The imposition is the least of the issue. The issue is that voting is a right and an obligation. But when you make it compulsory, you have negated the entire purpose behind voting. Voting is a choice. When it is no longer a choice, it is no longer free.

We accept some obligations on the basis that they are for the common good, for example, wearing seat belts in cars, not drink driving, not driving at excessive speed, not letting any and every nutjob in the country have access to lethal weaponry, etc. These are just commonsense things we accept for the good of society. Hardly unreasonable impositions on our freedoms!

But then I remember: Millennia of kowtowing to kings and other titled powermongers have beaten the spirit out of the Euros. Australia never threw off the shackles of monarchy, nor did Canada. The only nation in the world that escaped the British Empire by armed revolution is the only nation in the world that refuses to allow rule by dynasty.

Which is one reason I will not vote for Clinton. I think we’ve had enough of the Clintons and the Bushes. Time for some new blood in the presidency.

Well, plus, I’d never vote for Hillary no matter what her last name was, but that’s a long laundry list of whys and wherefores. (Crook, liar, crook, crook, liar, liar, etc. Plus nanny-stater.)

As I recall, you don’t actually have to vote, you just have to turn up and sign the register.

I told one Australian fellow that I was appalled that voting was compulsory. He was appalled that we didn’t do it. Why…why…that would mean that only people who gave a damn would decide the election! Blasphemy! I never figured that one out.

Which becomes a vote for whoever the nice folks running the polling station happen to support. Thus the “don’t care” vote ends up in favor of the candidate with the most militant supporters.