US Puppet Democracy

[Aractus]

You're not forced to vote. You only have to go to a polling place, accept a ballot paper, take it to a booth, and then put it in the ballot box. It's a secret ballot, so if you want to leave it blank that's up to you.

I should clarify this statement. You are legally required to cast a valid formal vote. However because it is a secret ballot (which is an Australian invention, and even the USA and UK now view it as a basic requirement of democracy) it is not possible to impose a penalty on a person for that particular breach of the Electoral Act. Some people have argued that once an electronic voting system is implemented that voters could be forced to cast formal ballots. While I personally think that would be a good thing, I don't think that's very likely: 1. because we don't even use an electronic voting system at all for Federal elections in 2016, we use pencil and paper, and 2. It is used in the Territory elections, and has been for some time now, however it's your right to ask for a paper ballot instead and in fact most polling places only have paper ballots anyway, and since this has been used for more than 15 years now in the ACT I think that pretty much proves that electronic voting does not all the apparent benefits that are claimed of it (reducing cost and counting error) and will be discussed further below.

It should be noted here that way back in 2000, AEC representatives were sent to the USA to observe electronic voting in the USA presidential election. Given the widespread problems of the American system (such as the infamous butterfly ballots in Florida), it's not at all surprising then that the chairperson Tony Smith MP found for the 2013 Parliamentary report into the matter that "After hearing from a range of experts, and surveying the international electoral landscapes it is clear to me that Australia is not in a position to introduce any large-scale system of electronic voting in the near future without catastrophically compromising our electoral integrity." I guess this may seem strange when it is in fact used in ACT and Tasmania, although one should take note that technology is used to read the ballot papers, which greatly reduces the benefit of electronic voting in polling places. It should further be noted that these operate strictly on a secured LAN that is not connected to the outside world, and designing such a system that did not make any use of the public internet for security on a national level would be much more difficult. There is actually an electronic system used federally that few people know about for vision-impaired voters, but again whether this really has an advantage over paper Braille ballots is not clear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqvkhaht-9w


You are completely right Min, that the political will is to make voting harder in the USA. Many US States now require photo identification, which is just plainly ridiculous. Most people, at least here in Australia, only have one form of ID - their driver's license. If they have their license suspended by a police officer prior to an election, they may not be able to get an alternative identification in time to vote. Furthermore, it would eradicate the rights of silent voters who do not have their address listed on the electoral role out of fear for their safety. And homeless people would also be disadvantaged, as most of those people do not carry photo identification. Here's my question - where's the evidence that such a system as reduced "voter fraud"?