Date: January 14th, 2002 09:40 am (UTC)From:(Anonymous)
Another thing I would want to do is follow Australia in making voting a DUTY of citizenship, and not merely a right of subjects. In other words, failing to vote should be a crime. There is nothing stopping one from spoiling one's paper if one wants to make some anti-democratic political statement. The practical downside to this is "donkey" votes made by people who do not want to vote; you need to randomize the ballot papers so that the donkey votes cancel each other out. I realize that mandatory voting seems strange and illiberal at first, but it could be argued it is a lighter burden on the citizen than taxation is... :-)
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More on voting reform
Date: January 14th, 2002 09:40 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)voting a DUTY of citizenship, and not merely a right of subjects.
In other words, failing to vote should be a crime.
There is nothing stopping one from spoiling one's paper
if one wants to make some anti-democratic political statement.
The practical downside to this is "donkey" votes made by people who do not
want to vote; you need to randomize the ballot papers so that
the donkey votes cancel each other out. I realize that mandatory
voting seems strange and illiberal at first, but it could be argued it is a lighter burden on the citizen than taxation is... :-)
-- Damian