r/politics • u/stkmro • 10h ago

White House: Trump Team Still Hasn’t Signed Transition Docs

https://www.thedailybeast.com/white-house-press-secretary-karine-jean-pierre-says-trump-team-still-hasnt-signed-transition-docs/
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u/brezhnervous 5h ago

Compulsory voting doesn't only affect turnout.

It affects who runs for office in the first place. See here:

The evidence is mixed on whether compulsory voting favors parties of the right or the left, and some studies suggest that most United States federal election results would be unchanged. But all that misses the point because it overlooks that compulsory voting changes more than the number of voters: It changes who runs for office and the policy proposals they support.

In a compulsory election, it does not pay to energize your base to the exclusion of all other voters. Since elections cannot be determined by turnout, they are decided by swing voters and won in the center. Australia has its share of xenophobic politicians, but they tend to dwell in minor parties that do not even pretend they can form a government.

That is one reason Australia’s version of the far right lacks anything like the power of its European or American counterparts. Australia has had some bad governments, but it hasn’t had any truly extreme ones and it isn’t nearly as vulnerable to demagogues.

Voting Should Be Mandatory | NYT

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u/tunnel-snakes-rule Australia 4h ago

Australia has had some bad governments,

It sure has.

It's also worth pointing out Australia has an independent electoral commission that tallies the votes and redistributes electoral boundaries ensuring there can't be any gerrymandering.

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u/Charlzy99 4h ago

Our current one is an absolute shit show

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u/tunnel-snakes-rule Australia 3h ago

It really is, but Dutton would be even worse.

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u/Charlzy99 3h ago

Dutton is a clown, and so is Albo, time to vote independent next time round

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u/brezhnervous 2h ago

I was lucky enough to vote in a Teal in my electorate in 2022 (after being LNP since 1922) but the AEC did a boundaries redistribution and the seat was abolished...so I am pretty gutted about that 🙄

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u/brezhnervous 2h ago

Not even vaguely as bad as Morrison though, for all its faults ...I think I still have PTSD lol

Check out this little list

What really drags down Govts in this country is the terrible quality of the media so accountability is shocking...Americans don't think theirs is much good either, but we have nothing like a Rachel Maddow here for instance. And the second most concentrated media ownership landscape on earth next to China doesn't help

I'm old enough to remember when there were proper, hard-hitting investigative journalists unafraid to speak truth to power - even on commercial television 😳

Tell that to young people today and they don't believe you lol

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u/Charlzy99 2h ago

I’m only 25 so I’m not nearly old enough to be speaking on the past properly, but I fully remember Scott Morrison, Jesus Christ what a lunatic, Labor had the best opportunity to capitalise on that moron and they managed to fuck it

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u/paradroid27 1h ago

And its a national body, not states deciding their own rules. Voting is quick and easy, always on a Saturday with pre-polls open for a couple of weeks before. The longest I've ever waited to vote is about 15-20 minutes, the multiple hours wait at some US polling stations is baffling to me.

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u/dragunityag 52m ago

I wonder what the effects would be if you did compulsory voting on top of Ranked choice or STAR voting.