How Australian politics differs from American politics

In Australia it’s compulsory to vote. The actual prompt is not that extreme — it’s a fine that is somewhere a little below the level of the lowest financial fine financially. As it’s a compulsory obligation, legally, employers must offer you some access to vote and voting is a social activity. Primary schools are repurposed as voting booths for the day and parents committees take over to run fundraising stalls.

In the USA voting is not compulsory. People need to vote before or after work. They need to work out how to get to the booths within the time that they are open.

The practical implication is this; in the US you need to be motivated to vote. This means that political parties push the rhetoric to the extreme. You need to feel that this is an important and vital duty. That this election is somehow more vital to vote in than other elections. Everything must be black and white, life or death.

In Australia politics tends to the middle. Often the “average”* voter doesn’t quite know who is running so the emphasis is on providing a soundbite that the least engaged voter might remember in the voting booth when faced with decision of which party or candidate to choose.

The question that gets bandied around my social circles is, which is best? Compulsory voting and the resultant bland middle-ground politics or optional voting and extremism politics. I don’t know the answer but I keep coming back to that Winston Churchill quote, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” We may all be flawed but by averaging the most of our views we come up the best possible outcomes.

*The term average voter takes on a funny meaning as it means less a literal average in the media, and more a lowest common denominator voter. It probably needs be ‘median’ or most common viewpoint….