Performing my democratic duty…

36 thoughts on Performing my democratic duty…

1. This was the first election that I voted below the line. A series of disappointments with the ALP, and in particular, their preferencing arrangements (Thanks to them we got Senator Fielding!), lead me to want to take charge on the situation. It is interesting to see more people voting like these, even though it’s so complicated. It kind of suggests that the reported apathy of the electorate isn’t quite what it’s made out to be.

   Anyway, It was kind of a farce for me (least of all because I voted a week early at the airport – leaving for Honeymoon). The first seventeen or so preferences ‘mattered’ to me, that is, people I could more or less feel comfortable being voted into office. But geez I had a tough time deciding whether I hated the prospect of a White Australia more than a prospect of a Christian Theocracy, there’s a kind of diabolical moment when you make that kind of choice, never sure why, or whether it’s the right one, or even if it matters – other than it being a choice. Or the Liberal Party vs Socialist Alliance. That was a tough one 😀

2. Voted for the first time ever in 2004. I was one proud, excited youngster in a long line of board, older suburbanites. The thrill lasted until that evening when the outcome of the election was announced.

3. Oh, scrumby, I laugh, but only because that was me, too, that year. I’d had such hopes, and was so thoroughly disgusted by the outcome.

   I’d never voted before. I came in and told the volunteers that, and everyone in the room — voters and volunteers — actually applauded. I’m still weirded out by that one. It was nice, don’t get me wrong, but it was rather strange. Is it really that rare to see young-looking people at the polls? (I was 27 at the time but looked way younger.) Apparently here, yeah, it is.

4. I’d voted in local elections before, but this year’s was my first General Election. Going to the polling station was weirdly low-key: a couple of little wooden booths in the back room of the local social club, big chunky black pencils, a rather battered ballot crate. I voted Lib Dem.

   It was later that evening, when we’d settled down with the TV on to watch the results, that it started really kicking in – that this election was too close to call and every last vote was making a difference. It was good to have my first election be a proper contest.

   Shame the LDs had to go and ruin it by coalition-ing with the Tory party (what is this I don’t even). I voted yellow in hope of some kind of leftward movement, not to enable another retrogressive Conservative government. The coalition’s looking shaky, and will probably come apart within another year, but the Tories seem set on doing as much damage as possible in the interim >.<

5. I always think of the women who fought to get me the right to vote, which was established less than a century ago in 1919.
   In 2004 I was canvassing in New Hampshire, which allows same day registration. I met a woman standing in line who looked like me– white, in her fifties, not rich. She said she had never voted before but this time she decided to.
   I got such a patriotic buzz talking to her and all the people who took time after a hard days work to brave the weather and stand in line to vote.
   New Hampshire went for John Kerry, the Democratic choice for governor won, the nation went for George Bush.
   I knew I had tried. This year I’m canvassing in my own state, Rhode Island.

6. Like you, I voted below the line last election. As someone who has a newfound belief in anarchism, I’m proud I didn’t vote at all this election. I’m proud that I didn’t tacitly endorse any of the parties out there, at least none of which were the Labor party who has an absolutely miserly approach to LGBT rights, so much so they presumably coerced their only gay senator to back their anti-marriage equality stance, let alone their disturbing penchant for internet censorship, or the thinly veiled racism of the “Liberals”, or the questionable economic credentials of the Greens. I’m proud of this little action of standing against statism.

   And I wasn’t alone in the action either. Informal voting was at its highest ever. Collectively, Australians decided that none of the major parties deserved to be in government. And for that short time where everything was up in the air, Australia did just fine without our government. We can do without them again. We’ll be just fine without them.

7. No, sadly.

   I turned eighteen (voting age in Canada) five days before a federal election, and I was stoked to vote. If I’d had a tail, I’d have wagged it.

   Then all the candidates in my riding came to speak to us at an assembly. The only one who didn’t present themselves like a condescending, ignorant asshat was the one candidate whose actual views I found repugnant (Conservative). I was devastated. Even thinking in terms of party instead of candidate, I couldn’t find someone worth voting for: my two main issues – criminal justice and indigenous sovereignty – are nearly always totally mishandled in party platforms in the case of the former, and totally overlooked in the case of the second, and this time was no exception. (I remember in one election, the only party with a platform that looked remotely reasonable and comprehensive turned out to be the Bloc Quebecois. This was a headdesk moment.)

