Aloha e Janet, and thank you for your comments. I will happily concede that Australia has a more democratic --and, I dare say, a more rational--form of government than we currently have in the United States. Compulsory, preferential (or "ranked choice") voting tends to eliminate the most extreme candidates while producing outcomes that closely mirror the actual will of the broader electorate.

If the United States had adopted compulory voting, Al Gore (2000) and Hilary Clinton (2016) would almost certainly have been elected, and we would have likely avoided the Second Gulf War while making significantly more progress in addressing climate change. And just imagine: a world in which Donald Trump never sat in the Oval Office!

While compulsory voting will be a hard sell in the U.S., I am more optimistic about ranked choice voting. The State of Alaska used this system in the last election, and the result was that the Democratic incumbent in the House, and the Republican incumbent in the Senate (both relative moderates) actually endorsed each other and they both won--a slap in the face for partisanship, but a victory for common sense and good government.

Thanks, again, for your thoughtful response.