#australian voting

[passerkirbius]

So, there's a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.

And I get it! What's the point of voting if there's no one to vote for?

The thing is, I'm Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don't get to sit out our elections, and I'll be real honest with you - we don't exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there's no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there's always someone to vote against.

Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I'll tell you, there's something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don't get that option - you get to mark one person, and that's it.

That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don't even think about who that vote's going towards, that's not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone's election day!

[bronwynhillside]

Want to know how it works? Well we have preferential voting in Australia and it's great. 100% love. It means we are not locked into a 2 party system. We can vote for the little parties.

Griffith university -

https://youtu.be/HaE6MigXYdY?si=xJE6PT-VdcMlSRo2

For an accurate and informative explanation, full of good Aussie swearing, Juice Media -

https://youtu.be/bleyX4oMCgM?si=8m72hflTKYRABX0o

So, a comparatively high amount of states are voting on the fate of ranked choice voting this year. Missouri is voting on whether or not to kill it, Alaska is voting on whether or not to keep it, and most importantly, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho are voting on whether or not to adopt ranked choice voting, with maybe Colorado to follow.

And if you live in these states, even if you don't want to vote at the top of the ticket, I urge you to get out there and vote in favor of ranked choice voting on all of them.

Like, the two-party monopoly is a big part of the reason why politics in this country is so shit, and a big part of that is our "first past the post" system making it basically mathematically impossible for candidates outside of them to win anything beyond a local or state level.

So, if you want to try and break the cycle of voting for the lesser evil, of bipartisan cruelty towards the Global South and the country's own citizens alike, we need to change this and we need to vote on it where we can.

[aleria14]

As a non American, can I please just vent my frustrations here?

Ahem.

HOW THE FUCK IS THIS STUPID ELECTION SO CLOSE?!?! WE DON'T ASK MUCH OF YOU, AMERICA, BUT IF I HAVE TO SPEND ANOTHER 4 YEARS LISTENING TO WHAT DONALD DRUMPF HAS TO SAY I AM GOING TO SCRREEEEAAAMMMM. 😱😱💀

[youruncleolaf]

[bronwynhillside]

For Australian voting, we have a website which lists what is available at our voting stations worldwide. This is divided into the categories of sausage sizzle, coffee, cake shop and extra. And includes our booths overseas, especially England.

My husband and I do actually pick where we go by what is at the station. Generally we preference anywhere with coffee.

As stations are at schools and community centres, it's a great way for a school to fund raise over $500 in a day.

[brick-van-dyke]

Okay, in light of the "vote blue or don't vote blue" argument I'm seeing around here, I'm gonna tell you all a story.

I'm Australian and I voted for the Labour Party in the last election. For context, the Labour Party is essentially the left democrat party for Australia, while the Liberal Party is the ring wing republican one. So, I did what you'd all call "voting blue" in the USA, but in Australia. Anthony Albanese is the leader of Labour Left, a faction within the Labour Party to push it towards more leftist policies and ideals. He promised to protect minorities and said he would advocate for a free Palestine. We all voted for him believing it would help and so far, it sounds good doesn't it?

Well, here we are and Anthony Albanese has so far been pushing against pro Palestine protests, trying to implement anti protest legislation and made things actively harder for minorities in Australia. He's done nothing that he promised and of course acted almost as bad as the Liberals when they were in just before. In fact, it's arguably worse since the Labour Party has been attacking the right to protest over the last several months. They haven't done shit for minorities and if argue the ALP has actively made our lives harder.

Is voting important or not important? I don't know if u can answer that, but I can say this; politicians shouldn't be trusted to carry out promises when they're only there for self interest, regardless of what label they use to advertise that self interest. You shouldn't depend on them for change and sit around waiting for that change to come from these people. And, most importantly? There is no difference between those who voted and those who didn't when the most left leaning candidate we had has now just become legally complicit in the ICJ for genocide. There is no lesser evil when even one of us is harmed, and there is no "well at least it's not as bad" when that means sacrificing each other for the sake of a few benefits, so we have to band together and fight the whole damn system. It doesn't matter who did what, because at the end of the day the power is to the people, not the politicians who clearly can't be trusted no matter if you voted for "the right one", or chose not to vote at all. So, sure, vote. But don't expect that to change the world. You change the world through getting up with your fellow community and making a stand through your own physical actions against he system, not waiting for a politician to change anything when it's their job to lie and cheat. Reliance on the system is how we all come to lose and division is how we're silenced.

We're in this together and we need to remember what's important; each other and the power WE hold when we work together and fight against the entire system itself, not some representative in a suit.

[claraameliapond]

PSA : THE INDIGENOUS VOICE REFERENDUM 14th October 2023

The Yes Vote is literally just giving indigenous Australians A SEAT AT THE TABLE to give information and advice about issues and governmental decisions that affect them.

Indigenous information and advice for indigenous issues from indigenous Australians.

That's it . It's acknowledging their existence as the first peoples of Australia and recognising that they have valuable information to contribute about their cultures, the ways they live, what their most pressing needs are and the best ways in which to help, to enable governments to effectively help them.

