jsscclr

Nope! Actually got asked to log out.

Whilst officially Australia has compulsory voting, unofficially you merely have to sign your name off. If you fail to have your name signed off, the fine is $20 (for federal elections, $55 for the state of NSW). Voter turnout is still a way of measuring disengagement, as well as measuring the number of informal votes, and more importantly, the nature of the informal votes. You can write whatever you like on the ballot paper at the end of the day, so if voters feel that no party represents them, you can fill in nothing. If you do not like any party, you can submit a blank ballot, which does represent a decent percentage of informal votes - but I think that given you're already there, most people have some idea of who they like _less_ or _more_.

I think the cultural aspect of the _appearance_ of compulsory voting is important: not voting because it's raining and you'd rather stay in bed is very different to abstaining based on your political beliefs, and compulsory voting (in Australia) means you are less likely to encounter the former whilst still enabling the other. I would argue that this makes abstaining for political reasons a bit more explicit than non-compulsory voting (technically you can even write your reasons for not voting on the ballot paper, which would officially mean nothing but would certainly be evaluated in research on informal voting), but I do concede that this feels a bit disingenuous: the system works because you're told to vote even though you kinda don't really have to vote, but make sure you jump through the hoops to make it look like you voted.

To clarify, donkey votes are perfectly valid. This is where the voter simply fills the boxes the same as they are displayed (first presented candidate gets number 1, second gets 2, etc.). A donkey vote is a formal vote, just one typically driven by the same factors that would drive an intentionally informal one. An example of an informal vote that I encountered during scrutineering a local council election is when one voter drew their own box, labelled it "Tony Abbott", and voted for that.

I agree. Why are we so focused on whether women make less than men? Wouldn't quality of life be a better metric?

To say women are discouraged from taking higher paying positions takes away a woman's agency. Perhaps they made an educated decision?

In the context of open source contributions, no one is displaced.

In a wider context, yes, it's a bit more complicated, but Free Software? As a movement, there's power in numbers, and looking to increase that number via a focussed effort on minority groups is simply a smart move.