This picture, courtesy of our national broadcaster, somehow captures the essence of being Australian. Voting is mandatory for all adults, is always on a Saturday, and can be done on the way to the beach.
🇳🇱
@freemo It's only $AUD20. Mandatory voting does have an upside: it means that everyone votes, not just the politically motivated at either end of the spectrum, and the consequence is that our governments are inevitably centrist, as they have to appeal to the middle (i.e. normal people) to get elected.
It's not all bad. :)
@jasonetheridge @freemo You guys might find it interesting that even in one of the original democracies, classical Athens, it was so difficult to get citizens to vote (both for policies and as jurors in legal cases) because no one wanted to take the economic hit from leaving their market stall, so much so that the leaders were forced to send slaves with a long rope covered in chalk to literally lasso citizens out of the Agora and drag them to the Pnix (where the votes happened). If you arrived covered in chalk everyone knew you had been forced to come and could shame you. It was a common joke at the time that the only citizens who consistently voted were old retirees who liked to vote for outrageous things just for the laughs.
