Hint: Food, Friends & Saturday off.

At a recent college reunion, one of the attendees described visiting her son and grandchildren in Australia at the time an election was held.  As election day approached, her family enthusiastically called friends to meet at a polling place which offered their favorite foods.

What!?  Choose your own polling place? Food?  To paraphrase Dorothy, “I guess I’m not in Georgia anymore.”

They chatted with friends while waiting in line (never very long) and, after voting, had a great time lunching together.

Coordinating was easy. They went online to see the food options provided by vendors and community groups at various polling places. Voters can go to any polling place in their state for state and federal elections (or vote by mail). All elections take place on a single Saturday throughout the country  so most people don’t have to take off from work.

Voting is compulsory but easy to do. And the fines are modest. Have fun reading about “democracy sausages” and “donkey votes” at How Compulsory Voting Works: Australia, New York Times Nov. 5, 2018.

Civics education, unlike in the U.S., gets a lot of government support. See one example at Parliamentary Education Office, Videos for Teachers “Immerse your students in the Australian Parliament by creating a parliament in your classroom. These videos show you how to debate in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and how to investigate bills and issues in committees.”  It looks like the high school students are really into the debates, probably because they have already mastered a lot about civics in prior years.  The U.S. used to make civics education a priority – and should again.