Paradoxvoid

That article hurt a little to read - it’s not a T-Rex, it’s so obviously a Utahraptor I’m a bit flabbergasted that made it to print. But I guess not everyone had my obsession with dinosaurs as a child…

I’m using ‘didn’t vote’ to include submitting an empty ballot, which for the purposes of the Electoral Act, is the same thing.

It forces politics to the centre. Parties put a huge amount of effort into ‘bringing out the vote’, and do things to appeal to the fringe which is how you get characters like Trump finding success. When this isn’t a concern, parties can focus on policies that appeal to the majority of people rather than fringe groups that they can use to guarantee voter turnout.

Yep, this is why the Senate is much more representative, and why the big parties who control the House of Representatives hate it so much.

Australia has mandatory voter turnout, but you do not need to submit a vote. You just need to show up on polling day.

So just to clear up a technical misconception here - the wording in the Electoral Act is quite clear. All enrolled electors are legally required to vote. It’s only a consequence of the secret ballot that makes this provision unenforceable, so someone can turn up and get their name marked off while not submitting a vote without facing any consequences, but it is technically an illegal act.

If the AEC were to come up with some way to determine that you didn’t vote without betraying that secret ballot, they would be within their rights to issue a you a fine.

Again, revenue. They report revenue because it’s a nice big number, but it’s different to profit (which is why a lot of people suspect they don’t make much actual money, if any).

Revenue, sure - I don’t believe Google shares profit numbers for Youtube separately to the rest of the portfolio. I could be misinformed though.

Like legit, some of these comments are utterly deranged. YouTube has ZERO competition in the mass market consumer space, everyone else is a niche player, and it’s debatable whether YouTube even turns a profit despite that.