Democracy Isn't About Freedom

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People always say things like well democracy is supposed to be about freedom it's meant to be about volunteerism. I can see a lot of people if the United States federal government for instance was to impose compulsory voting saying you can't tell me what to do this is America. A good example is taxation which of course is quite a big infringement on personal freedom. Sure. Much more so than voting but we sort of recognize that we need to pay our taxes if we want to go on a road or get anywhere. It's no point in having all your own money if you can't go anywhere you know and it's not safe.

Midterm elections are a tough sell in the United States. Half of eligible voters show up in a good year. On Election Day, we’re revisiting an episode about how things work down under, where “sausage sizzles” and “bathers” make mandatory voting feel like a party.

This episode was originally produced by Noam Hassenfeld and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. It was updated by Amina Al-Sadi with help from Efim Shapiro and Matt Collette. New reporting by Amanda Lewellyn, Miles Bryan, Laura Bullard, and Hady Mawajdeh.

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