Australia VOTES .. Australian Election

[skitzin]

Do you have 2 prime ministers if you get a hung parliament?

No. Basically each party then has to go the different independents and the greens to try and get the numbers to have a majority in parliament. If that fails then we go back to the polls and revote until a winner is declared.

The real issue that hung parliaments mean neither side can really get legislation through forcing a lot of deals and compromises to get stuff through. Which never really goes well.

[Crackleslap]

Prepare for another 3 years of nothing. Great stuff.

[Airwaves]

Prepare for another 3 years of nothing. Great stuff.

Still. Atleast nothing happening is more the the libs cutting medicare, healthcare, education. To bad their shitty NBN would stay.

[skitzin]

Hung parliament here we come ... I mean "are"!

[Moon-Man]

I voted for Trump.

All i Did is put the letters instead of numbers. Screw Australian Puppet candidates. They are all shit. We want Trump here too.

[muto]

So even though you're forced to vote, can you still write in someone like Donald Duck?

[nonameelf]

I voted for Trump.

All i Did is put the letters instead of numbers. Screw Australian Puppet candidates. They are all shit. We want Trump here too.

Are you going to build a wall to keep the bogans out or something?

So even though you're forced to vote, can you still write in someone like Donald Duck?

I don't think they have that option. They do draw dicks on their ballets apparently.

[Klingers]

The main reason our elections are better than yours is because we always have sausage sizzles. Admitedly in my case being at a pre-poling station in the middle of town it was largely symbolic, as I went to an artisanal hot dog place in a basement down the road I've dubbed "the sausage dungeon"... But I digress.

Also the way the ideological lines of our parties have drifted would look slightly familiar to Americans: One party keeps dragging the country to the right and asks the other guys to meet them in the middle. In that way the Liberal party are convervative neo-tards and the Labor party is really slightly right of center now. The only good thing if we have a strong senate with a balance of power held by a left-wing party and a bloc of independents who any government has to do deals with. It's stopped some pretty nasty shit from our conservative government getting through in the last three years.

The flipside and the good part of forced voting: It stops the right from being too right and the left from being too left. You've got to appeal at least superficially to that 80% of the non-polarized population in the middle.

[Morae]

So what do you do, if all possible candidates are fucking stupid and/or they all are practically saying they do the same thing and/or are known to betray their promises?

I think not voting should be a choice. It is the choice to tell there are no viable options in your opinion. I sure as hell won't vote for anyone and I'm going to kind of spread the idea when the next whatever vote comes. I live in Finland where even the guys who had for years talked of not doing X (what practically every other party already was doing) and when they finally got to position where they could have done something they did not... infact, they do X... just what everyone else is doing. Fucking things up even more. I'm happy I had a good younger life in here, but I doubt there is much left of anything in a few years (~10 years).

[Bollocks]

So what do you do, if all possible candidates are fucking stupid and/or they all are practically saying they do the same thing and/or are known to betray their promises?

I think not voting should be a choice. It is the choice to tell there are no viable options in your opinion. I sure as hell won't vote for anyone and I'm going to kind of spread the idea when the next whatever vote comes. I live in Finland where even the guys who had for years talked of not doing X (what practically every other party already was doing) and when they finally got to position where they could have done something they did not... infact, they do X... just what everyone else is doing. Fucking things up even more. I'm happy I had a good younger life in here, but I doubt there is much left of anything in a few years (~10 years).

You can vote blank or for no one. That is the case here. Though if you vote blank then your vote goes to the candidate with the highest voter count and if you vote none then you are asked to fill a survey.

[schwarzkopf]

We aren't forced to vote. If you don't vote, you pay a $20 fine and continue your life with a sub-par government.

Warning in coming straw man - you aren't forced to avoid murdering people either, if you do, you just pay via a long prison term.

[Frenegade42]

Weren't Australia's concentration camps recently declared illegal by the Supreme Court?

If they're concentration camps, they are the most pissweak version of a concentration camp I've ever heard of.

