Compulsory voting and an explicit “none of the above”

• lprent
• 10 years ago
• Categories: accountability, australian politics, democratic participation, elections, leadership, politicans, Politics
• Tags: wallace chapman

I was listening to Wallace Chapman interviewing Professor David Farrell, from University College, Dublin this morning on Radio New Zealand on compulsory voting which he was strongly in favour of. At one point the discussion veered on to the issue of “none of the above”. I think that this is the key to compulsory voting.

Almost everyone I know who doesn’t vote does so for one of two basic reasons.

• The bastards are all as bad as each other. I call this the anti-vote and it expresses as not voting, spoiling the vote, or always voting against the government (ie the vto option).
• I don’t know enough to vote.

These are both valid viewpoints as far as I am concerned. I think that they should be options in every vote. Both of them provide an explicit performance measure for all of our political and media establishment about how well they are doing their job.

Lets put them in first and then look at compulsory voting. To force that without an ability for voters to say what they don’t support is daft. Just look at the spoilt votes in aussie politics