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[–] 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I am glad that this passed in California, but this whole thing makes me feel terrible for the outlook of the country. I've been interested in counter-gerrymandering and alternative voting methods like ranked choice voting for a while now. I had loved seeing some states like California and Colorado taking steps to better elections.

But of course, having better and better elections in blue states just allowed red states to have worse and worse elections to seize control at a national level. I don't know how you fix this problem, other than to do what California did and beat them at their own game. I don't see a constitutional amendment being passed to help any time soon.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    allowed red states to have worse and worse elections to cease control at a national level

    If only they'd cease 🥲

    Americans, I highly encourage you to do everything you can to seize the means of federal elections, and put it in the hands of an independent federal electoral commission, instead of the nonsense state administration you currently have.

    Maybe one day you'll have a voting system as good as ours (one point we are very proud of).

    Love from Australia

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Oh man if we had mandatory elections like you guys it would go a long way. What's the penalty there for not voting?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Technically they could fine you up to 1 Penalty Unit ($330 at time of writing).

    But they just give you a $20 "administrative penalty" so they don't have to litigate.

    https://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/non-voters.htm

    Turnout is very high every election, and we don't need to waste political messaging airspace on "get out the vote", so this part of our political system seems to be working well (capitalism and neoliberalism being a bane to our existence notwithstanding).

    Side note, "get out the vote" is a weird sentence.

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