But hey, if you're going to be accused of it, why not go for broke? They should have 2 gates, one leading to a swift outbound processing, goodwill voucher for $500 and immediately departure to country of original. The other should lead to trench, a bulldozer and a firing squad.

OR we could just put illegal arrivals in an offshore processing centre while we process their asylum claims fairly and legally, then continue to detain the rejected applicants, the illegal economic migrants who refuse to disclose their country of origin, all while poor fucking Mohammed and his family sits in some shithole camp in Turkey or Jordan getting pushed further back in the queue while cashed up 20 somethings travel to Australia Illegally.

[ovm33]

I find it highly unethical that your country forces you to vote. By my understanding it's damn near suicide to go outside in Australia based on the number of poisonous snakes and drop bears.

Least they're kind enough to hold the election in your winter months when sun won't immediately set you on fire like in summer.

[Nihilist74]

I think it would be great if everyone was forced to vote in America but they need to make it more convenient. Republican states are always deliberately trying to make it inconvenient to vote. Everyone should be able to vote online, or on their phones so that don't have to wait in line for hours to vote.

[Klingers]

I find it highly unethical that your country forces you to vote.

I think it's great. It means the stupid people need to give a shit at least one day out of every 3 years. It also means that unlike America they actually have a right to complain when things don't go their way.

[Tempguy]

Those pics selected... No bias here guys.

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I think it would be great if everyone was forced to vote in America but they need to make it more convenient. Republican states are always deliberately trying to make it inconvenient to vote. Everyone should be able to vote online, or on their phones so that don't have to wait in line for hours to vote.

Having a valid ID is not inconvenient. If you want convenience, we need a better system overall. If we can file tax returns online, no reason we can't vote online.

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You can vote blank or for no one. That is the case here. Though if you vote blank then your vote goes to the candidate with the highest voter count and if you vote none then you are asked to fill a survey.

So what? If a bunch of people said "I fucking hate these candidates" will anything happen? Not sure why there is a survey. Not like it matters.

The most that will get done is they will sell the info to the media so they can put their spin on it.

[Corvus]

Looks like we are in for a period as an ungovernable mess. Seems we've gone from just having the upper house (Senate) with no majority to the lower house also with no majority. With the balance of power held by a assortment of ratbags from the left and right no one is going to be able to get anything but the most benign useless laws passed.

This parliament will not be going the distance. I can see another election in the not too distant future.

Shorten may hold onto power as leader of the ALP but I think Turnbull is done for. The whole reason he knifed Abbott was because only he could win the election. And he failed that dismally.

[Bollocks]

Those pics selected... No bias here guys.

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Having a valid ID is not inconvenient. If you want convenience, we need a better system overall. If we can file tax returns online, no reason we can't vote online.

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So what? If a bunch of people said "I fucking hate these candidates" will anything happen? Not sure why there is a survey. Not like it matters.

The most that will get done is they will sell the info to the media so they can put their spin on it.

The survey its just there so people can fell good about themselves. Our media never reports it.

[skitzin]

So even though you're forced to vote, can you still write in someone like Donald Duck?

You can do what we call "donkey voting" which is where get your name ticked off the registry and either draw stupid shit on your ballot paper or incorrectly fill out the vote sheet. For example someone might go and put "1" in everybox which makes the vote not valid.

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Shorten may hold onto power as leader of the ALP but I think Turnbull is done for. The whole reason he knifed Abbott was because only he could win the election. And he failed that dismally.

I doubt it. They have nobody who could replace him at this point in time. Turnbull will stay on regardless.

[derpkitteh]

australia's got it right with voting it seems, you should be forced to vote in the US too.

angry anderson sounds good imo.

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You can do what we call "donkey voting" which is where get your name ticked off the registry and either draw stupid shit on your ballot paper or incorrectly fill out the vote sheet. For example someone might go and put "1" in everybox which makes the vote not valid.

that should net you a fine, too.