Hands up those who would prefer that voting in any election was voluntary?
You don’t have to put your hands up if you don’t want to but it would not be very surprising if more hands than not went up.
The world’s biggest democracy, America, gives people the chance to decide for themselves if they want to go and vote.
As does that other democratic bastion, the United Kingdom.
So the politicians over there first of all have to get you interested in voting before they even get you thinking about voting for them.
You’ve seen how our desperate some of our politicians get around election or re-election time, especially if they’re unlucky enough to hold a marginal seat.
Imagine how even more keen they would be in a system where you don’t even have to vote.
You can vote if you want, but there’s no fine or public humiliation if you don’t.
Last week we found out that 15 million, 676 thousand and 659 of us are enrolled to vote in the 2016 federal election of July 2.
The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) said the electoral roll had increased by over 963,000 since the last federal election.
But here’s the more important statistic from the AEC: the number of people estimated to be missing from the electoral roll is a tad over 816,000 – you rebels, you.
But there’s fewer of these renegades than there were at the 2013 election where a whopping 1.21 million eligible voters were missing in action.
Which means 95 per cent of us are on the roll for this poll.
Maybe compulsory voting suits us as a law abiding, community minded society where we value the group more than the individual.
But I wish we would at least have a discussion about the merits of voluntary voting.
There are a stack of reasons why it should be voluntary, not least that we end up electing more dunderheads and dead wood than is good for us.
Maybe we should start with a plebiscite that asks the simple question: do you prefer voluntary or compulsory voting.
But should voting in such plebiscite be voluntary or compulsory?
