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Compulsory voting

  • 14-02-2018 1:35pm
    #1
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,337 CMod ✭✭✭✭


    This has been on my mind for a while but synopsis is; should voting be legally mandatory for everyone eligible to vote? The reason being of course we keep talking about voter turnout, if the people not showing up would change it etc.

    I'll use Peru as an example as I have a friend from there but there are 22 other countries inc. Australia with similar laws. The requirement is that you vote either via postal vote, local voting office or at an embassy in every major election; failure to vote gives you a penalty fee to be paid to the state of around 50 EUR no clue if it escalates from there or not.

    The benefits is that you have to vote but you can vote on the Donald Duck party if you feel like it but at least you have voted. Now because you have to vote you can't sit at home afterwards complaining about how "someone should do something about it" because you actively participated of who the someone is. it also means any government or politician can't claim to speak for the non voting people anymore because all people have voted, no exceptions (bar the 0.% that did not vote and are not a relevant size of the voting population). It sets the bar for democratic decisions quite high and even if you have something controversial out there (for example Abortion referendum) because people have to vote it is representative of Ireland at that moment.

    Downsides being obviously that the state (in theory) always knows where you live which may not always be up to date. Hence you could get penalized for moving and the systems not being updated in a timely manner and you would be fined for it. For conspiracy nuts it would be seen as the government spying on who you vote for and change the result to what they want. It could potentially also increase mail in fraud (i.e. offer to pay a tenner if you vote for party X to disenfranchised people who don't care) and people living homeless would be a challenge (though surmountable).

    So what do you think; should Ireland implement compulsory voting or not; and why?


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,748 ✭✭✭uptherebels


    Surely the right to vote includes the option not to endorse either/any of the candidates?
    If someone is worth my vote they will get it. I won't on the other hand vote for any ejit just because I have to pick someone.
    Instead of forcing people to vote maybe tackle why some don't.
    In Ireland I'd imagine it's because you can choose either the peripheral loons or one of the main parties which are basically copies of each other.
    So you left with one side you can't vote for and on the other it doesn't matter who you vote for as all their s**t smells the same


  • Registered Users Posts: 105 ✭✭rachaelworld


    Being forced to go to the polling station and cast your ballot doesn't mean you have to vote for any candidate, you could also mark an abstention box if you want but the point is that you have gone down to the polling station and participated.

    I think mandatory voting should be the law, having as close to 100% of eligible voters actually vote is the best way for us to improve our democratic process, that and giving 16 and 17 yr olds the vote.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 864 ✭✭✭Boardnashea


    I have voted in every electionthat I was able to cast a vote in (I may have been out of the country/unable to travel on occasion).

    I would like to see a compulsory vote and I also see a spoiled vote as a valid option if none of the options/candidates offered are acceptable.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    There's a couple of points I'd make against, either generally or more specifically against the details of what you're proposing.
    Nody wrote: »
    The requirement is that you vote either via postal vote, local voting office or at an embassy in every major election; failure to vote gives you a penalty fee to be paid to the state of around 50 EUR no clue if it escalates from there or not.

    The first point, and it's a more general one, is that I think some people can be disturbingly blasé about criminalising behaviour.

    Whether it's the tv license or mandatory voting, the idea that the government should steal your money or lock you in a cage by way of punishment seems out of proportion to your "transgression", and further to that, I don't think you can make a case that it is a transgression.

    Avoiding that wouldn't necessarily mean that you couldn't have some government action to increase voter turnout, even to something approaching 100%, but I would never be in favour of that kind of criminalisation.

    I think you've made a dangerous assumption in how such a proposal should be a handled and, at the very least, I think some other less severe methods should be examined before that.
    Nody wrote: »
    The benefits is that you have to vote but you can vote on the Donald Duck party if you feel like it but at least you have voted. Now because you have to vote you can't sit at home afterwards complaining about how "someone should do something about it" because you actively participated of who the someone is. it also means any government or politician can't claim to speak for the non voting people anymore because all people have voted, no exceptions (bar the 0.% that did not vote and are not a relevant size of the voting population).

