CM

There are good reasons to have pre-polling, but there are rules; rules which are not policed. The slackness and gutlessness of the AEC are fairly typical of Australian authorities these days.

Apart from the people with good reasons to vote early, the others are clearly idiots for voting before the campaign is over. The sort of idiots who keep banging on about how the Coalition deserved to be kicked out, when I agree that they should have been kicked out. The same idiots who are too thick to see the appalling state of our voting system when a 32% vote awards the government to one of the parties. And, the losing party gained only 4% more! A third of voters didn't want either of them. This is what led to Paul Collits' observation about first past the post voting, and the fact that so many informal votes, and votes for so-called freedom parties, indicate how fed up and disgusted with our political class people are. It's a good thing that there are people out there with more intelligence than the morons here, whose very limited ability to understand the written word, and their belief that it's all about one political party or the other, drives them to post the same tediously ignorant drivel that they do: just the same noise made by all of the cancel culture.

I don’t vote.
I will not support State sanctioned criminal enterprise.
It’s time for revolt.

Dan.

" about a quarter of the votes were informal "

Its probably the first time I've said this (probably because its the first time it happened!!) but Paul is right. I checked the AEC Tally Room and there isn't any electorate that has a 25% informal vote. Not even close. If that's what ttbn's source says then the rest can safely be ignored. Its rubbish.

I worked on the election and in my electorate the informal vote was 6.9%. Of that I'd guess about 40% just didn't want to vote so left the ballot empty or wrote inadmissible things or drawings on the ballot. The rest were just too moronic to follow simple instructions and probably didn't deserve to have the vote counted anyway. (When the instructions is to enter a number against each candidate 1 through to 9 and they enter 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,7,9 then democracy is served by ignoring their vote.)

As to pre-polling (where I worked) the rule is that the voter merely needs to assert that they may be unavailable to vote on the actual day in order to be given a pre-poll vote. Again anyone who doesn't know the issues two weeks out from the election day probably doesn't deserve to vote. So pre-poll is fine and reduces problems on the day.

The election is fair beyond belief and returned the government most Australians wanted. Now the nation has to live with that decision.

"I don’t vote."

Then you have no right to complain about whatever happens over the next three years...but I bet you will.

My guess is that most people who refuse to vote just don't want to take responsibility for their views.

mhaze,

As Paul Collits is a known author and blogger, and you are not, I am of a mind to stick with him. Sorry.

Even if he got it wrong, that doesn’t mean "the rest can safely be ignored. Its (sic) rubbish".

Not voting, voting informally, is a legitimate expression of protest - if you don’t do it all the time, when it becomes pointless. The way things are going, I might do it next election, given the appalling state of the political class and the parlous state the country is now in. I sometimes think that a voter strike might be the only way to get politicians to take notice.

mhaze,
ISTRa few years back, when everyone had to fill out al the boxes, putting the same number in more than one box was seen as a legitimate way to exhaust the vote. Has that ceased to be the case? Why?