Monday 2 August 2010

informal voting

with the election looming and the candidates seeming (to me at least) less than appealing I'm tempted to vote informally, especially considering that Australia has compulsory voting.

Of course there are issues with this, not the least of which is that I essentially make my vote meaningless. Which is not what I feel, what I want, or what message I would like to send.

Since we have the compulsory vote I would like to propose a system where by all ballot papers give me an option like this possible extra ballot tick box. This would allow me to state clearly I don't like any of the above (or below).

Making it clear that I'm not making a mistake, I don't like any of them and feel none of them are representing me.

Perhaps we could develop this idea further, and suggest that if enough people voted this way (say more than any other party before preference allocation) then it would be sending a clear message (to at least the Electoral Commission) that voters were dissatisfied with the choices and probably the performance of the previous government and the Opposition.

I'd say that if "none of these buggers" were to receive a majority vote, then they're clearly not performing and perhaps their salary would / should be docked.

I guess we could apply this at least to the PM (with whom the buck should stop) and perhaps the entire front bench.
I really like this idea.

More than this guy really likes that stick ... but I'm not sure where to take this idea too ... as I'm certain that my local MP will not like it anywhere near as much as I do.

This raises an interesting quandary ... to whom do we complain to when the leaders suck as badly as they do?

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