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Does this plan make sense? v3 (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Australia has had mandatory voting for eligible voters (18+) for a long time. It works like this:

Prior to elections, the Australian Electoral Commission updates the electoral roll of all eligible voters. On election day, voters have their names crossed off the roll at whichever polling place they attend.

After the election, the electoral roll is cross-checked against voter records. Anyone who didn't vote and can't provide a valid reason (for example - illness, living remotely, religious beliefs) is issued a $20 fine by the AEC. If not paid, this can escalate to further fines of around $180 plus court costs if convicted.

Over 180,000 penalty notices were issued after the 2022 federal election to enforce the compulsory voting laws. While controversial to some, the system has maintained over 90% voter turnout in Australia for nearly a century.

A similar system would probably moderate political extremes in the US. I think any fine that is used as a means of enforcement needs to be scaled to the means of the individual being fined in order to not disproportionately target lower wealth individuals (but an elimination of the enforcement fine completely for the lower end of the wealth scale would maybe ironically result in less from that group voting and thus give them disproportionately lower representation in outcomes).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

if you're going to require voting, give me a good fucking candidate to vote for, for fucks sake. This does nothing to prevent degradation of the candidacy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

thanks for this, provided a lot of insight. for those interested, $20 AUD = $13.06 USD.

i find that this change only might be useful in the US, especially if introduced gradually and after other measures such as a voting holidy (very important!) and vote by mail rather than all-at-once, but i think is less tenable as a position than in Australia due to the following differences:

class: the USA generally has a significantly larger wealth gap than Australia; this directly relates to the fee and i agree with your assessment that any fines should be appropriately scaled; still a concern
staus quo: the longevity of the policy indicates that the country has the voting infrastructure to handle a 100% turnout without unintentional disenfranchisement, long travel times or long wait times
population distribution: this is a lot different in the US and again affects infrastructure. we already know that low income areas are subject to the worst of wait times, travel times, and environmental conditions while voting so it’s super important to be concious of what CV is doing for those populations. vote by mail aids this but is still a concern.

conclusion: compulsory voting, in my opinion, should not be on this list because it is nowhere near as effective nor feasible as the other election measures already listed.