Why doesn’t compulsory voting result in Australia representing young voters?

[darklordoftech]

Australia has compulsory voting, but Australian politicians don’t listen to young voters any more than politicians in other countries do. Why is this?

[Tintrlvr]

Is there a significant difference in political views (overall) between the young and the old in Australia? Not every country has the divide that the U.S. or the U.K. do.

[GoTfan]

There's maybe 10 or 15 seats each election that decide the winner. Everyone else is in extremely safe seats, so they just listen to those 10 or 15.

Plus, there is a misconception that everyone is automatically a voter. You have to register for the electoral rolls first.

[AtorBoltox]

Fewer young people register to be on the electoral roll

[eric82oslo]

Fewer young people register to be on the electoral roll

If you have to volunteer in order to register to vote, then the voting is most definitely neither mandatory nor compulsory.

[eric82oslo]

Plus, there is a misconception that everyone is automatically a voter. You have to register for the electoral rolls first.

If this is true, then why is it called compulsory voting?

[GoTfan]

Plus, there is a misconception that everyone is automatically a voter. You have to register for the electoral rolls first.

If this is true, then why is it called compulsory voting?

Because you're required to vote once you're on the roll. Hell, there's a fine if you don't vote.

[Annatar]

Because the age gap isn't that big in Australia and because the effect of turnout on elections is negligible, people massively overestimate the effect of turnout on changing electoral outcomes as in most cases you can only raise turnout by a few % and the net effect on your margin will only be that increase multiplied by your net margin of victory with that voting group.

If I might use the 2016 US election as an example here, voters aged 18-29 made up 21% of eligible voters but cast only 16% of actual votes as their voter turnout was around 76% as high as the overall turnout or 46%. If their voter turnout was equal to overall voter turnout or 60% something many democrats believe would completely change the electoral map, what would the effect be, well going from 16 to 21% would mean 5% more votes, and since Clinton won voters aged 18-29 by 19%, the net effect would be a gain of around 1% for the democrats nationally.

So if voters in America under 30 turned out at a 60% rate which would be the absolute best case scenario for the democrats, the net effect would only be a 1% shift in the national vote, hardly a huge change.

In Australia, if there was no compulsory voting and the age gap and turnout differential mirrored America, the only effect would have been that in the last election, instead of winning the 2PP 51.5-48.5, the Coalition might have won it 52-48, hardly a big difference.

Regarding representation of young voters and turnout, I would just make the point the ageing of the population is a far stronger force than any turnout differential in shaping voting outcomes in basically every developed nation at this point.

The fact that the % of eligible voters aged over 50 has gone from 38% in 2000 to 43% in 2008 and 47% in 2016 has played a far stronger role in how American politics has evolved over the last 2 decades than could have been played by any rise or fall in turnout among different age groups.


The same forces are at work in Australia, on the eve of the 2016 election, 15% of voters were over the age of 70, by the time of the 2019 election, that figure had risen to 16%. In this kind of situation, if one party can maintain constant margins with a growing share of the electorate, namely older voters that party will probably win most elections, that's certainly how the Coalition won the 2019 Australian election.

[Tender Branson]

Young voters are largely meaningless to politicians around the globe, mostly because the share of old, retired voters are much larger everywhere.

And old, retired people are basically nothing else than welfare recipients and the politicians are their welfare account managers. That's why they could not care less about the young, because it's the old who dictate their political fate.

[Annatar]

Also I would just add voter turnout in Australia has risen continuously in the last few elections, from 84.7% of eligible voters in 2010 to 86.2% in 2013 to 86.4% in 2016 and 89% in 2019.

http://www.tallyroom.com.au/38870

When this post was written not all the votes were counted, final turnout ended up being 91.89% of 96.84% of eligible voters registered so an effective eligible voter turnout of 89%. So 2019 was a high turnout election where everyone voted, the lack of representation of young voters, if that indeed is an issue is most likely a result of the fact that young voters make up an ever smaller share of the electorate and so matter less and less in winning elections.

[Blue3]

Plus, there is a misconception that everyone is automatically a voter. You have to register for the electoral rolls first.

If this is true, then why is it called compulsory voting?

Because you're required to vote once you're on the roll. Hell, there's a fine if you don't vote.

It's not compulsory though if you don't register to be on the roll...