   My history teacher at the time (who was also a man who had no small part in inspiring my desire to vote in the first place) recognized the issue I was struggling with, and suggested an alternative: spoiling the ballot as a form of protest. I’ve done it when I felt I had no other option but still wanted to exercise my right to vote, but it’s a poor solution – deliberately spoiled ballots aren’t counted any differently than accidentally spoiled ones, and they aren’t reported either, so it’s a protest that largely goes unnoticed. There’s something else called refusing one’s ballot, which is counted separately from spoiling, but I had trouble finding any literature on how to go about that and whether it was actually legal anymore, so never managed to pull it off successfully. Of the four national elections I’ve experienced so far, I spoiled twice, skipped one (too jaded and frustrated), and voted once for a party and candidate I didn’t care for because it was a close race against a worse alternative (not my proudest moment). I can’t remember about the provincial ones (probably spoiled or skipped – can’t recall voting for anyone I cared about), and I’ve never been able to work up the heart for municipal either (politicians in my hometown were skeezy).

   There is one person out there right now I’d vote for, if I lived in his riding. He’s an old dear friend who’s just gotten into politics, and I would vote for him in a heartbeat. I know who he is, where he comes from, and what he stands for. I wish to hell I’d met more politicians like him.

8. I missed the last presidential election because I was only DAYS away from my 18th birthday! The voting age is really too high. I was ready to vote at 14. If we educate younger people about the policies and politics of the candidates, I really don’t see an issue.

9. I first voted in 1998, in a byelection to fill a seat in Parliament. I voted for an autowoker running independently. He got creamed.

   On an ideological level, I really dislike the idea of voluntarily handing power over to a very small group of people, so I completely understand the stance of the other anarchist above. On a realistic level, the system is designed to saddle me and everyone else with the questionable judgment of whichever arse managed to hoodwink enough people into voting for her or him, so I may as well mess with the gears until I’m somehow able to build something better with the rest of you.

   Unfortunately, we have a municipal election coming up where my choices will likely boil down to the former cabinet minister in a strictly centrist party who strikes me as Standard Politician Type C, and the angry clown who keeps getting convicted for various acts of abuse, makes incredibly ignorant comments about everyone who isn’t white and male, and runs his mouth about “eliminating waste” while tossing out spending plans that have no basis in reality. I think I can legally refuse my ballot in municipal and provincial elections here, though not federal ones as of yet.

10. Basically what Atheling said, right down to the coalition annoyance.

    I’d voted for the local Lib Dem candidate because he seemed like a decent left-of-centre guy, and then his party went and joined the Conservative party, who have a history of screwing over the poor only to blame them for their predicament. Not only that, but the guy I wanted to represent our area in parliament didn’t even win, he lost to a man who lives in a £1million house and consistently votes against gay rights. I’m slightly bitter, can you tell? 😉

    It was exciting to take part in my first general election, but the result was pretty poor. I understand why (illegal wars and loss of civil liberties from our supposedly centre-left party) but I’m still hoping for a better result next time round.

11. Wondering how much money is spent on commercial advertising by candidates for office in Australia since what goes on in the US is obscene–now even more horrendous with the Supreme Court’s decision to allow corporate financing. Also curious as to how long candidates campaign, for here it seems the period grows longer and longer with more and more money being spent. Much of this is what I perceive as being wrong, wrong, wrong with US politics. Plenty of other things also, of course.

12. I find voting more a source of frustration than pride. I live in California, where every election I have to vote no on a multitude of propositions that range from “poorly conceived” to “corporate-backed attempts to legislate themselves more profits.”

13. @oldlady The candidates only campaign for a few weeks, so the money spent is much less than over your way!

14. Voted for the very first time this summer in the CT democratic primary! Ah, to be young and political.

15. I voted for the first time when I was 18, and just legal. In Alabama, as I’m sure it’s true for other states, during the primary election, one either votes a Republican ticket or a Democratic ticket.

    The polling place was heavily Republican, so I remember that I was handed a GOP ballot by the poll worker, who automatically assumed that was how I was going to vote. I had to correct her. As I signed my name on the Democratic column, I noticed I was one of approximately two other people to have voted that way. The Republican register was about six pages long by that point.

    I smiled.

