Reading about the Australian election returns today reminded me of some things about that amazing, astonishing country. Australians do a lot of things better than we do as Americans, and voting is definitely one of them. (I think I confessed elsewhere my intense liking for Australia -- based on a too-brief visit several years ago on business and working with Aussies on a big project).
For one thing, registration and voting is compulsory for all adult citizens over 18 (some sort of fine is involved I believe unless there is a good excuse for missing a vote). They get a much 'truer' read of actual public sentiment from their elections than we do in ours that struggle to reach 50% participation and avoid any of this corrupt, get-out-the-vote-at-any-cost, ban-early-voting nonsense. Everyone from intellectuals to uninformed chronic whiners gets a chance to go on record -- in the US sometimes I think our elections are decided by far more of the latter than the former.
The second thing is that Australia uses what is generally called preferential or "instant-runoff" voting...a much more civilized, efficient, and accurate form of voting than our goofy, undemocratic mish-mash of political-party dominated primaries, poorly attended general elections, and the Electoral College of all things!
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