    As justifications go, these seem a bit vague and trivial to me.
    Who cares whether people have the ability to whinge without hypocrisy?
    Why is it important that politicians can't claim to vote for non voting people?
    Do they do that already? Does it have any effect on our democracy, and if so, is that effect necessarily negative?

    If we were to agree that action should be taken to increase , I think a measure of carrot could be possibly be dangled and the stick should be of a different sort.

    Some sort of tax rebate, paying people to participate outright or maybe just investing in the way we vote so that people are more interested or less inconvenienced.
    The specifics would depend on what actually works and that would depend on what the makeup of the non-voters is and what would be the most cost-effective way of getting them down to the poll both.

    Stick-wise, rather than threatening to take from people, you could instead withhold some of the benefits of society to those that don't wish to take part in it fully.
    For example, if it turned out that people on the dole were twice as likely not to vote, you could withhold a portion of it against whether or not someone voted in the last general election if eligible.
    Young people are commonly given as an example of a cohort with poor voter turnout - look at the education grants, free third level education.
    More generally, you could look at medical cards, the state pension or any other number of services that the state offers.

    I'm not saying these particular examples are good - it may well be disastrous to interrupt a child's education in response to not voting - but I think it's far more justifiable in general to withhold than to take someone's property or freedom and tailoring it to the cohort that are participating the least might be the most effective way to fix it.


    However, all that is predicated on the idea that it's better that more people vote.
    Is the purpose of your idea to increase democratic purity - ie, it's better to have higher turnout purely for its own sake - or, are you using voter turnout as a proxy for another trend that you think would benefit directly from increasing it, and if so, how would it?

    I'm absolutely not saying this is the case (and I think Brexit, from my perspective, shows that it can go the opposite way), but it could well be that voters with less experience produce worse outcomes, so it may be beneficial that the youth don't participate in the vote.
    Alternatively, if it turned out that voting turnout is lowest among those that haven't finished secondary education, do we want the turnout to be higher among those who likely have less understanding of the issues and a weaker grasp of how the world works?

    You may not want to debate the broader merits of increased voter participation here, but it's certainly something that should be clear to all before anyone started passing legislation about it, never mind one that sought to criminalise non-participation.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 18,337 CMod ✭✭✭✭Nody


    Surely the right to vote includes the option not to endorse either/any of the candidates?
    Of course you can vote blank for example; but the point being you have to cast a vote (but not necessary on any existing candidate). Now if a district gets 50% blanks for example it clearly shows a potential for a party to sweep in a take a seat with the right candidate for example.
    Gbear wrote: »
    However, all that is predicated on the idea that it's better that more people vote.
    Is the purpose of your idea to increase democratic purity - ie, it's better to have higher turnout purely for its own sake - or, are you using voter turnout as a proxy for another trend that you think would benefit directly from increasing it, and if so, how would it?

    I'm absolutely not saying this is the case (and I think Brexit, from my perspective, shows that it can go the opposite way), but it could well be that voters with less experience produce worse outcomes, so it may be beneficial that the youth don't participate in the vote.
    Alternatively, if it turned out that voting turnout is lowest among those that haven't finished secondary education, do we want the turnout to be higher among those who likely have less understanding of the issues and a weaker grasp of how the world works?

    You may not want to debate the broader merits of increased voter participation here, but it's certainly something that should be clear to all before anyone started passing legislation about it, never mind one that sought to criminalise non-participation.
    I think a higher (ideally 100%) turnout is better from a democratic standpoint simply because it's too easy to ignore one of the greatest responsibilities of being a citizen which is to help steer the country you're a citizen off. Failure to do this is one of the greater issues to me from a society perspective and the lack of personal responsibility people are taking of issues.

