OT - VOTE!!! - (US Citizens)

[MeepoTheMighty]

Re: Compulsory voting

Just for an international comparison, in Australia it is *compulsory* to vote. If you don’t, you get fined.

Having said that, it’s compulsory to enrol to vote, turn up to a polling station, have your name ticked off and put the papers in the ballot box. It’s not uncommon for people to vote “informal”, that is not fill out or deface their ballot papers. Often a high informal vote is seen as a protest.

Nevertheless, the idea is that with Australian citizenship comes various duties as well as rights – and one of those duties is the duty to vote.

How exactly do they handle that? Send you a bill? I could see a million ways in which it would be impossible to make a law like that in the US. Does Australia have much of a homeless population?

 

[Atticus_of_Amber]

There are a lot of ways round it (just as there are a lot of ways around any law) but the fact that it’s a law means that most people obey it.

Every couple of years, officials from the Australian Electoral Commission come around to houses in their area and letter drop and doorknock asking if the people who live there are enrolled to vote. I can’t remember exactly, but there are also certain things for which you need to be enrolled to vote (e.g. I think you need to be on the roll to get a passport).

The elector roll is also used for other purposes – jury selection, rough social statistics, informing members of Parliament who their voters are so they can do mailouts, etc…

If you are on the roll and you don’t vote, you are usually sent a letter asking you to show cause why you shouldn’t be fined. There are a range of excuses, though the existence of postal votes, pre-poll voting and the ability to vote from any Australian embassy in the world means that “I was away from home” is not a good reason. Elections are always held on Saturdays, so working isn’t a great excuse either.

The fines aren’t much - A$100 to A$500 (US$50 to US$250). It’s pretty much a slap on the wrist. But it does seem to drive home the message that as a citizen of Australia you are expected to vote. Voter turnout is usually in the high 90% range.

Yes, sadly we have an increasing homeless population as we reduce the scope of our social welfare spending and public mental health services. These people, having no address, generally slip off the electoral roll. No one bothers to fine them – you’d have to feed, cloth and given them a house and a job first (or just throw them in prison). It’s pretty sad.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Re: Re: Compulsory voting

How exactly do they handle that? Send you a bill? I could see a million ways in which it would be impossible to make a law like that in the US. Does Australia have much of a homeless population?

I think I heard that some really funny stuff results from this law, like having enough people write in "Jedi" as their official religion on the mandatory surveys for Jedi to actually qualify as a "recognized" religion. Elligible for many benefits etc...

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I'm sure glad they moved the "Crothian's 10,000 thread" to Meta! That was WAY more OT than this one!
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[Atticus_of_Amber]

Re: Re: Re: Compulsory voting

I think I heard that some really funny stuff results from this law, like having enough people write in "Jedi" as their official religion on the mandatory surveys for Jedi to actually qualify as a "recognized" religion. Elligible for many benefits etc...

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I'm sure glad they moved the "Crothian's 10,000 thread" to Meta! That was WAY more OT than this one!
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No. That's the compulsory census. There is a space for religion with a list of options and then a space to fill in if you ticked "other". Religions which have a certain level of support are usually given recognition in the tax laws, etc. There was a joke campaign to write in "Jedi knight" after Wicca got a lot of write ins last time. The eventual percentage of Jedi was miniscule - it doesn't have any official status.

The Jedi campaign was an example of that great Australia art of "taking the piss" - that is, refusing to take things too seriously. There was, for example, a lot of "taking the piss" in the opening and closing ceremonies to the Sydney Olympics (check out the Mambo floats in the closing parade and the direct confrontation of Mundaway Yunipingu pointing to the Prime Minister in the official box as he sang "all you lying politicians..." in his rendition of the song "Treaty"). The level of solemn reverence and respect given by Americans to their president, their constitution, religion and "family values" would be seen as embarrassingly silly if replicated in Australia. It's a very "democratic" or "egalitarian" attitude and it does act as a break on arrogance and self-importance in our leaders - but it can also be a little maddening when serious issues *are* at stake...

Another great example of "taking the piss" was that Bollywood meets Sydney Gay and Lesbian Madi Gras extravaganza, "Moulin Rouge". The whole thing was a wondrous, riotous, ridiculous "piss take".

