I will vote the least evil. I think in Australia they have law that They have to vote whether they like it or not. Please correct me if I am wrong?
You are right, Compulsory Voting applies in Australia.
This does mean that political parties don't have to concern themselves with 'getting' people to vote, don't have to spend money & time taking groups to polling places
but
it does not mean that we have better choices ...
We have what's known as a "
donkey vote" here - where voters check in and get their name crossed off the voting list, so they won't get fined, then deliberately mess up the voting paper so it doesn't count.
At our last federal election, well over 20% voted for small, minority parties or for independents - the highest % ever. The two major parties ended up with something like 34% of the vote. However as we also have a unique 'preferential' (ie not first past the post) system, one of the major parties now has a majority of one... yesterday's parliamentary session was a bit of a joke. The real joke is that the leader wanted a higher majority and to get rid of the independents, so engineered an election, and ended up way worse than before.
Another big difference is that we cannot vote directly for one leader or the other - we can only vote for candidates in our electoral 'ward'.
To some extent, frustration with politicians/parties, mudslinging, $ waste, & etc is a global phenomenon at the moment. Verrrry interesting... The world is following your presidential election with interest and some confusion...
...
