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One thing I really hate about the 'optional' voting system: most particularly in western societies it allows swathes of people to believe they can be morally pure by opting out of the political system of their country.
Don't like your options? Think that you're too good to sully-by-association with politicians? Don't want to accept responsibility for bad choices?
Easy! "I didn't vote, therefore it's not my problem. I didn't do anything!"
No, darlings, I'm sorry. Your country (like mine) is built on the slain bodies of the indigenous people who lived there a millenium before anyone from Europe so much as set their pasty little toe in the sand off the beaches of whatever coast they landed on.
From life's first cry, you're steeped in blood. No, you didn't choose it, but you have to make the best of it. And in my opinion, making the best of it includes accountability and responsibility, even if it's not culpability and guilt.
Granted, Australians are not great at facing up to the Shitty Stuff Done By The People Who Developed This Culture We've Inherited but at least we don't get to bow out of voting. Or, if we do, we think we're fucking Ned Kelly, who at least was willing to die for his anti-establishmentarian view (a.k.a. "you'll never take me alive" mentality, documented in that great Aussie Song Waltzing Matilda). But most of us are "well, I don't like A, and I don't like B, and C is foully disgusting, but at least I can vote for B and then A, and then leave C off the ballot entirely to show my preferences.
Ironically, I suspect the fact that we do have mandatory voting is one of the reasons our voting is also preferential, rather than 'first past the post'. If you're going to make people vote, then you do have to give them reasonable options.
Interestingly, it looks like there might have been a very high rate of non-voting at yesterday's local election. By 'very high' I mean 23% of non-voters in one ward of our local council, and 16% in another ward. Didn't hear about the third ward. (Wards are subdivisions of a local council electorate, which might or might not overlap with a state electorate, which might or might not overlap with a federal electorate.)
Our usual level of non-voting is 5%. Maaaaybe 8%. And that's a lot.
Mind you, a high level of non-voting is not unusual in council elections, which are less well-advertised than the state or federal ones.
Or which might simply reflect our current state of disillusionment with our government. We'll see during the federal election next year.
Don't like your options? Think that you're too good to sully-by-association with politicians? Don't want to accept responsibility for bad choices?
Easy! "I didn't vote, therefore it's not my problem. I didn't do anything!"
No, darlings, I'm sorry. Your country (like mine) is built on the slain bodies of the indigenous people who lived there a millenium before anyone from Europe so much as set their pasty little toe in the sand off the beaches of whatever coast they landed on.
From life's first cry, you're steeped in blood. No, you didn't choose it, but you have to make the best of it. And in my opinion, making the best of it includes accountability and responsibility, even if it's not culpability and guilt.
Granted, Australians are not great at facing up to the Shitty Stuff Done By The People Who Developed This Culture We've Inherited but at least we don't get to bow out of voting. Or, if we do, we think we're fucking Ned Kelly, who at least was willing to die for his anti-establishmentarian view (a.k.a. "you'll never take me alive" mentality, documented in that great Aussie Song Waltzing Matilda). But most of us are "well, I don't like A, and I don't like B, and C is foully disgusting, but at least I can vote for B and then A, and then leave C off the ballot entirely to show my preferences.
Ironically, I suspect the fact that we do have mandatory voting is one of the reasons our voting is also preferential, rather than 'first past the post'. If you're going to make people vote, then you do have to give them reasonable options.
Interestingly, it looks like there might have been a very high rate of non-voting at yesterday's local election. By 'very high' I mean 23% of non-voters in one ward of our local council, and 16% in another ward. Didn't hear about the third ward. (Wards are subdivisions of a local council electorate, which might or might not overlap with a state electorate, which might or might not overlap with a federal electorate.)
Our usual level of non-voting is 5%. Maaaaybe 8%. And that's a lot.
Mind you, a high level of non-voting is not unusual in council elections, which are less well-advertised than the state or federal ones.
Or which might simply reflect our current state of disillusionment with our government. We'll see during the federal election next year.
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