Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely not my experience coming from a country with compulsory voting, and having lived in a country without. People in the country without were generally more ignorant of their own politics, and the few people I met who understood what was going on were hesitant to vote. Compulsory voting, and in particular compulsory preferential voting also has a highly centralising effect, which adds to long term stability.
> Absolutely not my experience coming from a country with compulsory voting, and having lived in a country without. People in the country without were generally more ignorant of their own politics, and the few people I met who understood what was going on were hesitant to vote. All of this is an anecdote. It isn't proof of anything. I also think that the people that you think are more informed actually weren't more i…
Centralisation is a useful property since the median opinion is closer to the centre. First past the post adds variance that isn't reflective of the average voters opinion, since votes go to the mode party. Under preferential voting, votes flow to the median party.
Because of this effect, you also get a broader range of parties representing the views of a wider cohort of voters. In my local electorate, for example, there are over 7 parties vying for our seat, ranging from an agrarian socialist party, to far right sovereign citizens. I'm not aware of any country without preferential voting with this type of range.
The fact that people like you are disengaged with politics is kind of why I prefer compulsory voting. In countries without compulsory voting, opinions like yours don't get reflected in party policy. Here (apart from the stance against compulsory voting, which is wildly unpopular, and only held by very fringe parties), the opinions of people less likely to vote in other countries are broadly reflected in parliament.