...Is compulsory the right term? Is there a penalty for not voting? Do you typically have a high voter turnout? How do voting and elections play out for you guys? I’m left with the opinion that your countrymen take a more active role rather than resorting to yapping as a primary mode of participation.
Yes, in Australia compulsory is the right word. There is a fine for not voting - it is seen as a civic duty, not a privilege.
Voter turnout is typically >95%.
Elections are held for local government (shire/county), state and federal (national). Federal voting is managed by a body specifically setup to run it - the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). The AEC sets electoral distributions (no gerrymandering), preparing and running the election, counting and declaring the successful candidates.
The winning party is those with the majority in the lower house (or at least enough to form government), with the role of US President split between the leader of the lower house (Prime Minister - from English traditions that the ministers of the King were led by the Primary Minister), and the Governor General (the notional representative of the sovereign - Queen Elizabeth II in this case).
The Majority voting system is used, with both voter preferences, and party preferences playing out to narrow down in a single runoff the most votes for a certain candidate. This leads to a predominantly two-party system of government.
https://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/Federal_Elections/2019/files/19-1201-fe19-fastfacts-A3-poster.pdfThe differences between federal elections for compulsory and non-compulsory voting is interesting.
With non-compulsory voting (USA or UK) the politicking emphasis in the leadup to the election is campaigning to ensure that your supporters all turn out to vote, especially in swing (or marginal) areas. Another by-product is that politics tends to be extreme, very polarised between left and right - the electoral distribution is like a dumbell (heavy on the extremes, light in the middle).
With compulsory voting, the electoral distribution is more of a typical bell curve, heavy in the middle, light on the extremes. As a result, politicking is aimed at the swing (non-aligned) voters in marginal areas because you know that your 'true believers' are going to be there anyway.
Voter fraud is almost non-existent (less than 0.2%). What is normal is Donkey voting - casting an invalid (informal) vote which is about 5% of all votes cast.
Disputes are referred to the High Court sitting in it's original jurisdiction as the Court of Disputed Returns.
Voting systems other than Preferential are worth considering; Hare-Clark, First Past the Post, Mixed Member Proportional Representation, etc. as they increase the number of independents - which can be a good balance to two-party government which becomes a dynastic mindset.
