[throweway]

How about compulsory voting? We do it in Australia

[danieltillett]

Technically it is not compulsory voting, just compulsory turning up at the polling station and put papers in box. If you don't want to vote you don't have to.

I do agree that it is a very good idea, but compulsory voting doesn't solve the corrupting effect of large districts.

[DanBC]

In England the defaced ballots would win many seats. That would embarass politicians.

[specialist]

Adding "none of the above" to every race is one of my favorite fantasy ballot reforms. If no candidate wins, the contest is a do-over, with a new slate of candidates.

The second benefit, for election integrity activists, is preventing the "under vote", where down ballot races which are left blank, and potentially filled in by helpful administrators.

Note that in the US, ballots in metro areas can easily have dozens of races. Sheriff, judges, schools, water district, city, county, state, national, referendums, levies, etc.

[e12e]

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that. I wonder how much effect it has on turnout. I one looks at the "VAP" ("The voter turnout as defined as the percentage of the voting age population that actually voted") , it seems Australia is a somewhat higher than the UK, and around the level of eg. Sweden (neither of which have mandatory voting).

Mexico doesn't do too well, but apparently mandatory voting isn't enforced.

http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?id=15

[danieltillett]

The trouble with the Australian 'VAP' number is Australia has a very large percentage on non-citizens. It seems from the data that they have divided the votes by the total population rather than the number of Australian citizens.