Australia's own numbers undercut the case. About 5 percent of ballots in Australian federal elections are informal, meaning blank or filled out wrong, and donkey votes, numbering candidates 1-2-3 straight down the ballot, are a running national joke. That's millions of people who showed up because they had to and expressed nothing. We would spend enormous political capital converting nonvoters into random ballot-markers. Participation without engagement is theater. The Australian Electoral Commission publishes the informal vote figures every cycle, and they prove the mandate creates attendance, not engagement.
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