    I think it would drive benefits for non democratic parties be them right wing extremists or "Everyone will get money, free housing and private hospitals" style of extremist style parties who promise everything without an actionable plan but that's personal prejudice possibly based on election results I'm aware off. That is not beneficial in general but that's more to do with the politicians failing to challenge such ideas properly and being "punished" for not providing easy solutions to complex problems. However that's is ultimately the will of the people though and hence an acceptable outcome even if I personally disagree with such parties as trying to set requirements on the voting population (education X, least Y years working experience etc.) is simply not going to work long term.

    The reason I went with the 50 EUR fine (which is what they use in Peru) is simply because it's universal no matter your situation. You can as easily flip it and say you get 50 EUR for participating but that would not have the same effect to drive the 100% participation. Those 50 EUR can be deducted directly at source be it from reduced tax credits, unemployment benefits etc. and hence I don't see a scenario where someone would be jailed for it; if it can't be deducted at source it simply expires after let's say 10 years.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,229 ✭✭✭witchgirl26


    It's an interesting one but what happens to people who happen to have a holiday booked and are out of the country when a vote takes place? I will always cast my vote but there has been twice where I haven't been in the country for an election/referendum and therefore couldn't. Are those people then fined? Surely that isn't really fair.


  • Registered Users Posts: 105 ✭✭rachaelworld


    It's an interesting one but what happens to people who happen to have a holiday booked and are out of the country when a vote takes place? I will always cast my vote but there has been twice where I haven't been in the country for an election/referendum and therefore couldn't. Are those people then fined? Surely that isn't really fair.
    That's where the postal vote comes in, if you can prove that you can't be there then it will be fine.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,229 ✭✭✭witchgirl26


    That's where the postal vote comes in, if you can prove that you can't be there then it will be fine.

    But what if you're travelling and are not at home at all between election called & voting. I have a few friends who were gone for 6 months travelling and completely missed an election. To be eligible for a postal vote, one would imagine you'd need an address you could be contacted at but that doesn't work for travelling.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    What's the actual benefit here? "Everyone has cast a vote" isn't a benefit. Do we have data from compulsory countries to illustrate the effect that it has on the process?

    Staying at home is basically a vote for "whatever everyone else decides is fine by me". Which is arguably a valid democratic choice. By forcing those people to vote, you're skewing the result towards the "I'm voting for this because I resent being forced to vote" choice.

    Referenda are a perfect example of where this could bite your arse. Referenda are virtually always promoted by the government. And there would be a strong correlation between those who don't vote and those who are dissatisfied with governments in general. So by forcing these to vote, you make it virtually impossible to pass any referendum - a large contingent will always vote against a referendum just because they want to vote against the government.

    That's not getting an accurate gauge of public perception on the actual topic, in fact it's the exact opposite.

    What we really need to do is get smarter about our engagement process. Use data from verifiable sources such as Revenue and the DSP to compile lists of names & addresses, cross-reference as much as possible to make sure that 1 PPSN = 1 vote. As much as possible then it becomes an opt-out register. Sure there'll be gaps; people who aren't on these databases; but you give them a way in. Likewise you devise a method of "deactivating" PPSNs which show no activity in Revenue, DSP or in voting in the last 5-10 years.

    Then you include social and civic education as a mandatory subject in to the curriculum so that kids are taught what the system of government looks like, how it works, what the constitution does, how laws are passed, and what their vote means. I understand this has improved in recent times, but I left school in 2000 without ever once discussing the constitution or government in any class except junior cert history.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    I don't want to be seen as nitpicking on your points Nody, but thinking about it, I've only ever seen democratic participation being good for its own sake as something that's taken as read, and I don't think I've seen any explanation for why, so again, feel free to skim this part if you'd rather discuss at a way to increase participation and the specifics of a policy being viable rather than the more general idea underpinning it.
    Nody wrote: »

    I think a higher (ideally 100%) turnout is better from a democratic standpoint simply because it's too easy to ignore one of the greatest responsibilities of being a citizen which is to help steer the country you're a citizen off.

    Is it? Why is it a responsibility to steer the country you're a citizen of?

