A How-To Website For Australian Voters

Twisted64 writes "If you're interested in voting below the line in the upcoming federal election in Australia, but don't want to waste time in the booth individually ranking up to 76 candidates (for the unfortunates in New South Wales), then Cameron McCormack's website may have what you need. The website allows voters to set their preferences beforehand, dragging and dropping Stephen Conroy at the bottom of the barrel and thrusting the Sex Party into pole position (as an utterly random example). Once preferences are set, the site can generate a PDF to be printed and taken to the booth." (More, below.)

"There's also something to educate the above-the-line voters — if you check the box for your single party of choice, the site will fill out the effective party preferences below the line. This shows that a vote for The Climate Sceptics hands first preferences to Family First, and so on.

The website claims not to harvest voting information, but for the paranoid it recommends printing out a blank ballot sheet and copying your preferences from the screen. There is also a button to set up a donkey vote when in the ballot view, in case you have trouble counting from 1 to 100."

Re:It's actually 84

[XDirtypunkX]

No, all you must do is turn up. If you want you can put an empty ballot in, or write a diatribe on the back, or as many of our younger citizens do, draw a massive dick and balls on it.

Only attendance is compulsory, you don't actually have to cast a valid ballot.

Re:It's actually 84

[Capsaicin]

Still, compulsory voting does compound the deficiencies in our system. Most people go with the easy way out because they see voting as a chore, most evident in the high proportion of donkey votes

One or two percent is a "high" proportion? "Most voters" are taking the easy way out? Our system has "deficiencies" which are "compounded" by people actually voting?

One is reminded of that Churchill quote about democracy being the worst form of government ...

Re:It's actually 84

[YoshiDan]

If you don't like having to vote then you shouldn't enroll. I never enrolled, didn't vote in the last 3 or 4 elections and I haven't even had a fine.

Re:It's actually 84

[YoshiDan]

The government knows I'm not enrolled. The AEC has been sending me enrolment forms ever since I turned 17 (so for the past 5 years). I just put them in my 'filing cabinet' (i.e. rubbish bin.) Crime or not they don't seem to care about it, otherwise they would have fined me or something by now.

So why isn't it an officiel site?

[Lorens]

Why doesn't the AU government provide the service? Why is it left to some random website to provide a means to vote more easily?