Hmmm... I have no excuse to avoid the $50 fine for not voting in a local election. To be honest, I didn't actually know it was happening (twas a relatively quiet affair...)

'No further action will be taken if you have an acceptable reason'

should I suck it up and pay more attention next time? Or can anyone come up with an excuse to get me off the hook?? I've ruled out death & serious illness...

Were you out of the area at the time????

depends how it works with your area, but you could tell them you sent in a postal vote.

General principle is to make it time consuming, hassle, and expense to say that you don't have a valid excuse - they are more likely to just drop it then. Either way, make it cost them more than $50 for the trouble

Did you not get something in the mail. In WA we get voting slips in the mail for local elections that we can post back rather than vote 'in person'.

Yes - is it possible to simply say "I never knew"? Or do they invoke a sort of "ignorance is no excuse" rule? Being out of the area wouldn't work would it - would they not just say use postal vote?

My understanding is that it is not compulsory to vote in local elections?

Have to in qld

http://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/voting.aspx?id=37

http://www.ecq.qld.gov.au/voting.aspx?id=94

I just read a thread where someone who claimed to have worked in a job assessing the reasons for not voting said any excuse will do, probably for the reason Garry has already mentioned - cost of recovery.

Voting is not compulsory in Australia, but attending a polling station and looking like you are voting is. I don't agree with compulsory voting, but turning up isn't that much of a hassle in the grand scheme of things.

Cheers for the replies. Even tho the ink was still wet from my citizenship ceremony certificate, i thought that the local ones weren't compulsory. I didn't get any information re: voting - but still no excuse as hubby popped in to vote on the off chance....basically I couldn't be @rsed and now I've been caught out

I think I'll send an elaborate letter asking them to explain in detail my obligations, say i travel a lot for work and ask if I could be considered for postal voting in the future due to my itinerant lifestyle

I wonder what would happen if you refused to vote and refused to pay the fine?

Apparently they cancel your driving licence, etc.

I wouldn't mind the compulsory voting if you could vote "none of the above" and if that won the candidates were banned from standing for the next 5 years.

+1. Apparently there are an enormous number of spoiled ballot papers covered in all kinds of crap because of the % of people who just wouldn't vote anywhere else being forced to here. You don't have to tick a specific box. You could tick all of them, for example, and your vote is not counted.

How can a democracy force you to do something?

all politicians are tools, is there a none of the above option?

It was started back in the 20s. Not sure why. According to this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting

groovy map there are quite a few countries that have some degree of compulsory voting. Within Australia it gets more complicated again as different states have different laws deciding what elections have compulsory voting and so on.

I didn't vote in the local one so I'llprobably get a notice too - i was back home at the time which apparently is a good excuse