compulsory voting

while looking for things i can share
for tomorrow's alternative class program session,

i read in wikipedia that
they have compulsory voting
in australia, belgium and brazil.

how interesting.

in australia, if you fail to vote without a good enough excuse,
you pay up to $70. if you fail to pay,
you end up in court.


do we need it here?
i really don't think so.
i think not voting is a vote too.

but not registering, i think that's slightly different.
so why register?

because you never know who will be running for office
until around two months before elections.
registration period ends five months before that.

you will never know that you have no one to vote for
until after you realize you can no longer register.

back in 2007, we were arguing (really really arguing) in sanggu
as to whether we should place a cash incentive
for voter registration.

i fought for a particular kind.
one that rewards a random block for having many registered voters.
like some raffle.
i thought of it not as some reward for having the most registrants
but as some form of promotions,
just a gimmick to make people talk about this duty to register.

we ended up with jeeps
room-to-room appeals
and a handful of jeepney passengers.

i wonder what we will have next