16. I enjoyed voting in the last Australian election, but possibly because I managed to horrify a Family First member so badly that they actually backed away from me, mouth open, shaking their head. I was walking through a gauntlet of folks handing out pamphlets, but since I vote below the line and had my vote already researched and on my phone I didn’t need them.

    The Family First member shoved a pamphlet pretty brusquely in my face with some palaver about supporting my issues ‘unlike everybody else’. I asked him if he supported gay marriage and green issues, as those were two of my most important concerns. He was so horrified he actually had to walk away.

    I’m in a fairly hard core conservative area, so from his reaction and those around me, I’m pretty sure You Weren’t Supposed To Say Those Things? I don’t know. The Greens pamphleteer thought it was hilarious.

    I voted the Socialist alliance quite high up – much higher than the Liberal party (who are more like US republicans). Their information on the rights of women and indigenous Australians was vastly more progressive.

17. I’ve been voting for a long time now – over half my life. Of late, I’ve been very proud of taking my daughters with me (they’re now aged 12, 9 and 9), and listening to them grumble about not having a vote. I think they’ll all be enrolling the moment they turn 18.

18. My birthday is November 2nd and I turned 18 in 2000, which meant that there had to be a little tap-dancing to get me properly registered. It also meant that the day I turned 18 was also the day in which I would get to vote in a presidential election. Growing up in Chicago my election math was a little bit different: the Democratic party here is heavily mobbed up and is known to engage in wide-spread vote fraud on the local (and presumably national) levels. For local elections there are always other people on the ballots, but they’re usually puppet candidates. Many major offices run unopposed, with the real race having been in the primaries.

    With this knowledge in my head I went happily to the local poling place and voted Republican for all of the local elections because I knew it didn’t really matter and that was the only way to really rebel in Chicago. I looked at Bush and Gore, was vaguely horrified by both, and lodged a protest vote for a third party that I knew didn’t have a chance. Then I voted against retention for all the judges (I really thought I was stickin’ it to the man with that one). Full of naive pride at my rebellion I walked out of the poling place….and was promptly hit by a car crossing the street. If I was the paranoid type….

19. I beta tested http://belowtheline.org.au/ … 🙂 Which I’ll be using again come the Victorian state election next month.

20. I was 19 and USian in 2008 (still USian, sadly no longer 19), but I missed the primaries because of school, so The Big One was my first chance to vote. I remember being disappointed that with the advent of touchscreens, we no longer used booths with curtains and levers to pull. I also remember being confused and a little panicked–no one had told me that all those judges and school board candidates would be on the ballot. It was like a bad pop quiz! I imagine anything as complicated as the Austrailian elections would have exploded my poor brain. Yeah, in hindsight, I’m not sure I was mature enough to be voting;)

    And they were out of “I Voted!” stickers. Stupid voter turnout.

21. This was the first time the candidate I voted for was actually elected! (FIRST GREEN MP ELECTED TO THE HOUSE OF REPS AW YEAH!)

    I was also very proud to vote below the line, this time. I suspect that if the results (not just my Green candidate, but the draw) had not gone as they had, my feelings would have been more despairing and negative. I feel like this election’s results actually reflected the attitudes of my community and I, which has never happened before.

22. This was the first time the candidate I voted for was actually elected!

    Part of me kinda wanted Obama to loose in 2008 just so that my streak of having never cast a winning ballot could continue.

23. At the moment? I was so disgusted by the options on my primary absentee ballot that I almost threw it out, but then I remembered that two of the incumbents for local office were despicable sleazeballs (and either had discovered that personally, or had trusted friends who discovered it personally) so I just voted against them and left the rest blank.

    Then, I decided to just permanently change my voter registration to the address where I’m living while in college, cause I’ll be here for years and don’t want to leave. And honestly? Checking the box to not be affiliated with a political party made me feel more proud than voting ever did.

24. Nice story!

    I still get really excited about voting, and this election was my third Federal election.

    I think my proudest moment was the same election was yours, Chally. While it was the second time I had voted below the line, this time I was much better prepared–typed notes! But I was NOT prepared for the ALP House of Rep candidate’s how to vote (HTV) cards advising voters to preference Family First over the Greens. (I had intended to vote for the ALP in the House of Reps and Lea Rhiannon for Senate.) Anyway so after filling in the House of Reps form with the 1 to Labor, I felt shocked and gross inside so I got another form and voted for the Greens for the first time in my life. It was pure instinct and a realisation that, ‘I’m queer thus FFUUUUUUU ALP and your Family First loving ways, we’re done.’

