There were reports of it taking between two and a half and five minutes to process each voter. “All those individual little steps did add to the additional processing times,” said city returning officer Kate Martin.
MRU political scientist Lori Williams. “We’re hearing stories of people being in line for up to two hours, and that some people left the line and didn’t vote at all because the process was too onerous. That’s terrible for democracy.”
What we do know is that it added up to a lousy 39% voter turnout, the lowest in nearly two decades.
There should be a law that low voter turnout voids the results. If you don’t have full representation of the voting public, you don’t exactly have a representative vote.
They have preferential vote and single transferable, so going to the station to not participate seems odd, why would you not want your preference counted?
Indeed.
There should be a law that low voter turnout voids the results. If you don’t have full representation of the voting public, you don’t exactly have a representative vote.
That encourages the incumbent, who has the most power to affect laws, to suppress voter turn out as much as possible.
It should be that if the voter turnout is below a certain threshold, the incumbent is disqualified from the election.
Oh absolutely. If the full turnout isn’t reached, the seats are all forfeit.
So, quorum?
This will never fly. Also I abstain on my ballot
I think in austrailia you are forced to vote, as in it’s not a choice
Even just a small fine would go a long way, it’s just a very difficult policy to market to the general public.
That’s why I said abstaining by putting a blank ballot.
They have preferential vote and single transferable, so going to the station to not participate seems odd, why would you not want your preference counted?
because I’m done with politics.
Isn’t that exactly the disenfranchisement the elites want though?
i have no idea, i could care less about what elites want. the world is cooked so just gunna chill till i die.
A ballot abstention still counts as your voice being heard, even if it isn’t for a candidate.
Well I do it to show no party represents me.