> You have compulsory voting!??!! How oppressive. May I assume voting is
> compulsory only for this referendum and not general elections? What
happens if
> you don't vote? Take away your driver's license? Remove you from the
Social
> Security rolls? Twenty lashes with a wet noodle?
no, voting is compulsory in referenda and elections, whether they be federal, state or local council.
you can always not register when you turn 18. and no one would find you and enforce the law which says you have to. if you don't vote, you get fined unless you've give a good a reason, like 'i forgot'. then again, there's no law which will criminalise illiteracy or an outbreak of tourette's. otoh, if you campaign to have people not fill out the ballot properly, you can be charged. a maoist boy did some jail time in the mid-90s for calling upon people to fill out the ballot in a way which was technically allowed (in that the votes would still have to be counted, but it undermined the compulsory preferential system of voting), but they got him under laws which likewise make it illegal to campaign for such. there are regular arrests and fines of leftists for putting out material calling for a boycott so that more recently calls for boycotts get put through an anonymizer. but the law is as the police does, and when various right-wingers call for the abolition of compulsory voting, well, strangely, they don't seem to get charged with anything.
in short, individual abstention is formally illegal but practically possible. organised abstention is illegal, practically for the left and formally for everyone.
Angela _________