American voting is under-informed and has low turn out, but at least the few percentage of electorate that vote actually care.
Aussies .. I am not sure if they don't care, or if they're just good at hiding their political views. It's far easier to speak to an American and learn about his/her political stances. Aussies are much more opaque, in my experience, and seem to be equally resentful of all politicians.
For all their bureaucracy, Aussies are far more anarchic and egalitarian than any other nation that I am familiar with, except maybe Somalis.
Australians, at least the ones in NSW that I have come to know, consider the government and politicians "a bunch of wankers". They're very pessimistic about the people they elect; which is both nice, and also harmful.
Having said that .. Aussie Aussie Aussie!
[Edit:
People should harden the fuck up and visit Australia; everyone should live there at least once. Just thinking about that place brings a smile to my face. They're a nation of good-natured jokers, thoroughly beautiful I tell ya. But be prepared to be bull-shat left and right; you will have a hard time if you're a self-righteous prick]
Politicians are a bunch of wankers. They wouldn't be politicians if they weren't. I don't mean that in a really bad way, I just mean, being a successful politician takes a certain personality type. If you aren't rough as guts, a bit of a prick and full of yourself, you won't survive in Australian politics.
As for compulsory voting, I dig it. You should too.
The ALP (Australian Labor Party) are out "Democrats" (in the US sense; we had a Democrats party here that was something else and basically imploded 5+ years ago anyway). It has its roots in the union movement. The majority of ALP MPs (Members of Parliament, the House of Representatives, often called the Lower House) earned their stripes in the union movement, even now.
ALP support bears some correlation with being "working class" and lower socioeconomic position. Traditional supporters are deeply suspicious of anything that (allegedly) erodes "worker's rights" and of any conservative government.
On the right we have the Coalition, which is two parties: the Australian Liberal Party (don't mistake this with the US meaning of "liberal", they're conservative) and the National Party, which is much like the Liberals but only field candidates in rural seats and have a very rural focus.
Calling this a blue and white collar divide is largely accurate.
The Greens are very much on the left and, like the environmental movements in all developed nations, is largely supported by a young, discontent middle and upper classes. I say this not as a judgement but rather environmentalism is a luxury, meaning you see it in rich not poor countries.
The Greens are basically the "ALP in waiting" and deeply entrenched in university politics (meaning the kind of people who run in or care about student elections).
I think politics among the US electorate is exactly analogous to bikeshed discussions on a mailing list.
In India, its assumed almost sinful to ask for political stance/ "Who are you gonna vote for" in the urban society. (It may be illegal too, not sure)
Granted, I'm not American, but I think I've been here long enough to qualify for all intents and purposes.
You're also correct about generally being able to tell someone's political leaning.
Another thing is that the 2 parties (republican and democrat) are very clearly opposed and distinct. And every republican I know very strongly identifies with being a republican (and my guess is that they vote republican unquestioningly straight across the ballot). Surmise from that what you will.
Voluntary voting in the US has one strange effect: politicians no 1 goal is to get "their" group to vote. Each side has a relatively fixed (and roughly equal) group of voters. Most of them stay home. The side that gets their group voting, even at the expense of a few defections, wins. That creates weird politics.
However, that is not the case everywhere. In lots of places the paradigm is a fixed group (possibly a minority) of voters who shift alliances more easily. A multiparty system encourages this.
I suspect that most defectors are actual abstainers, not defectors.
The recent election was a very close race between the two major parties, and also had one of the highest % of informal votes in recent history, which is some measure of the unhappiness of voters with the choices they were given.
I think everyone should go to Australia at some point, visit the beautiful country. I also think everyone should go to Canada. Amazing places at opposite ends of the world.
So how come nobody has told those internet censor wankers that a joke's a joke, they've had their fun, and now it's time to get back in their box before they feel the back of your hand?
The trouble is, there isn't enough of us who care.
The only way to say 'none of the above' is by filing an informal vote. This is a de-facto way of saying that you don't like any of the options, and at least in Australia this informal vote is tracked and parties take notice of it.
In the USA if you vote to not vote, Washington bundles you in with everybody else and assumes that you have no interest.
