this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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Australian Politics
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To be clear, I am asking why the "push" is for compulsory and not optional, given there is likely to be stronger opposition to the former. Either will give a voice to those who want one, but on paper optional would seem to be a more realistic goal and therefore makes more sense to advocate for. Advocating for compulsory kind of feels like letting perfect be the enemy of good, so to speak.
Changing the voting age is one change, but making voting non compulsory for some voters starts to get messy. It would also be an easy thing for a government to tweak to reduce youth voter turnout by shifting that number around.
Why not start them off in the way you mean to continue? It's not like there are any significant downsides.
Increased opposition is a significant downside.
The push is to lower the voting age to 16. Plus, I doubt making it optional until 18 would change many people's minds on whether or not we should lower the voting age.