Very Desperate AEC Wanted To Bribe You To Vote With Beers & Burgers

Voting in Australia is compulsory. We all know this. It’s a nifty little law that makes sure every that eligible adult has to give up a small portion of a Saturday once every couple of years to go down to the local primary school/church/town hall to take part in the democratic process of electing Government.

So it might surprise you a little to find out that the Australian Electoral Commission was, at one point, slightly worried about engaging some sections of voters, and was working on some… let’s call them “creative” methods of reeling them back in.
Young people and migrants in particular represented the largest demographic of disenfranchised voters that the AEC were racking their brains to find a hook for.
The ABC obtained, and published details on, a report produced by the AEC which contained 80 “interventions“…
…(probably not that kind) which they figured might bring people back to the polling booths.
Like what, you say?
One of the interventions, entitled “Corporate Engagement” proposed that the AEC partnered with companies like Starbucks, Gloria Jeans, Coffee ClubMcDonald’s, or Hungry Jacks in order to reward people with a voucher for a free coffee or burger in exchange for voting. In return, the businesses would have received added exposure. To put it another way, it would’ve commodified the whole democratic process and opened it up to advertising from corporate giants, which is an odd way to go about getting people to do a thing mandated as compulsory by law.
And if you thought that was weird enough by itself, it gets weirder. Another method the AEC had been mulling over was to develop a mascot for the AEC, which would entertain and inform the voting public (particularly children) on how to voting process works.
The example the report apparently cited was that of the “Cadbury Gorilla” from the successful series of Phil Collins-heavy TV ads in 2007.
Solid idea, right? And it is. Until you account for the fact that the mascot the report suggested was a Troll.
As in, the Elec-Troll.
Get it? GET IT? GEDDIT?

The report also suggests putting together the Democrabus, which would mimic the Life Education bus with Healthy Harold and would tour schools and “places where the community gathers in order to engage community members in discussion about elections and democracy more broadly.”

But it wasn’t all terrible ideas, far from it.
In fact one of the better proposals would’ve seen “practice polling booths” set up in Supermarkets, where people unsure of how the actual voting process is supposed to work could go and take a dry run at it, which is frankly a pretty good idea.
And even better – bordering on genius – is the idea that polling stations could be moved away from traditional locations and into more colloquial, familiar settings.
Like the goddamned pub.
Imagine it! 
Voting 1 with coke and a rum!
Voting below the line with a whole bottle of wine!
Voting for your peers with some big, delicious beers!
GENIUS.
‘Course, most of the proposals were utterly impractical and were summarily binned by the AEC almost as quickly as someone thought them up, as AEC spokesman Phil Diak confirmed:

“As with all consultant’s reports there was no requirement for the AEC to adopt all, or indeed any of the ideas generated. [Some of the ideas] would not have been appropriate for the AEC to pursue, while others were not within the AEC’s capacity.”


Really though, there’s an exceedingly simple way to get people to the polling stations, and it’s been staring them in the face for years.

Mandatory sausage sizzles and cake stalls.
You dangle a snag in bread and a snot block under people’s noses and you will not be able to keep them away.
It’s a thing no Australian, in their right mind, can resist.
Source: ABC News.
Photo: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty.

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