The anti-Clinton recently posted these sentiments about Australian democracy. Basically his opinion is that we should not be forced to vote; that it should be our choice if we rock up to a polling place and vote or not. And true to the anti-Clinton moniker, I completely disagree. We live in a modern democracy, one in which voting is NOT a right, but a RESPONSIBILITY. If you enjoy the freedoms that a democracy provides, voting is not your RIGHT, but rather it is your RESPONSIBILITY to vote for the candidate who most closely represents the ideologies and freedoms that you hold upmost.

The anti-Clinton does correctly assert that many Australians would rather send in a weekly SMS vote for their favourite reality-TV ‘star’, than follow the policies proposed by politicians. He questions:

“What would you prefer - a 40% presumably informed, intelligent and dedicated vote or a 40% presumably informed, intelligent and dedicated vote and a 60% apathetic, un-informed vote?”

A 60% apathetic, un-informed vote turnout has ZERO impact on the outcome of the election.

OK, informal votes first. Let us say that the truly apathetic and un-informed voters grudgingly head down to the polls and lodge an informal vote as some form of protest at being shoved off the couch. These votes are informal (blank ballots, or ones that have been incorrectly filled out) and are not counted – so they don’t have an impact on the election. And for the record, in the 2001 election only 4.83% of the votes for the house of representatives and 3.90% of the votes for the Senate were informal - much less than his 60/40 figure.

What about donkey votes? Well, sensibly the order of ballot is randomly drawn – which means that donkey voters (those who number the boxes in order, not thinking about who they are voting for) are essentially throwing random noise into the ballot. A good analogy is watching a TV that isn’t quite tuned correctly - you can still see the picture, but it is a bit fuzzy. They are voting for a random candidate! The Australian Electoral Commission can still make out the picture of the candidate desired by the electorate; it is just a little hazy from the background noise.

What about those who vote for whoever is in government, regardless of party? These voters feel comfortable with what the government has done (although they mightn’t be able to tell you what that actually is), generally have a pretty good life and don’t see how a new government would change their life for better or for worse. That is a valid vote! Who can say that it is either wrong or incorrect? And as for those who say that this is why voting shouldn’t be compulsory, should we not instead concentrate on working to increase the number of ‘informed’ voters?  Shouldn’t we be having a closer look at how campaigns are organised and run, and how the media reporting of said campaigns? Ahhhh, but that’s probably another blog altogether.

Forcing people to vote means that the democratic system does not endorse apathy - it encourages people to put some thought into who they would like to run the country. And importantly, it means that the people of the country must shoulder the responsibility for the decisions made by elected government.