Compulsory voting

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Quantum Quack, Feb 14, 2020.

  1. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Most people's vote doesn't really matter as far as the Presidential election. It does matter in swing states.

    I live in Washington State. The Democrat candidate for President is going to win here. Whether I vote or not makes no difference.

    If the choice was between Sanders and Trump I'd want Sanders to win but it would actually be better for my wallet if Trump won.
     
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  3. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    The media wing of organized US fascism has spent hundreds of millions of dollars marketing that meme. They have obviously had significant success.

    The fewer people vote, the easier it is to manipulate them and/or rig elections. That's one reason the Republican Party has been putting so much effort into vote suppression, lowering turnout, etc.

    In the modern US nonvoters as a group are more libertarian and leftwing than either major Party's voting base.
     
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  5. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    Would love to hear the explanation behind that one.
     
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  7. Quantum Quack Life's a tease... Valued Senior Member

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    As a matter of interest the last Federal election here in Australia 2019 saw a 92% participation with an invalid vote of only about 5.5%.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Australian_federal_election

    Based on those figures one could comfortably suggest that the out come was a good representation of the Australian population in general. IMO

    If the USA had those sorts of figures consistently, how would it change the way politicians applied themselves to the service of their nation do you think?

    Would they trend more to the middle ground for greatest general voter appeal?
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2020
  8. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    The two major parties in Australia are actually reasonably centrist on a lot of issues. The Liberal party is to the right of centre, but not far right on most issues. The Labor part is left of centre, but not far left on most issues. The next most supported party is the Greens party, which is further left than Labor. It is also fair to say that the Liberal party tends to have authoritarian views, while Labor tends libertarian and the Greens are more libertarian again.

    For a long time now, the Liberal party has only been able to form governments because it is in a coalition with the National Party. The National Party tends to represent rural electorates; its representation in the major cities is negligible. So, if the Liberal Party can hold the cities and the National Party gets enough votes in the country, then the two parties can form a coalition government, and this is what they have done for many years when in power. The power-sharing arrangement usually involves having the Prime Minister from the Liberal Party and the Deputy PM from the National Party, which is the current arrangement. Because the Liberals and Nationals have a long-standing power-sharing agreement, Australians often tend to talk simply about the Coalition and Labor, although informally when people refer to the "Libs" they often mean the coalition government. In one state - Queensland, which has a lot of rural electorates - the Liberal and National parties formally merged a few years ago to form the combined Liberal National Party (LNP). However, those two parties do operate independently in other states, electing their own leaders internally etc. The average National Party member tends to be more conservative than the Liberal Party average.

    Traditionally, the Liberal party has been a mixed party. It tends to be socially conservative and economically liberal. It is generally against labour unions (which explains the existence of the Labor Party, to a large degree).

    In recent years there has been ongoing tension between progressive Liberals and a group of very conservative members of the Liberal Party. The progressives - often referred to as "small-L Liberals" - tend to be progressive in terms of social issues, but like other Liberals also tend to be against government regulation of business and against unions. The major reasons for in-fighting in the Liberal party in recent years, including changes in leadership (which has led to several changes in leaders, and hence Prime Ministers) have involved different attitudes within the party to issues such as climate change, as well as on social matters like gay marriage.

    So, to cut a long story short, the Liberal party does have members that Americans would tend to refer to as "liberals", but it also has a vocal minority of authoritarian social conservatives. The true, bleeding-heart liberals tend to gravitate towards minor parties, such as the Greens, which have a fair representation in the Senate but only one member in the House of Representatives.

    Australia's current Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, is a conservative. He is also a follower of evangelical Christianity and shares a lot of attitudes in common with similar American Christians.

    I'll watch anything with Richard Roxburgh in it. The man is a genius actor. I didn't watch the particular series you refer to, but I have watched previous series. The main character there is based loosely on a real lawyer in Sydney.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
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