In Australia, we are one of the few countries in the world where voting is compulsory... or you get a small fine. Well, voting isn't really compulsory (more on that later..), with the paper ballots you only have to show up and collect your ballot papers... after which, you can do whatever the hell you want with them. Eat them, tear them up, vote, or cast dead vote (preferably by drawing giraffes and unicorns on it...). So, not enforced voting... but just once every now and then, show up and collect the papers and then do whatever you want.

I figure that is probably the least that a citizen of a country can do... just show up once every couple of years for a state or federal election and just collect the papers. Anyway, since I have returned, I have generally cast dead votes... or written nothing. I am a fan of "compulsory voting" as that means that parties need to appeal to a broad majority of the centre (sadly, also assuming that the electorate is well informed...)... rather than the "get out the vote" where you are appealing to your respective bases and fringes away from the centre (cough cough... United States...).

That said, I'm a bit disillusioned by the way that Australia is following the lead of the United States in many things... politics being one of them, and that has made the two party system quite unenviable. I wish that our compulsory voting was paired with the European model of proportional representation instead of the preferential system that we have. I used to think that the preferential system weeded out fringe elements and replaced it with near centre stability, allowing for the use of protest votes without wasting your vote... but in the end, the hyper-stability of the two main parties means that they are complacent and corrupt.

... but gripes aside, Australia does make it easy to vote. Weekends elections, sausage and BBQs and fundraisers for local schools, early voting, postal voting... all super easy!

And this time, I tried out the early voting... as I'm crazily busy this month, and I don't have the time to stand in line on election day. So, off to a local community centre to cast my ballot in a pretty much empty hall! Honestly, there were more worker volunteers than there were voters!

So, no photos from inside... and the best thing about early voting is the complete lack of people trying to hand you ballots! In fact, not being harassed by people with how to vote cards is the BEST thing ever... I will always vote early from now on!

But this was a different one... instead of a paper ballot, I just got a QR ticket which was scanned to do an electronic vote. First time doing this... and it didn't seem to have an option to cast a null vote. Possibly, afterwards, I thought that it was probably fine to scan and then hand in the QR code afterwards without voting? That was what was done in the old fashioned paper way...

Anyway, that was my major gripe with this experience, the unclear manner in which you would cast a non-vote. So, in the end, I cast my minimum 5 preferences for three independent candidates, one local representation candidate, and one libertarian candidate. All unlikely to get through, but that was the easiest way to cast a null vote.

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