Don't forget to enrol
If you're an Australian citizen over 18 and have moved since you last voted or have never voted before, enrol now. You have until 8pm on Wednesday to enrol for the first time and until 8 pm next Tuesday to change your details. Remember, voting on 24th November is compulsory and so is enrolling.
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3 comments:
We just came through a provincial election. Just over 50% turned out. Unfortunately only 30% of those folks voted for electorial reform. But I was most happy with the gains the Green party made. They did not win a seat but tripled their votes since the last election. Also my friend Shane Jolly (now a Green candidate) gave the entrenched conservative candidate a run for his money. That was pretty cool.
We don't have manditory voting though? How is that working out?
Is that in Ontario? A friedn just moved there, and pointed out to me the name of the then leader of the Progressive Conservative party!
Jonathan - an amusingly named leader of an amusingly named party!
Frank - there are some problems with manditory voting, such as the 1-2% of apathetic voters who simply randomly allocate their preferences ("donkey votes"), but overall, I'm quite a fan of the idea. However, probably the most significant problem is this (taken from the Wikipedia article): "compulsory voting may skew the focus of a campaign towards swinging voters, with candidates and political parties trying to win the votes of the undecided, rather than motivating their "base" supporters to the polls. As a result of this, it could be argued that polticians would therefore adopt more centrist and less extreme policies in order to appeal to politically centralised swinging voters, leading to more stable governance. However, forcing people who are less knowledgeable about politics to vote has the potential to degrade political campaigns to more populist or superficial levels."
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