Just Nicky

Voting November 23, 2006

So we have a state election on Saturday. Although I’ve been doing my best to avoid the bulk of election coverage I thought I had a pretty good handle things. The Liberals would need a swing of nearly 25% to take the lower house electorate we live in so there didn’t seem to be much to think about.

I’ve just found out/realised/bothered to notice that there are some changes in the upper house. They’ve changed the seats (which were called provinces and are now called regions) and they’ve changed the way you can vote. If you vote below the line - which tends to be my preference because I resent how to vote cards (and yes, I know that’s a bit silly) - you only have to fill in five boxes. How easy is that? I can’t believe that I was totally unaware of that until now.

I know that I should be more than a little ashamed of my apathy. I have no excuse other than to say that this election is incredibly boring. As I said we’re in a very safe seat, so our votes are unlikely to determine who forms the government - not that we’d want to change that and, in spite of some stuff I’ve seen reported, I’m pretty sure that the Liberals have a snow flake’s chance in hell of winning.

I think compulsory voting has something to do with it too. In other places where voting is voluntary just walking into a polling booth is a political act. Here it’s really just avoiding a fine. It’s not something you do because you feel strongly about the issues at hand or because you believe in the political process. It’s something you do because you have to.

This is not to say that I’m against compulsory voting. I’m not. In fact I’m strongly in favour of it. The requirement to vote is what has encouraged me to find about the upper house changes. I figured I should have some idea of what’s going on before I hit the polling booth, so I did a little research. In an election as boring as this one, it’s unlikely I would have bothered if I were not compelled to vote and just as unlikely that I would have bothered to go and vote. And being compelled to vote is better than not voting at all.