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Comment Re:Compulsory voting in AU (Score 5, Informative) 343

You don't actually have to put anything in the Ballot - if you were so inclined you could simply sign off your name and put the blank ballot papers straight into the box and nothing would be said.

As a side note: People must dislike the Australian Electoral Commission vote counters because it's not like a politician is ever going to see the penises and expletives they marked their ballots with.

As a vote counter I can assure you that during the long and tedious process of counting votes, the pictures of penises and swear words give us a chuckle and lift our spirits.

Comment Re:Injustice (Score 4, Insightful) 897

Yes, they are published, in huge books that I can read down at the library. I have to start with the Criminal Code Act 1899, then apply all the amendments that have been voted in over the last 100+ years. And then I have to look at verdicts of court cases in my state that establish presidents about how that law is interpreted. After all that I am not sure if I will have enough time for my day job!

Comment Re:Injustice (Score 3, Interesting) 897

Well, that's why you get a lawyer -- they should know that stuff. Of course, a public defendant probably doesn't have time or resources to properly research it ...

That only helps after you have done something that might be a crime. I asked my lawyer about ignorance of the law and she admitted there are large areas of the law that she is unfamiliar with and she herself has broken some laws unknowingly only to find out later that what she did was in fact illegal.

Comment Injustice (Score 5, Insightful) 897

A plea bargain ensures that justice is not done.

Either a guilty person gets less punishment than they deserve or an innocent person gets punished when they deserve no punishment. It's a lose-lose situation.

Of course a bigger problem with the law is that ignorance of the law is no excuse but it's impossible for me to know every law and precedent that applies to me.

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