    If it is, can you justify compelling people to do their bit steering without any idea whether they have the tools to do so?

    I'd be worried about getting all the passengers to have a go steering the plane, whether or not they're blind or have any hands, much less have experience flying the plane.

    As things stand, my intuition (so it might be completely wrong), is that people who do vote are more likely to have researched the issues of the day and the beliefs of those they're voting for.

    If everyone had to vote, maybe that would improve as a by-product, but you'd probably want to go to extra effort to make sure people know what the story is.
    Nody wrote: »
    Failure to do this is one of the greater issues to me from a society perspective and the lack of personal responsibility people are taking of issues.

    I'm not sure I follow here.
    In an Ireland with 100% voter turnout what would you expect to see?
    How would improvements vis-a-vis personal responsibility manifest themselves in society at large?
    Nody wrote: »
    I think it would drive benefits for non democratic parties be them right wing extremists or "Everyone will get money, free housing and private hospitals" style of extremist style parties who promise everything without an actionable plan but that's personal prejudice possibly based on election results I'm aware off. That is not beneficial in general but that's more to do with the politicians failing to challenge such ideas properly and being "punished" for not providing easy solutions to complex problems. However that's is ultimately the will of the people though and hence an acceptable outcome even if I personally disagree with such parties as trying to set requirements on the voting population (education X, least Y years working experience etc.) is simply not going to work long term.

    Well then I suppose the question would be what you want from your democratic system.
    If you're purely a pragmatist and what you're suggesting was true (I dunno if it is), then you'd surely oppose such a measure, because reducing the average level of voter understanding would surely have a negative outcome.

    On the other hand, if you were a democratic purist, you might accept whatever comes, Idiocracy or no, and consider it the cost of implementing something you believe in.
    If that was the case, I'd wonder if you'd not rather go for direct democracy as well though.

    Representative democracy is not, I think, as concerned with getting everything bang on, and is happier to get things mostly right most of the time, and with that in mind, I think full voting participation is probably not as important.
    Any given vote isn't super important. What's important is that a rough consensus is formed and over time government acts in a way that reflects an approximation of the will of the people.
    Nody wrote: »
    The reason I went with the 50 EUR fine (which is what they use in Peru) is simply because it's universal no matter your situation. You can as easily flip it and say you get 50 EUR for participating but that would not have the same effect to drive the 100% participation. Those 50 EUR can be deducted directly at source be it from reduced tax credits, unemployment benefits etc. and hence I don't see a scenario where someone would be jailed for it; if it can't be deducted at source it simply expires after let's say 10 years.

    Once you decide to criminalise it the level of punishment is at the whims of the government of the day.
    I can't see any particular reason why any sort of mad extremist government would massively increase the penalty, but if it's not needed in the first place, then I'd be extremely hesitant to give government the capacity to arbitrarily set such a punishment. Once it's there it's a lot harder to get rid of.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 105 ✭✭rachaelworld


    I'm sure they will figure it out, if you can prove you're not in the country and there was no mechanism for you to vote while abroad then they're not going to fine you for that.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,697 ✭✭✭DickSwiveller


    The freedom to not vote is important. It's one of the great things about living in a free country. If this was brought in I wouldn't comply.


  • Registered Users Posts: 105 ✭✭rachaelworld


    Gbear wrote: »
    Once you decide to criminalise it the level of punishment is at the whims of the government of the day.
    I can't see any particular reason why any sort of mad extremist government would massively increase the penalty, but if it's not needed in the first place, then I'd be extremely hesitant to give government the capacity to arbitrarily set such a punishment. Once it's there it's a lot harder to get rid of.

    I think you're overstating things a tad, it's not really "criminalising", it is a fine. It is the same as being fined for not wearing your seatbelt in that it is an offence to not comply with the agreed laws of this society and so you are fined as a penalty. Presumably they might escalate the penalty if one is a repeat offender but it's not something that is going to come up in a background check... "doesn't wear his seatbelt, pay his tv licence or vote".


