we want them to go, uncoerced in any way.

Ludwig,

Telling me you can't understand my post is simply evasion.
The question-begging of your arguments has been revealed to all, as well as your false motives in deliberately confusing a right with an obligation.

The notion of a right is redundant when accompanied by an obligation to the same end.
As I have pointed out, I doubt you would consider paying a speeding fine a right.

And I doubt that the hundreds of nations around the world which maintain voluntary voting consider voting less of a right because it is not obligatory.

Your intent is decidely dishonest, playing semantic games and insulting even the most basic of intelligences. Ultimately, you are a socialist, and like all socialists, like to paint your ideas as philanthropic, when in fact all you are interested in doing is forcing your will on others, and sending them to jail when they do not comply.