So what do you do then? You just send your ballot back with a line through it? I’m curious as an American. It’s odd to me that one is forced to vote. Seems contrary to the purpose of voting. Can you write in Mickey Mouse like we do in the US?
We always have the choice of early voting by mail or turning up (name removed by moderator)erson, except during Covid lockdown.
I wrote on my vote that I would not support any of the candidates due to anti catholic reasons.
I did not tick the boxes from 1 to 10 or whatever number of candidates there are, in order of preference. If I wanted I could vote from my best to worst preference.
We can write or do whatever we want with the ballot, it cannot be traced as ballots are private and dont have our name on them. If mailing a ballot, the outer envelope has your name, so that gets ticked off as person has voted when the election office receives the ballot. The inner envelope containing the ballot then goes off to the counting office before being opened.
Legally we have to turn up and have our name ticked off if we dont want to pay fines etc. What we do in the voting booth is the only for us to know.
Voting here is a really private affair, we dont really discuss who we are voting for with others, that is considered poor form and attempting to sway or coerce their vote. Threads on CAF with vote for this or that politician agenda posting (you can probably guess which ones) would be shut down fast here.
Candidates do have to discuss policy. They usually make election promises they break, and we vote for the primeminster we want, or the person we want, not the party.
Our liberal party is very different to your idea of liberal.
Policy I dont agree with includes ssm, abortion, euthanasia, and certain environmental issues. We have saline soil and states that burn if they even look at a flame.,
What does registering with a certain political party mean in America?
Are your votes private or public?
( this post is not off - topic as it discusses moral acceptability of political candidates and what Australians do if they dont want to vote for a candidate)