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    I think you're overstating things a tad, it's not really "criminalising", it is a fine. It is the same as being fined for not wearing your seatbelt in that it is an offence to not comply with the agreed laws of this society and so you are fined as a penalty. Presumably they might escalate the penalty if one is a repeat offender but it's not something that is going to come up in a background check... "doesn't wear his seatbelt, pay his tv licence or vote".

    I brought up the TV license because I spotted this in passing and I thought there were some parallels in how the issues might be viewed:

    https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/woman-wrongly-arrested-and-held-in-mountjoy-over-mistake-about-tv-licence-nonpayment-settles-high-court-action-36599507.html

    It's not exactly the same thing, but the long and short of it is that it's an extremely heavy handed approach to something so trivial and can have relatively nasty consequences out of proportion to the supposed transgression.

    There are enough means to implement it without having to go down that route at all so there's neither any need or any justification for it.

    I don't think it's a trivial matter to treat these kinds of things as criminal matters and it troubles me that some do. A quid-pro-quo is the appropriate way to handle this kind of thing, whereby if you act in the way that benefits the state, you get something out of it.

    Removing privileges is grand. Removing rights is not.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 279 ✭✭EnPassant


    The effect of introducing compulsory voting in Ireland would be that a vary large proportion of "donkey" voters, who are only voting because they had to, would vote 1, 2, 3 from the top of the ballot paper down, regardless of who the candidates are or what party they represent. This has been the experience in Australia and is one of the reasons they started to list candidates in random order.

    The turnout at the last general election was 65%. If half the other 35% simply voted down the ballot paper, then this would be enough to elect the candidate at the top of the ballot in every 5-seat constituency and in almost every 4-seater.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey_vote


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    The freedom to not vote is important. It's one of the great things about living in a free country. If this was brought in I wouldn't comply.

    +1.

    The right of freedom of choice is fundamentally undermined by the notion of compulsory voting. The key word here being 'compulsory'.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,700 ✭✭✭✭osarusan


    Compulsory voting always struck me as something that gives the illusion of a population that is highly informed and engaged with politics, but actually, there are just more uninformed and unengaged people voting than there would otherwise would be.

    Maybe there is a case to be made that compulsory voting actually raises the levels of engaged and informed electors, but if not, what does it really achieve?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,756 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    I live in Australia where we have compulsory voting. To address a couple of points that have come up in the thread, in no particular order.

    Out of the country: If you can show you were out of the country on polling day (stamps in passport, airline boarding passes, that kind of thing), you won’t be penalised for not voting.

    Absention: You have to turn up at the polling place and take a ballot. You don’t have to put it in the box, or you can put it in the box blank, or you can spoil it. In Australia this is known as “informal voting”. At the last election the informal voting rate was about 6%, which I think is much higher than the spoiled vote rate in Ireland.

    Ease of voting: As a quid pro quo for obliging people to vote, they do go to a lot of effort to make it easy to do so. You can vote at any polling station, not just a designated one. They set up polling stations at airports, hospitals, residential facilities, etc. There’s postal voting. There are centres where you can vote early, if you don’t expect to to be able to vote on polling day, etc.

    Criminalisation: Is not voting criminalised? Yes, it is. But every few people are convicted of it. Basically, if you aren’t recorded as having voted they send you a penalty notice, demanding a payment of $20 (if this is your first time not voting; it goes up after that). You can (a) pay the penalty, in which case there is no prosecution and no conviction, or (b) dispute the penalty, by showing that you did vote or by producing an acceptable reason for not voting, and if they are satisfied they will withdraw the notice, or (c) opt to go to court. If you’re convicted in court you’ll get a much bigger fine than $20; very few people take this option, so very few convictions are recorded.

    And now a comment: I’m not a fan of compulsory voting, for a number of reasons.

    - If you have a problem with voter disengagement which results in a low turnout, you don’t solve that problem with compulsory voting; you just mask it, which makes it easier to ignore.