The ideal solution would be
a) Voting is mandatory, but with a formal 'none of the above' option
b) Voting is not mandatory, but representation is allocated based on what portion of total people voted for you, not allocated based on the portion of the total vote. (ie. if in one state all 25M people voted, they should get 5 representatives in congress, while if in another state of 50M people only 5M votes, they should only get 1 seat in congress)
With a quota based system based on proportion of population congress/parliament would then be a true representation. It is the only way to reflect the will of the entire population, meaning that those who choose to stay at home can no longer be ignored.
All in all I think the preference system and mandatory voting makes for a far healthier democracy.
Me voting for a third-party candidate is does not imply that I would have voted for any other candidate had they not been on the ballot. Had that candidate not been on the ballot, I would have abstained from that particular position.
It's like the BSA argument that people who steal software (yes it's stealing) would have normally bought the software. No, they wouldn't have.
Really? If there were three candidates, one who was 95% in agreement with you, one who was 85%, and one who was 30%, and the 95% dropped out of the race, you would just NOT vote for the 85%?
But I refuse to vote for a candidate because of a single plank or even 2 or 3 planks. I won't compromise on things like marriage equality or abortion rights. Those, while they should have no federal interferance at all, sadly are determined at the federal level. Same goes for economy.
But if the candidate has an opinion on, say, the Department of Education that I'm opposed to I might let it slide.
The point I was making is that is a case by case basis and more times than not, I've refused to vote for any candidate because I didn't want to send a message that I supported them at all.
If everyone informed chooses not to vote for anyone, all that does is give more power to the uninformed.
We effectively do have a "none of the above" option: don't select anyone and still cast the ballot. However, it would be better if there was an explicit "No vote" option.
The biggest problem with voting not being mandatory is that a lot of people don't have the opportunity because they can't get off work. If you made voting mandatory (or at least made election day a paid holiday), this impediment might be alleviated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_%28United_States%2...
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/whenwevot...
I point this out to anyone who complains about how archaic some things in the UK or Europe appear to be.
However, in this country there is a constant struggle between trying to let more people vote versus trying to restrict voting. Hence why a lot of people are up in arms about potential voter fraud. The traditional wisdom is that more voters helps one party, fewer helps another. With this as a factor, you can see how it would be very difficult to change the day of voting to make it more convenient for people.
The date is set by an act of Congress from 1845.
http://memory.loc.gov/ll/llsl/005/0700/07590721.tif
I think my other arguments still stand though...
An alternative, as it's done in Spain, is to give everyone the right to leave their jobs in order to vote. To alleviate things for businesses, all elections happen on Sundays.
That just sounds like a lazy excuse to me. I don't know how long it takes to vote in the US, but where I live in Canada, we just finished our municiple elections. It was one of the longest ballots I can remember, yet the entire process, including walking from my house to the polling station and back, took about 20 minutes after work.
I have to say, I just don't understand this voter apathy or this sentiment that if none of the candidates are any good then don't vote. I really do think it is your duty as a citizen.
And don't forget Gerrymandering, in which the party in power redraws the voting district lines to ensure that every district has a majority of their party (though that happens before election day): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering
Edit: I added a few more examples from other replies that represent common methods of intentional sabotage.
Broken electronic voting machines.
Higher than expected turn out resulting in a backlog.
Showing up after work along with a huge group of people doing the same thing.
2 of the 6 machines the precinct received did not verify when turned on. They're an electronic booth with paper printout (yes,what the vote hackers wanted to begin with). However the paper did not agree with the electronic tally, hence machine invalidated.
And they got 4x the turnout they were expecting. Now, usually, it's 20 min in line and 3 min for the vote itself.
In the US each elected official, whether they were a Democrat nominee, a Republican nominee, or a member of one of the other parties chooses who they will caucus with. That's why people like Arlen Specter can change parties freely.
And allocating seats based on the percentage of people who voted in each state ignores those who don't have the right to vote - whether they're children, foreigners, or people in other categories. Once someone is elected, they're supposed to serve their entire constituency, not just those who voted for them.
And finally, the US (and no country that I can think of, really) is not a democracy, it is a democratic republic. The many elect a few to govern, and those elected to govern are supposed to do what is right - and what is right is not always what the majority wants.
