No, I took a fat permenant marker and drew a giant dick and balls symbol on the ballot sheet and then stuffed it in the box.
If you don't "vote" you get fined $20, but voting has occured once you turn up and claim your ballot paper and get ticked off on the electroral roll, after that you can do what you want.
There was some talk (rumour) that these particular type of informal votes were being counted up as a means of tallying up general voter disaffection. Not sure if true.
I was particularly driven by two factors
a) Party voting policy whereby your local member is forced to vote along "party lines" more than 99.9% of the time, even if it is blatantly and severely against their constituants best interests.
b) The nature of the electoral system whereby if your vote is with a losing candidate, it might end up being redistributed on "preferences" that you have no say in, to decide the ultimate winner. This means it is possible that it is very hard to predict where your vote might actually end up at the time you cast it.
If you don't "vote" you get fined $20, but voting has occured once you turn up and claim your ballot paper and get ticked off on the electroral roll, after that you can do what you want.
There was some talk (rumour) that these particular type of informal votes were being counted up as a means of tallying up general voter disaffection. Not sure if true.
I was particularly driven by two factors
a) Party voting policy whereby your local member is forced to vote along "party lines" more than 99.9% of the time, even if it is blatantly and severely against their constituants best interests.
b) The nature of the electoral system whereby if your vote is with a losing candidate, it might end up being redistributed on "preferences" that you have no say in, to decide the ultimate winner. This means it is possible that it is very hard to predict where your vote might actually end up at the time you cast it.