    - The voters who are least engaged are the ones who are easiest to sway, since they tend to have the least interest in public affairs, and the least strong and least fixed opinions about issues. The result of compulsory voting is not just that the 30% or so of the people who, given their druthers, wouldn’t vote do vote; it’s that they decide the outcome of the election; they are the floating voters for whom the parties compete.

    - And this in turn leads to incredibly superficial campaigning, focussing on personalities and on sensationalism, because that’s the way you attract the attention of people who, basically, aren’t interested.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,596 ✭✭✭Hitman3000


    Compulsory voting... goes to polling booth because forced, votes number 1 for everyone on ballot paper. Same result if person didn't vote.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,921 ✭✭✭Grab All Association


    One of the problems raised by an anarchist during the whole evoting debacle was the lack of ability to spoil his or hers vote. That and the fact that these machines weren’t secure and could be rigged.

    Everyone has a right to vote in fact I believe children as young as 12 should have the right to vote for representation of some form (at least in the civil positions that affect their education, recreational, amenities etc not Dáil Éireann obviously) but no one should ever be obliged to vote or cast a valid vote. It’s mine and your right to walk in to the polling station to vote, spoil, or not go at all.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,756 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    One of the problems raised by an anarchist during the whole evoting debacle was the lack of ability to spoil his or hers vote. That and the fact that these machines weren’t secure and could be rigged.

    Everyone has a right to vote in fact I believe children as young as 12 should have the right to vote for representation of some form (at least in the civil positions that affect their education, recreational, amenities etc not Dáil Éireann obviously) but no one should ever be obliged to vote or cast a valid vote. It’s mine and your right to walk in to the polling station to vote, spoil, or not go at all.
    The idea of compulsory voting generally emerges from a sort of classic republican theory that holds voting to be not so much a right as a civic duty, like jury service or conscription. Even if none of the candidates presented conforms to your ideal, you still have a duty to choose between the candidates on offer in the best interests of the community; one of them is going to win and you have a duty to participate in deciding which one. If you're really motivated to do more than that, then "more" needs to be not a refusal to vote or a refusal to vote effectively, but positive steps to secure the representation that you want - more political/civic engagement, in other words; not less. That's the theory, anyway.

    In practice while it may be possible to compel people to turn out and put a ballot in the box, it's not practicable to compel them to put a meaningful ballot in the box; the secrecy of the ballot prevents that. The objections to e-voting that (a) it prevents you from submitting an invalid ballot and (b) it jeopardises the secrecy of the ballot are linked, in that both rely on the system scrutinising your ballot in real time as you complete and [attempt to] cast it.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,371 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    If there was a referendum to introduce this, the people who don't generally vote wouldn't vote in the referendum either.

    It's a bad idea. The people who are forced down to the polling station under threat of a fine from the establishment are, at best, going to cast their vote without considering the consequences and, at worst, going to use the vote as a protest against being forced to vote.

    We should leave the decisions to those who want to make them.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,523 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    NZ operates a system where it is compulsory to be registered to vote, but not to actually have to vote in itself. I think this strikes a reasonable balance, gives the govt realistic numbers of voters, allows for cross checking. And the register is actually cross checked with other government departments (shock, horror) so they generally are aware if you've moved via any other department you may deal with. For example we built a new house and that was obviously logged with the local council, and NZ Post to request a new delivery address and the Electors Register docs arrived in the post shortly after.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,776 ✭✭✭eire4


    For me the better idea would be to find ways of making things as easy as possible to vote. More early voting, postal voting, making the official polling day a national holiday etc. Another thing I would like to see is the voting age reduced to 16 so that more kids can learn and experience the process while they are still at schools and in general more kids can become engaged in the process early on.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,288 ✭✭✭Fanny Wank


    As long as there's a "none of the above" option


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,034 ✭✭✭Pauliedragon


    I used to live in skippyland and one of their reason for compulsory voting is the theory that people (mainly young people) will take a more active interest in politics and therefore will make a more informed choice in the polling booth. In my experience they were no more or less interested in politics than people here.


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