It may seem weird, but there are families so destitute that they may have better things to do than vote.
The voter turnout will be just fine without compulsory voting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#International_dif....
Looking at the comments again, tjogin summed it up pretty well.
In the US, there are a number of problems with the voting procedure, too many to count really, I think facing and addressing those issues would be far better than making voting compulsory.
When voting is voluntary, certain groups are incentivized to encourage or discourage other groups from voting. This manifests itself as bribery, legitimate "get out the vote" efforts, making the process of voting difficult and so on.
Basically you've created an incentive for such practices by making voting voluntary. All of that goes away when voting is compulsory.
I'm reminded of the Spce Shuttle Challenger disaster in 2003. I saw a TV show about the investigation into that. After launch there was concern about the visible debris coming off the shuttle. The investigation afterwards showed that there was significant resistance within NASA to investigating that prior to re-entry. Certain people wanted to use satellite imagery to see if there was any damage to the shuttle. Other groups resisted.
The reason this was contentious was that such practices weren't required. The solution? The investigation resulted in NASA instituting a policy requiring such imagery be taken of all shuttle flights.
Once something is mandatory, all sorts of incentives (and the problems they create) simply go away.
It's really convenient and people are using this more and more. For example last elections 15.75% of votes were made using internet. Official statistics can be found from http://vvk.ee/voting-methods-in-estonia/engindex
Also there are talks that they want to enable voting with mobile phones (there are already solutions where you can log in to banks and other websites with mobile phones).
By any chance, is your most recently elected president called "moot"? Is there or has there ever been a legal motion to rename the country to "4chanistan"?
I think I might know what caused your recent problems, and it's not Russia or the EU.
You have to prove you are Estonian citizen (or become one) and the system is secure enough that people can trust their money and sign legal documents with this system.
Actually this is one weak point in the system. If some crook gets hold of your ID-card and your PIN codes, he can sign documents that are legally binding. (For example sell your house for a dollar etc.)
Sorry. I don't understand this comment.
Is it trying to say, that electronic voting is by definition a failure? It doesn't seem to criticize any specific aspect of the Estonian e-voting system.
Or is it just calling names?
Anonymous for President. Name change to /B/stonia
I jest, I jest :) Still, I've heard of some cool governmental tech over there. Voting, as grandparent said, along with cell-phone payment of gasoline, painless e-banking with 2 factor auth, and other cool stuff.
I also remember a pyramid that was built in that area that was on History International... I _think_ it was there, as it talked more about the architecture than the location, other than temps going from 80F to -30F.
Neither sabbath nor market day, yet still a weekend day. Or did people back then consider Saturday a regular work/week day too?
When you vote by mail in the comfort of your home, how do you guarantee that no such tampering happened?
I voted about three weeks ago.
"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson
Case in point, at least two HN readers (OP and myself) didn't know homeless people could vote by mail at the US Post Office, but I know at least one of them is very well-informed on the issues.
By law in Canada, employers are required to make sure that every employee has three and half hours during which they can go vote.
EDIT: Spelling
Why should I be forced to show up for your voting-day entertainment?
If you support my right to write-in Mickey Mouse or select "None of the Above" or void my vote, then you're saying nothing more than that you like people being punished for not filling out what you acknowledge to be meaningless paperwork.
(Also, last I checked, there's more than one "Western society" that doesn't have compulsory voting.)
http://alicebobandmallory.com/articles/2010/09/23/did-little...
I used to think this was a bad idea as it forced people to vote who didn't really care.
In recent years I've come around to the opposite point of view based pretty much entirely on how badly voluntary voting in the US works.
When voting is voluntary there is an incentive with certain groups to dissuade, discourage or simply make it difficult for others to vote. In US elections there have been cases of bribing homeless people to vote with cigarettes or alcohol. Getting into vote can be difficult with long lines.
In Australia pretty much all these problems go away because you have to vote and the AEC (Australian Elecotral Commission) has to provide enough capacity to do so so, unless you go in the first hour or two of the morning, you can typically be in and out in 5-10 minutes tops.
Politicians love an apathetic population. So by all means go out and vote.