Re: preferential voting. Too many people don't understand it. Too many people think they have to vote the way their favoured candidate says they should. Too many people are 'donkeys', just marking straight down ticket. In short, too many people are too dumb to vote.

Coming generations will soon be illiterate if our current standard of education prevails; kids can barely read and write now. How on earth can they be expected to navigate their way through the tablecloth-size senate paper? I would bet that most people go 1 to 3 across the top,rather than deciding who they actually want in the senate, then putting in the 15 'preferences' in the body of the paper required to make their vote formal.

No. I remain convinced. Voluntary voting, and no preferential nonsense. It is bloody ridiculous to have to choose people you don't particularly want when you have clearly indicated who you do want.

Just to make compulsory voting sillier - there are, apparently , half a million eligible voters who haven't even bothered to register to vote.

Surely it is not too much to ask of a citizen that they trot along to the polling booth to have their name crossed off as a deterrent to multiple voting?

Is Mise,

Muliple voting seems to be your thing, but I don't understand how compulsory voting stops it. Multiple voting has always occurred, and is still occurring as far as I know. It is certainly reported periodically.

ttbn,

Multiple voting is much harder when an official crosses the names off; if one turns up to vote and finds that one's name has already been crossed off then there is a legitimate question as to who voted.

If one doesn't turn up then there will be no questions.

See? Simple really.

Compulsory voting nips multiple voting in the bud.

I have never heard of any checking to see if the same names were crossed off at a number of driftnet polling places with in an electret.

I can think of a number of contributors here, who would be happy driving around voting at as many pooling places as they could find.