Queensland is having a state election on March 24th to determine who will be our premier. I missed out on voting in the general election of 2010 as I had only become a citizen a month beforehand and the authorities didn't have time to get me onto the electoral roll. This time I'm leaving nothing to chance and have applied for a postal vote as I'll be working on election day.
In Australia it is compulsory to vote; if you don't, you'll get a $20 fine. If you don't pay the fine, you could be prosecuted. As a result, Australia has a very high voter turnout! And don't worry if you think every candidate is a dud: you can choose to spoil your ballot paper in protest. Personally, after being here for nearly 7 years, I'm excited to finally have my say.
7 comments:
Congrats on finally being able to have your say.
Slight correction - the fine for not voting is $50. And jumps to $100 if you don't respond to the Apparent Failure to Vote Notice or the response is not accepted.
I got my info from the electoral commission website. Read more here:
http://www.aec.gov.au/faqs/voting_australia.htm#not-vote
When I turned 18, I was excited about being able to vote. After a few years, I found voting to be tedious. And last year, I walked around to the primary school down the street from my place to vote only to find it was no longer a polling booth anymore - and no they didn't tell anyone. So there were about 50 people standing around wondering what the hell was going on; and we were all stuck for a place to vote! How dumb can ya get?
Well, I had to bum a ride from my parents and vote at a high school 2km from my house... and the volunteers there were shocked that I hadn't been told about the primary school not being used as they knew (but it hadn't been taken out of the local papers).
I hate voting. :(
I LOVE voting! even if MY candidate hasn't a hope! And this state election could be pretty interesting; but Cara darling sweet heart love; the election is Saturday 24th March (not the 25th)
and just had to add -
Lock the Gate
and if you don't know what that means- check the website- this will affect all our futures!
Aha! Whoops! Yes thankyou for that I'll change that.
I was fascinated by how much funding parties like The Australian Sex Party seemed to have when I was over there. Enjoy the experience!
I believe it's actually illegal in Australia to encourage donkey voting....you may want to alter your post
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