The government already provides "help" each year, in an effort to close the gap on education access, healthcare access, and many other pressing needs - they are already using taxpayer money to do this but crucially, these efforts have not been successful because we are missing out on crucial information.

The Voice to Parliament gives the government access to invaluable information that enables it to create and better implement aid, education, healthcare , equal opportunity.

I have been very actively involved in many Reconciliaton efforts for the vast majority of my life -

At 16 I travelled to some of the indigenous rural communities in Australia, met elders and individuals no tourist has access to meet, learnt from them, and saw what was there.

I saw the attempts, the efforts to provide access to Western education, that the rest of the country has, to provide healthcare, housing etc.

They don't work

They are based on western ways of life, ideas of community and interaction.

It's not the same.

They don't work.

Fundamentally because even if well intentioned, your efforts to help can actually harm if you don't have access to crucial information about how indigenous communities live.

We need to accommodate our help, our efforts, our aid to the specific needs and ways of life, values and dynamics of the many indigenous communities, especially rural, that exist across Australia, so that they have access to the same human rights we all do.

The human right to healthcare and education that we all have- it's not accessible in the same ways for indigenous communities.

It's provided, but on western terms- with the western expectation that children will leave their families for 6 months at a time and travel extremely far away to attend school, for example.

This is so backwards and outdated even for western sensibilities, and an incredibly outdated mode of education that is unhealthy emotionally for any child, let alone vulnerable people who have to choose between a western run school and their culture, their families - literally being a part of their community, a present member.

There are better ways to provide access to education than this. Ways that don't disrupt their connection to community, land and culture.

And the best people to ask, to provide information that can properly inform us about these issues, and how best to navigate them, fix them, are the the indigenous Australians themselves- they are the experts.

So that our aid and help and efforts actually do - help. Actually work.

The funds are going there anyway. So we need to put it to use in effective ways.

What we have now doesn't work.

We can only make it better.

Please Vote YES for The Indigenous Voice to Parliament

It is the beginning of lasting, effective positive change for vulnerable communities, and for us all.

[brokendeerteeth]

Please vote! It’s crazy that they don’t already have a seat in parliament!

For all my fellow Aussies remember, voting yes in the referendum quite literally means that Indigenous Australians will get a proper spot in parliament. If someone tells you to vote no they are racist, there is no reason why Indigenous Australians shouldn’t be allowed in parliament.

Vote Yes!

[kellelkallel]

PSA y'all commenting anti Harris/pro Trump things on my posts isn't gonna change shit because

1. I'll just delete it

2. You look pathetic, getting pissed off and commenting doomer shit on some random kid's happy posts about getting campaign merch

And 3. I'm Australian. And a minor. Can't vote and everyone liking any political posts I make probably agrees with me 😂😂 keep trying to radicalise me it's entertaining to watch

[constant-internal-screamin]

No see results button answer the question, if your not Aussie let me know your country, im testing a theory, so reblog for more results pls

[booberism]

goobers

[lolliepops-rox]

I know y'all r talking a lot abt the American national election, but reminder to all my Queenslanders to put Labor and/or Greens first tomorrow if U haven't voted yet. And remember to put the Liberals/LNP, Nationals, and One Nation last.

Also Clive Palmer last if his party is still running?

[jammy-badger]

i think whats so frustrating to me about the voice bullshit is that all the 'no' campaigners had to do was lie

there's no amount of education and campaigning the 'yes' side could have done that could counteract the seeds of doubt sown by a heavily-funded misinformation campaign whose entire plan was based on voters not doing their research. they never needed to convince anyone onto their side - they just had to make people doubt the other

yes, the voice to parliament is not nearly enough to combat the impacts of colonialism in this country, and yes, we need a treaty and we need clear guidelines and so much more that sadly the voice to parliament was unable to provide, but we had an opportunity to at least take a step toward fulfilling the statement from the heart and we blew it.

all because its easier to prey on doubt and xenophobia than it is to educate and inform

[passerkirbius]

your post about telling Americans how to vote has good intentions, but it’s clear that you know nothing about US politics 😬

Buddy, I know more about US politics than I ever want to. Our newspapers cover your elections and political dramas with almost as much detail and analysis as they cover our own. It is actually harder for an Australian to learn about how their own political system works than it is to avoid knowing about US Politics. I have to know about US Politics in order to function online - knowing about US Politics is a prerequisite for joining any online conversation. In fact, I'd even be so bold as to state that I probably know US Politics at least as well as you do, if not better.

And I absolutely stand by my previous posts. I'd even wager that with extremely few exceptions, it works in any voting system. If you can't find someone to believe in, find someone to do whatever it takes to keep them the fuck out. Not voting isn't an act of defiance, it's an act of submission, in any voting system you care to name.

[actualhumancryptid]

You know this election is important internationally when the ABC (australian national broadcaster) is running live 'USA Votes' coverage, the same way they do our local elections.