BREAKING: President Obama Wants To Propose 'Mandatory Voting.' It would change everything.

[MrModerate]

87. I live in Australia at present . . .

And I can tell you that my Aussie friends and colleagues do not resent the requirement to vote. They may grumble a bit, but mostly they're happy to accept it as a responsibility.

And their turnout is quite high. (I'm at work now, so I'll leave googling the stats to others.)

There are penalties for not voting, but they are seldom applied. Mostly it's just that Australia has embedded the practice in their society — voting is something "responsible people do."

And it works kinda-OK keeping big money out of politics. Which is a good thing, because there are so few people in Australia (a bit more than 23 million IIRC), that it wouldn't be too expensive to buy elections — and the "big end of town" (major industries like banking and resources) sometimes tries.

In a discouraging sign, however, Australian pollies are now beginning to hire out-of-work electoral consultants from the US, and the face of Australian elections may be changing.

The pre-election period for a national election is still only 6 weeks though, which helps keep things real.