Simon! I’m just curious how you feel about Australia’s mandatory voting laws now that the American midterms are coming up

I think that the freedom to abstain from voting should be protected, but there how do we do that while still making it mandatory for anyone who has not registered as abstaining? The reason such registration doesn’t exist is because the idea of “registering” the desire not to participate opens the door to harassment. Take for example, those who refused the draft based on religious or moral grounds. They were horribly treated. It also opens up those who abstain from voting to attacks by any political parties seeking fresh votes.

I do think, at the very least, that voting day should be a federal holiday. It’s not, and so of course, millions of people who work cannot get time to vote, and while an employer, by law, cannot scold a person for voting…they don’t have to tell an employee that’s why they’re being mistreated. It makes employment and work difficulties into a cudgel. In the South, for example, during the first of the African-American voting began, employers would intimidate black voters using their paycheck as a bargaining chip. Of course the person can file suit…but who has time or money for that?

I don’t think there should be voting registration. If a person brings a valid state or federal ID (for which they must submit paperwork of birth or citizenship) they should be allowed to vote then and there. Period. Registration is stupid. I’m a citizen, and registration is an unnecessary hurdle to prevent me from up and deciding to walk into an election, the day of, and simply vote.