114
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
114 points (94.5% liked)
Ask Lemmy
26285 readers
1475 users here now
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
All the people saying mandatory voting is bad are misinformed. It is essential for democracy, and should be applied everywhere.
Australia has mandatory voter turnout, but you do not need to submit a vote. You just need to show up on polling day.
Everyone has political interests and needs to be politically represented, but some people are too tired after work to take themselves to the polling centre. Others are incarcerated. If anything, those people are more in need of political representatives.
American conservatives spend billions trying to prevent poor overworked people from reaching polling places or exercising their right to vote. Mandatory voting prevents that.
Make no mistake, Australian democracy is healtheir than whatever clusterfuck in going on in the US.
I don't pay too much attention to Australian politics, but whenever I see headlines it's always something like "MP literally destroying the barrier reef with his own bare hands" or "Corruption whistleblower sentenced to one thousand years in jail"
The important thing to note is: Australia has a genuinely solid chance of removing the right-wing nutjobs / spineless centrist two-party system BECAUSE of mandatory voting. Young people in USA have appalling voter turn out. But young people in Australia are seriously turning the tides. See the results by age group for the 2019 election. The boomers are still voting in right-wing nutjobs (Liberal party), most groups have strong centrist representation (Labor), and Gen Z are bringing in a third, non-major, left-aligned party (Greens). It brings so much hope for younger generations and the fact that voting doesn't feel futile.
This chart gives me hope.