And donkey voting is...

Oh, sorry, I defined it earlier on. It's voting straight down the ballot paper (or, if you're feeling inventive, straight up the ballot paper, or I guess some other pattern) as a substitute for voting an actual preference. (It can happen, of course, that voting straight down the paper is your actual preference, which is not a donkey vote, as it would not change were the order on the ballot to be changed.)

Walking up to the guy voting before you, punching him int he back of the head and while he's convulsing, stealing his ballot.

You are so wrong.

I mean, in the fun way.

IIRC, WA's been talking about making some elections absentee ballot only.

Didn't another state do that? Oregon, maybe?

Walking up to the guy voting before you, punching him int he back of the head and while he's convulsing, stealing his ballot.

I think that would be voting with malice aforethought.

And now I'm imagining you trying to haul a touchscreen voting machine out the door unnoticed.

It's voting straight down the ballot paper

Okay, I get it. I don't see what it has to do with my point--if it's worth avoiding, then isn't it thought to be occurring a significant amount? Or at least to be a risk of polluting the results? And therefore a donkey vote is worth less than a vote you'd cast?

Okay, I get it. I don't see what it has to do with my point--if it's worth avoiding, then isn't it thought to be occurring a significant amount? Or at least to be a risk of polluting the results? And therefore a donkey vote is worth less than a vote you'd cast?

What it has to do with your point is that donkey voting isn't an issue of uninformed voters voting. It's closer to voter apathy.

Donkey voting accounts for between 1% and 2% of the vote in Australia, incidentally. Not a huge amount, but obviously it could become significant in marginal seats.

Ok, it's been fun, but it's past 3 here and I really need to get to bed now. Off to sleep the sleep of the doomed.

I didn't mean uninformed voters. I meant uninformed votes. And in my semantics, that definitely includes the donkey vote.

Do you know how donkey voting trends? From your description of the inception of compulsory voting, it doesn't sound like Australia would have had the same mindset hurdles you'll get in the US.

Have sent the family home. Now am going to eat Easter candy and think about calling my crazy friend whose calls I've been avoiding 'cause I have been entertaining family and dealing with potential trauma.

Typically you can only vote absentee if you have some reason why you can't make it to the polls on election day.

In NC, you can vote absentee for almost any reason. My first presidential vote was cast absentee, because I was in college in Chapel Hill and registered to vote in Greensboro. NC's also been experimenting with extended voting. In the 2004 elections I voted a week or so ahead of time. It was at a different spot than my usual polling place, but once I found it I was able to walk in, grab my ballot, and vote with less than a five minute wait. I think it's a lovely idea--unless one of the candidates goes on a naked shooting spree in the Mall of the Americas, odds are ones mind is made up by the time early voting opens.

Paid time off:

§ 17-118. Refusal to permit employees to attend election. A person or corporation who refuses an employee entitled to vote at an election the privilege of attending thereat, as provided by the election law, or subjects such employee to a penalty or reduction of wages because of the exercise of such privilege, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

that doesn't say paid to me. I think that it means that you cannot be penalized for voting, and they have to let you do it, but they don't have to pay your for it.