If your point is that you'll eventually go to jail, after many years of warnings and chances to pay, I don't have an issue with this.
There are many actions we require of citizens. You have to pay your taxes, you have to show up for jury duty, you have to sign up for the draft. Why is showing up to vote a less important civic responsibility than any of those things?
> If your point is that you'll eventually go to jail, after many years of warnings and chances to pay
This may be the case in principle, but in practice I actually don't think this is enforced here in Australia.
Last time I neglected to vote in local government elections (because I legitimately didn't know they were on), I got a letter seeking an explanation, then a $20-ish fine, then no further correspondence and no credit record strike or any further consequences. (I think that may have been because The Greens won that election and they weren't interested in chasing people over tiny fines).
And yes I get that if after multiple court summonses and defiant refusals to appear or pay, you could theoretically end up being hauled off to jail, but I don't think this has ever happened in Australia.
I can imagine a magistrate just ending up rolling their eyes and saying "oh fine, go away".
But the "compulsoriness" of voting here does mean that more people pay attention and take politics seriously, and politicians have to try address the needs of the entire population and not play games relating to people's willingness or ability to vote.
That said, it is not compulsory to lodge a valid vote, and drawing genitalia on the ballot paper is a socially acceptable form of voting.
Unlike the U.S., prisoners in Australia are allowed to vote, which seems like a meaningful - if symbolic - check on government tyranny.
But prisoners, like everyone else, can still lodge a blank ballot paper, or one with any kind of message on it, including a drawing of genitalia. So, no, silent protest is not criminalized.
It only leads to logical absurdity if you insist on taking it there for rhetorical purposes.
All laws ultimately come down to a level of reasonableness in their application, and this one is no different.
In practice, in Australia, it’s a moderate and balanced approach that helps to bring about what is one of the more well-functioning and harmonious democratic systems in the world. It’s no big deal.
Besides, people who hate the system enough to want to overthrow it should probably come up with a more robust course of action than merely staying home on polling day.
Australia don't have even the the most basic inalienable rights (speech for example), and you just got done arguing that a selective enforcement legal system is a good thing. Now you top it off with equating forced voting to silent protest, letting murders vote, and (cringe) suggesting something "more robust" than free speech.
Next thing you know Aus will outlaw random numbers.
Given the mischaracterisations and both personal and nationalistic slurs in this comment, we're clearly beyond being able to have a respectful discussion on this topic.
But for the sake of setting some points straight, and correcting a mistake on my part:
- Australia's basic human rights are inherited from British common law, which is argued by some (generally conservatives from what I can see) as in some ways preferable than rights encoded in a constitution or bill of rights. Reasonable people can and do debate that, but for however much this counts, the (hardly left-wing) Cato Institute rates Australia as 4th in the world on its freedom index [1]).
- I don't support selective enforcement; the article I linked showed that the law was enforced, it's just not a heavy-handed enforcement, and thus the spectre of jail is overblown.
- You're not forced to vote; you can lodge a blank form. You are just required show up (or send in a vote by post), or pay a $20 fine. Which, I agree, initially seems like a heinous impingement on freedom, until you realise it's the best protection we have of a more important freedom: that everyone has the right to vote without interference by political operators who would seek to manipulate the system to arbitrarily prevent certain people from voting.
- I was slightly mistaken about prisoners voting; prisoners on sentences greater than 3 years can't vote. So, murderers or other serious violent offenders aren't voting. But the potential for governments to manipulate elections via excessive incarceration is vastly reduced, which seems like something that should be important to people who worry about government intrusions on freedom (of which I'm one).
- I'm with you on the profound importance on free speech; I just think people who want to send a strong protest to government would be better off finding another hill to die on.
- "Moderate" and "balanced" are important concepts in political decision-making, and "reasonable"-ness is a core concept in common law.
Ultimately, systems should be judged on their outcomes.
I was previously (indeed quite recently) of the ideological persuasion that saw things like compulsory voting as an unconscionable breach of civil liberties.
I now recognise that virtues can only be measured in relation to other virtues they either impede or promote, and that in practice it turns out that, this particular infringement of civil liberties leads to a far more important benefit: a democratic system in which nobody is denied their right to vote, and a society that is widely regarded as being as free and well-functioning as any.
Which is not to say I make great criticisms of the U.S. I like the U.S., and whether I do or not it's not for me to say it should change.
I'm just pointing out that the odious spectres people invoke whenever compulsory voting is raised, turn out not to be problems in practice in Australia.
There are many actions we require of citizens. You have to pay your taxes, you have to show up for jury duty, you have to sign up for the draft. Why is showing up to vote a less important civic responsibility than any of those things?