You're smart and Australian: compulsory voting, good or bad?
it is very good for the 'health' of a liberal-democratic system, as it shifts the calculus for both the voting public and for parties. The most notable strength is that our parties do not have to think about mobilising their electoral base and not mobilising the oppositions base the way American parties must. I think it also changes voters mindsets, leads to less of a tendency towards political tribalism and towards greater civic literacy - I think Australians are more likely to pick themselves up and move to different pastures when they are unsatisfied with their political representatives, and I think that is in part downstream of the knowledge that they have to vote. Psychologically, I do think it helps to prevent depoliticisation and apathy. I think compulsory ranked choice is also important to our system, but I think many, especially foreigners, undervalue compulsory voting.
Australians also have a different political psychology to americans. Americans always hear this and start thinking about "rights" and "principles." But for us, what we think of first is the (perceived) health of our system and country. "should the government be able to force you to vote" isn't a scary Orwellianism setting some precedent. to us it's "is it better for us if voting, and ranked choice voting, is compulsory?" speaking generally of course, as one must.
Compulsory voting sounds good until you look at australian politics & it's the Exact same amount of hitlerism as the US & UK.
