WHEN Americans went to the polls earlier this month – on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, as the legislation requires – many Australians shook their heads in sneering contempt that such an antiquated system remained in place.
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Yes, we understand that in the early years of the Union elections were held on a Tuesday to accommodate farmers and religion. But, Australia mocked, that was 200 years ago. Surely it was time to bring America into the 21st century with weekend elections that gave so many more people the chance to vote.
Well, we might not be laughing so hard now.
Because for all its quaint idiosyncrasies, at least the American voting system delivered a clear result within hours of the close of polls.
Final results were decided within days, despite more than 130 million votes being cast across the country.
Compare that to the by-election in Orange last weekend where around 50,000 people cast a vote.
Counting on the night of the November 12 byelection told us the result was tight but Shooters, Fishers and Farmers candidate Phil Donato was just slightly ahead, but it took another nine days of counting – and recounting – to confirm the result.
In the meantime, the lead changed a number of times as bundles of votes were lost and found.
That’s an extraordinary way to decide the winner of an election and almost perverse in 2016.
The Orange debacle should only strengthen this country’s determination to head down the path of electronic or online voting to finally consign ballot papers to the annuls of history. Australia is in no position to mock the American system of voting while we cling to paper ballots that should have been phased out.