Another example occurred in my own office. A year ago we moved to a snazzy new building. A few weeks after moving in, there appeared a series of "modern art" sculptures made from rusty metal with plaques indicating they were on loan from ArtBank (the art leasing arm of the Australian National Gallery) and were a series by the artist "Sui Ng". The section head thought they had been chosen by the CEO, the CEO thought they were the section head's choice. They stayed there for a year, often commented on with some people saying they were awful and others saying they were an interesting example of modern art. The Australian Attorney-General is a noted art enthusiast and when he visited our offices (we're a law firm) in July, he stoped to admire these "fascinating examples of modern sculpture". On the anniversary of their installation, two of the lawyers from our floor called a meeting to reveal that the "sculptures" were some junk pulled out of one of their yards and mocked up (plaques and all) one weekend and installed in the dead of night on Sunday. "Sui Ng" was not a real person, she was in fact the mainstay of our income - "suing" get it? The culprits had to confess becasue there was a proposal to put some corporate logos on that display wall and the CEO had mentioned the need to "return" the sculptures to ArtBank. The attitude of the powers that be was generally riotous laughter. The sculptures now have pride of place (with an explanatory plaque to come) in the CEO's office. In one fell swoop, our "piss takers" (both quite senior lawyers) had cut modern art, the senior executive of the firm and the Attorney-General down to size. We're all still laughing. Now THAT is a "piss take".

Getting "Jedi" recognised as an official religion would have been pretty funny, though...

 

[Kilmore]

I'm Chaotic Neutral and I vote!

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Compulsory voting

The level of solemn reverence and respect given by Americans to their preisident, their constitution, religion and "family values" would be seen as embarassing silly if replicated in Australia. It's a very "democratic" or "egalitarian" attitude and it does act as a break on arrogance and self-importance in our leaders - but it can also be a little maddening when serious issues *are* at stake...

Most of our solemn reverence is a sham, I assure you

 

[Maraxle]

Because if you win those five states, you'll have 167 electoral votes and your opponent will have 371. Besides, as we've already pointed out, the larger states have a much higher voter/electoral vote ratio than the smaller states. That means to win those larger states will cost you more money per electoral vote than it will to win an equivalent number of small states.

I was saying that if you win those 5, you already have most of what you need. If you want to get technical, you could actually win with California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. That leaves 39 states. Since those 11 states add up to roughly 55% of the US population, and you would only need just over 50% of the vote in each state, you could conceivably win the presidency with a little under 28% of the total vote. That's an extreme example, and not probable, but possible. To me, this is wrong. You may not agree, and that's fine.

 

[Maraxle]

What about them? Those could easily be bought by giving $500 to every person in the city of El Paso, TX.

Well, under the current system you could save yourself some cash, and give $400,000 to each member of the electoral college.

 

[Atticus_of_Amber]

I was saying that if you win those 5, you already have most of what you need. If you want to get technical, you could actually win with California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. That leaves 39 states. Since those 11 states add up to roughly 55% of the US population, and you would only need just over 50% of the vote in each state, you could conceivably win the presidency with a little under 28% of the total vote. That's an extreme example, and not probable, but possible. To me, this is wrong. You may not agree, and that's fine.

One of the big problems with systems like the electoral college or single member electorates in parliamentary democracies like the UK and Australia is "wasted votes". More people voting for you in a division that you have already won are just wasted. Whether you won Californie with 51% or 99%, you still get the same number of electoral college votes.

This cuts many ways though....

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm at college out of state, and the elections sort of slipped up on me. I can't vote for the people here, and it's not like the Georgia TV networks have been showing a lot of news about the candidates in Texas, so I had no idea who to vote for, and not enough time to get an absentee ballot. I only realized an election was coming up as of a week ago. Heck, if not for the Daily Show with John Stewart, I wouldn't have even known about it at all.

Next time, I will try to go out of my way to go show up at least, but definitely the Georgia election news left a really bad taste in my mouth. I wish people would just state what they intend to do, rather than trying to insult the opposition.

However, I do have a new strategy for political commercials. Instead of attacking the candidate, attack the people who voted for him.

"In 1996, California voters elected Gray Party senator Bob Bobbington to represent you. In the four years since then, Star Wars Episode I was crap, Farscape was cancelled, and my daughter started going out with a Lesbian Al Quaeda drug dealer. It is also strongly suspected Bobbington was responsible for the 2001 earthquake that sank half of Los Angeles. Don't let it happen again. Would you be able to live with yourself if you were responsible for the next six years of Gray Party idiocy. Vote the Taupe Party"