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Comment by dools | Hacker News Reader

There is no reason to abstain in Australia because we have a preference system. In the States, when Nader ran against Gore it divided the Democrat vote and Bush won. The same thing doesn't happen in Australia so if you vote for a minor party because you really believe in their policies, although they may still preference a major party that you don't wholly agree with they still get funding based on the number of votes received and if they actually win a seat in parliament (as Adam Bandt did in his recent historic win in the federal seat of Melbourne for the Greens) then those "minor" parties start to have a "major" influence.

All in all I think the preference system and mandatory voting makes for a far healthier democracy.

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I have to call BS. This argument that third parties split the vote is nonsense.

Me voting for a third-party candidate is does not imply that I would have voted for any other candidate had they not been on the ballot. Had that candidate not been on the ballot, I would have abstained from that particular position.

It's like the BSA argument that people who steal software (yes it's stealing) would have normally bought the software. No, they wouldn't have.

But if a third party happens to appeal to a similar demographic to one of the main parties (in this case, the Democrats, and the Gore campaign in particular), then it will split the vote. If you don't believe it, then the Bush campaign (Republicans) sure did, since they worked hard to promote the Green party and get them on as many ballots as they could.

> Had that candidate not been on the ballot, I would have abstained from that particular position.

Really? If there were three candidates, one who was 95% in agreement with you, one who was 85%, and one who was 30%, and the 95% dropped out of the race, you would just NOT vote for the 85%?

It depends. I would typically vote for a candidate if his positions on other issues were not repulsive to me or if his stance really didn't matter at the federal level.

But I refuse to vote for a candidate because of a single plank or even 2 or 3 planks. I won't compromise on things like marriage equality or abortion rights. Those, while they should have no federal interferance at all, sadly are determined at the federal level. Same goes for economy.

But if the candidate has an opinion on, say, the Department of Education that I'm opposed to I might let it slide.

The point I was making is that is a case by case basis and more times than not, I've refused to vote for any candidate because I didn't want to send a message that I supported them at all.

The only message that not voting for anyone sends is that you're happy with anyone.

If everyone informed chooses not to vote for anyone, all that does is give more power to the uninformed.

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