[BITList] Barack Obama praises Australia's mandatory voting rules | US news | The Guardian

[Michael Feltham]

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>> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/10/barack-obama-praises-australias-mandatory-voting-rules?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=166254&subid=8597744&CMP=ema_632 <http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/10/barack-obama-praises-australias-mandatory-voting-rules?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=166254&subid=8597744&CMP=ema_632>
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>> Barack Obama praises Australia's mandatory voting rules
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>> President Barack Obama says if the US followed Australia and introduced mandatory voting at elections it would have a transformative impact on America.
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>> The president, speaking to students at the University of Chicago Law School, said the US has some of the lowest voting rates of any advanced democracy in the world.
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>> “Australia has got mandatory voting,” Mr Obama said on Friday.
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>> “You start getting 70-80 per cent voting rates, that’s transformative.”
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>> In the 2013 federal election in Australia voter turnout for the lower house of parliament was 93.34% and 94% in the Senate, according to the Australian Electoral  <http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BriefingBook44p/FedElection>Commission. In the 2010 election the figures were 93.22% and 93.83% respectively.
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>> This compares with just 36% of America’s voting-eligible population casting ballots at the crucial mid-term elections in 2014 <http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/10/us-voter-turnout-vs-world-election-day-holiday> –the lowest turnout in more than 70 years, despite control of Congress being up for grabs and state governor races contested.
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>> Just 53.6% of voting-age Americans voted at the 2012 presidential election.
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>> “We really are the only advanced democracy on earth that systematically and purposely makes it really hard for people to vote,” Mr Obama said.
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