Australia is one of the few democartic western nations that still has compulsory voting and fines citizens who choose not to vote.

There are many argumanets in favour and against voluntary voting, I do not wish to go into the arguments here but if others wish to comment that's fine.

I firmly believe voting is a civil right not a civic duty!

An ever growing number of Autralians are expressing theis view so I have just started a Facebook Group called NO MORE COMPULSORY VOTING

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=145462422130774&ref=mf

Facebook can be a powerful tool to ad the weight of numbers to any cause or argument.

If you support voluntary voting for Australia please go to the Above URL and join the Group.

I will be inviting people to join through any online forum or word of mouth but of course we need many more like minded individuals to help it go viral.

I predict that if voluntary voting was (re)introduced voting levels would very quickly fall to well below 50%. Which is the very reason compulsory voting was introduced in the first place. Australians are very cynical and very apathetic when it comes to politics and it is far worse now than it was in the 1920s. The problem then is it can hardly be called a democracy when less that half the population actually vote. While compulsion is not the best answer, better civic involvement and more political empowerment of the public would be better, it is the most practical way to achieve at least a semblance of democracy for Australia.

This discussion is already progressing on a different thread. Please see my comments there:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3769#93148

I have always maintained that voters should have a certificate, meaning that when they pull up at a voting booth they have proof that they comprehend the voting system & the differences of political parties' doctrine.
This must become part of school education. The problem presently is that far too many voters are un-informed & make ill-informed decisions at the polling booth.

You have until monday to enrol, and they dont ask for ID. I'm sure Fred Smith and Donald Duck are already taken, but there really is no limit how many you want to register.

So voting is compulsory, but enrolling to vote is completely unregulated.

So, it kind of already is voluntary.

You're comment is obviously a considered one but consider this... if democratic representation is truly the goal then in a true democracy even the cynics and the most apathetic citizens have a right to express their views; even if that view is "I don't care and I'm not voting" ...

If the numbers of voters fall to less than 50% with voluntary voting (because so many are apathetic, undecided or just confused) then the result of the election would actually a truer representation of the opinion of the populace than it is now

And to those who keep using the reasoning that it's “already voluntary” because you can cast a null vote or the registration system requires no proof so so people can register more than once or cast a vote for someone else or buck the system one way or another. As I keep pointing out you are not making a good argument for keeping the status quo, in fact you are probably presenting more reasons that only those who truly want to vote should vote and the voting system should be overhauled.