    All political parties suck. I don’t believe in the system but voting properly can help to keep the bastards out–just not honest.

25. Kristian:
    This was the first election that I voted below the line. A series of disappointments with the ALP, and in particular, their preferencing arrangements (Thanks to them we got Senator Fielding!), lead me to want to take charge on the situation. It is interesting to see more people voting like these, even though it’s so complicated. It kind of suggests that the reported apathy of the electorate isn’t quite what it’s made out to be.
    Anyway, It was kind of a farce for me (least of all because I voted a week early at the airport – leaving for Honeymoon). The first seventeen or so preferences ‘mattered’ to me, that is, people I could more or less feel comfortable being voted into office. But geez I had a tough time deciding whether I hated the prospect of a White Australia more than a prospect of a Christian Theocracy, there’s a kind of diabolical moment when you make that kind of choice, never sure why, or whether it’s the right one, or even if it matters – other than it being a choice. Or the Liberal Party vs Socialist Alliance. That was a tough one 😀

    LOL Kristian – I’m used to reading US blogs where there’s a lot of assumed knowledge about US things and us non-USians just have to do lots of googling and Wikipediaing. I imagine the US readers will have to do the same with “voting below the line” et al.

26. Why is it that the Greens party isn’t often in the news in the US (I know you have one, but not much else about it) whereas they often are are in Europe and Australia? Just wondering – anyone with awesome PoliSci knowledge out there?

27. Helen: The US is pretty much a two party system, especially on the national level. Public election funds are tough to get if you’re not a Republican or a Democrat and are tied to how much you’ve been able to raise privately. In order to get into most of the major debates you have to be able to prove (via polls, which cost money) that you have a reasonable chance of winning to people who are usually active members of one of the two major parties. The US has been a two-party system for a long enough time that the system has evolved to be actively hostile to “third party” candidate. They don’t tend to have the strong, well-funded, corporately backed national parties to pour huge amounts of “soft money” into local elections. As a result, they’re invisible and
    there is a view that they can’t actually win a race.

    Finally, the Republicans and the Democrats have actively worked together not only to create a system of rules which keeps third parties out, but to create a public perception that voting for a third party candidate is irresponsible, foolish, naive, or essentially a vote for the Other Pary. After Bush took office the Greens took a lot of the blame because Nader (the Green candidate in 2000) was seen to have siphoned votes away from Gore. A similar narrative is generally presented as an argument against any third party candidate. I know that when I voted for a third party in 2000 and 2004 I was scolded by a lot of people for “throwing my vote away.”

    Finally, when it comes to presidential elections, we have this ridiculous electoral college system which, while complicated, erases any sense of proportionality. Essentially, if a race runs 49.9% to 50.1% in a given state, the candidate who took 50.1% gets 100% of that state’s electoral college votes.

28. I’ve never voted, because I’ve never had the opportunity to vote for a candidate who was a) in agreement with me and b) serious about, any of my key issues.

29. Just a note of interest: voting is compulsory in Aus.

30. This was the fourth Federal election I could vote in. It was also the first election where I preferenced the Liberal Party ahead of the Labor Party (but at the very end of my ballot). I live in a very safe Labor seat, so I felt comfortable lodging a protest vote. I was very disappointed in Kevin Rudd’s Labor government. Julia Gillard gave me high hopes, but she really didn’t give herself enough time to demonstrate she was better before calling an election. I hope she proves herself, but my expectations are low.

    I always vote below the line for the Senate, but then the ACT only has 2 senators, so there were only 9 candidates in total. (I hate how under-represented the ACT is. We have a similar population to Tasmania, yet only 2 lower house seats vs 5, and only 2 senators vs 12. Our senators also don’t have the same status as senators from states.)

    I don’t really have any ‘pride’ in election stories. I was really pleased to see the end of the Howard government, but my vote didn’t have anything to do with that. I am really pleased with our Labor senator, Kate Lundy though. She is fantastic, and I’m pleased she represents us. I am annoyed with how badly she’s been treated by the Labor Party though.

    I really like Australia’s electoral system overall. I think compulsory voting is a necessary evil. I like preferential voting. If I could make changes though, I’d change the House electoral system to a Hare-Clark style voting system and allow preferential voting above the line in the Senate.

