Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 9^th, 2013 at 5:47pm:



The vast majority of dictatorships have stopped people voting or ensured that there was only one option.

You seem to have the horse at the wrong end of the cart again.

Ensuring that the maximum number of people have a free vote is the opposite to dictatorial.

The question here is not about this issue.

Is it a better system when people have a responsibility to vote in a system where you guarantee a high turn out resulting in a highly representative result and legitimate government.

Or is the price too high and:

It is better to get an less representative result but give people the option to not participate.

I think the current system (warts and all) has served us well for a century, as good or better than any other not perfect by any means.

Change always entails risk and in this case the seemingly simple variation would be very likely to result in a large variation overall with the concentration of power going to minority lobby groups and existence of party's and viability of independents etc.

All rather extreme and undesirable outcomes.

In my view even those supporting a change are looking at something like a 20% penalty for a 5% gain.

NO NO NO NO NO and NO.

In a free society, if I believe that none of the candidates are any good, I have the option of not getting out of my chair and voting.

In a free society, if I cannot be bothered to vote (which has been the case for me the last few elections in England) then I cannot be bothered and I don't.

If you want to vote, then go right ahead.
To tell and force others to do so, is not free and democratic.

Democratic is - if I don't want to vote, then I don't.

It is not harming anyone (which is why you have laws) and it not hindering or causing any disturbance.
There is no reason to force people to vote.

It basically is the reason why none of the rest of the world have this retarded system.

Why should I vote if I don't want to?

You cannot force someone to do something which should be their right to do so.

It harms nobody, it hinders nothing.
It is why NOBODY has this system, you do realize that.

It is backward and retarded and I am glad I am no longer a part of it.

NO NO NO NO NO and NO.

In a free society, if I believe that none of the candidates are any good, I have the option of not getting out of my chair and voting.

In a free society, if I cannot be bothered to vote (which has been the case for me the last few elections in England) then I cannot be bothered and I don't.

If you want to vote, then go right ahead.
To tell and force others to do so, is not free and democratic.

Democratic is - if I don't want to vote, then I don't.

It is not harming anyone (which is why you have laws) and it not hindering or causing any disturbance.
There is no reason to force people to vote.

It basically is the reason why none of the rest of the world have this retarded system.

Andrei.Hicks wrote on Jan 10^th, 2013 at 8:08am:


Democratic is - if I don't want to vote, then I don't.

I don't fully disagree with you or I understand your point however I am one of the people who is happy to look at it as a responsibility, Part of being Australian is that you have a responsibility to vote.

While I understand your point I see many more advantages to the current system in exchange for not much of an effort and an almost certain lower standard resulting from changing to optinal.

KJT1981 wrote on Jan 10^th, 2013 at 8:41am:


because the blood of those of past generations says so. we honour them and their sacrifice when we vote. When we vote we say that we care enough about our country to not ignore those who died keeping it thus.