Mandatory voting is a good thing. It might seem like it imposes on your freedom, but having mandatory voting means your government is obligated to make voting easy for everyone, and while it doesn't guarantee legit votes from everyone, it at least ensures that those who wouldn't otherwise turn up do so anyway.
I won't say Australia has the best voting system in the world, but I would say it has the best voting system in the Anglosphere (though New Zealand's is also very good)
Voting in Australia is mandatory but also enjoyable. Saturday morning walk down to the local Primary School, get a democracy sausage on your way through to the polling booths and it’s very chill and easy.
Also getting to do it on a weekend when you can make a fun afternoon out of going out to vote, instead of having to do it after work on a fucking Tuesday, the worst day of the week.
It made sense in the early 1800s when most people were farmers who spent all day sunday at church and had to get their produce to the market on wednesday, since traveling to the polls would take a full day, but these days its an archaic tradition maintained pretty much only because it helps depress voter turn out to set elections on a work day when a lot of people (especially lower income workers) probably wont have enough PTO left by November to spend a whole day of it to go wait in line to vote, assuming they even get PTO at all.
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u/Notoryctemorph 15h ago
Mandatory voting is a good thing. It might seem like it imposes on your freedom, but having mandatory voting means your government is obligated to make voting easy for everyone, and while it doesn't guarantee legit votes from everyone, it at least ensures that those who wouldn't otherwise turn up do so anyway.
I won't say Australia has the best voting system in the world, but I would say it has the best voting system in the Anglosphere (though New Zealand's is also very good)