31. @ Chally,
    Really? How do they enforce that? Does it seem to get people more engaged, or is there a lot of eye-rolling among the less enthusiastic? It can be a nightmare to vote here–long lines, and plenty of people can’t get off work. You kinda have to want it. I’ve missed the primaries twice now because I’m registered to vote in my home town and my (private) university didn’t cancel classes.
    Sounds like your polling place was running pretty smoothly. Gives me hope that it works somewhere.

32. There’s an electoral roll and you get fined if you don’t vote. I don’t know that people are more engaged, it’s just… just a part of the way things are done, so people accept it, I guess? The elections here are held on Saturdays, so not so many people working, but you can do early voting for a couple of weeks beforehand or complete an absentee ballot if necessary. My polling place was run beautifully, but I went to vote the day before the election, so I can’t tell you what it was like on the day!

33. @ Chally

    Interesting! That I did not know at all. Are there legal options for spoiling or refusing ballots (or equivalent)?

    Electoral systems are one of those highly idiosyncratic processes, I’m finding, where every nation does it absolutely completely differently, but we don’t necessarily realize that on the day-to-day because it just doesn’t come up that often and because they’re all too complicated to explain properly to someone who doesn’t already have the gist of how they work. In Canada (in my experience), I flash some id, pick up a bitty scrap of paper with about 5-10 names on it (depends on the riding), go behind a tottery cardboard screen propped on a desk, and make a ticky in a single circle (or try to fit a 1000-word manifesto on voting anarchy into a single circle – most difficult), then pop it in a box. And most of us can’t be buggered to show up (including me sometimes).

34. Jadey: @ ChallyInteresting! That I did not know at all. Are there legal options for spoiling or refusing ballots (or equivalent)?  

    I’m afraid there aren’t, I wish there were.

35. @Jadey
    You’re allowed in Australia to just receive your ballot, fold it, and drop it straight into the ballot box unmarked. But this isn’t counted separately as a “spoiled vote”, it’s just lumped together with all the other “informal ballots” that are incorrectly filled out, whether by intention or accident. You can also fill in random numbers next to the candidates, or anything else you like that’s not numbers in order from 1 to the total number of candidates, and your ballot will be informal.

    I’m also Canadian, and I worked as a poll clerk at a provincial election a couple of years ago. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with my voting options on that occasion; but the polling station was in an area with many immigrants, and it was kinda heartwarming to see so many new citizens voting for the first time.

    I’ve also been very lucky in my federal options: my MP was Minister of Justice under Martin, appointed two women to the supreme court, and introduced the marriage equality act. Even though he’ll win whether I vote or not, I think he deserves my vote.

36. Hooray! Elections. I love elections. My first one was 2007 and I worked as a Greens volunteer handing out how-to-votes. Second best day of my life. At that time I lived in Wayne Swan’s (Australia’s treasurer) electorate, and he came to our booth to visit the Labor party volunteers! It was very exciting.

    The very best day of my life came this year. I was working for the AEC! 12 hours it took, and I was dead by the end of it. It was the most physically demanding job I’ve ever had. Electoral roles are freaking heavy, and the movements are so repetitive. We didn’t expect so many people at our particular booth, so sometimes we had lines half an hour long, which is pretty bad.

    On people asking about process: Australia’s elections are always on a Saturday. When a person comes into a polling station, the polling official asks their name, where they live and whether they’ve voted in this particular election before. The voter has to answer all the questions, but doesn’t have to provide any ID unless the voting official is particularly super-suspicious about their identity. Then the voter gets two bits of paper – a green house of reps form and a huuuge senate paper. They have to fill out all of the green paper from 1-X (x being the number of candidates, though the AEC still counts it as valid if the very last number is left blank, or the voter uses sequential letters or roman numerals – as long as the intent is clear. There’s a very strong emphasis on giving the voter the benefit of the doubt, because everyone’s vote should count.)

    The senate ballot is freaking complicated, and a lot of people were really confused about it. I voted above the line, because I was quite happy with the Green’s preference flow.

    As for enthusiasm – many people were very unenthusiastic and said that the only reason they voted at all was the threat of a fine. (It’s about $20-50.) They were overwhelmed by the number of new immigrants who were excited about the whole process.

    Anyway, I love elections.

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