Spoiling your paper shows that you got off your arse and voted to say "I don't want any of these people". (See the number of spoilt votes in the UK Police and Crime Commissioner elections for a prime example of this; many in the UK disagreed with politicising the police and spoilt their papers in protest)
By simply not voting, the assumption is you are either lazy or simply don't care...... And as a result, the politicians will not care either.
> See the number of spoilt votes in the UK Police and Crime Commissioner elections
The candidate was still elected with a turnout of 15.3%. This is farcical to give this person a mandate where they clearly earned none. Shouldn't the parties get off their arse and pick better people for office? I'm busy and I pay taxes. What are you hassling me for?
> the assumption is
Assume whatever you like.
> the politicians will not care either.
I hate to be flip, but your entire tenor has brought it out of me, and this is the hardest to take. Then why would else would they run for office? They need my approval by engaging in a national cargo cult ritual to function properly? You accept this from your "leadership?"
It'd be a pity to get heated up over a misunderstanding of the Australian election system.
OP said (somewhat confusingly I admit):
>[Australia has] compulsory attendance at voting booths for eligible citizens, you can spoil your paper or walk away but we enforce with a fine,
and I think you understood that to mean:
>Australian citizens must choose: drop a valid ballot in the box or be fined
but I think what OP intended was (and this is consistent with the Australia Electoral Commission website [0]):
>Australian citizens must choose: drop a ballot (spoiled is fine) in the box or be fined
(As an aside - one WILL get fined if one appears the polling place but refuses to drop a ballot in the box - see [1].)
Then, believing (incorrectly) that casting a spoiled ballot incurs the fine, you said "Then my refusal to vote should be counted [for the system to be anywhere near reasonable, given that I went to the polling place and exercised my civic duty to the extent permitted by my moral fiber, fully expecting to be fined for it]" (emphasis and context added).
And Australia does keep track of how many "informal votes" (their term for what we're calling spoiled ballots here) are cast. See [2] for an official results page breaking out informal votes by count and percent. But informal votes have no bearing on the election results; they are thrown out and only the valid votes contribute to the result.
So I think you're fundamentally asking for the "informal votes" to have a first-class mechanism for contributing to the election result (specifics TBD, maybe a threshold to meet, maybe an disqualification of the candidates for a period of time, maybe a re-do, whatever).
And that's a valid ask and an interesting discussion to have!
But given that the reason you asked for that was based on a misunderstanding, do you even still want that? Do you still think the AUS system is unreasonable as-is?
>Under the Electoral Act, the actual duty of the elector is to attend a polling place, have their name marked off the certified list, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box.
>Because of the secrecy of the ballot, it is not possible to determine whether a person has completed their ballot paper prior to placing it in the ballot box. It is therefore not possible to determine whether all electors have met their legislated duty to vote. It is, however, possible to determine that an elector has attended a polling place or mobile polling team (or applied for a postal vote, pre-poll vote or absent vote) and been issued with a ballot paper.
in Krosch v Springell, at the polling place, Mr Springell handed the presiding officer a note saying, paraphrased, "none of these candidates deserve my vote". He was fined, because it could be proven that he didn't uphold the "duty of the elector" as defined in [0].
Then spoil your paper.
Spoiling your paper shows that you got off your arse and voted to say "I don't want any of these people". (See the number of spoilt votes in the UK Police and Crime Commissioner elections for a prime example of this; many in the UK disagreed with politicising the police and spoilt their papers in protest)
By simply not voting, the assumption is you are either lazy or simply don't care...... And as a result, the politicians will not care either.