The right to vote, informal

I have been watching with increasing unease the responses to the Australian election. The #qanda tweets, and the #ausvotes statements have spent a large proportion of their efforts chastising those who voted informally.

In Blaxland, the informal vote was 14% out of less than 73,000 votes. The average swing of the informal vote was (nation-wide) over 5%, and over 5% in NSW. Where I live (ACT) the average informal vote was only 3%. Perhaps this is due to the difference in job, and education.

Several statements I have seen have said something to the effect "you $%^$ people who voted informal, look what you've done" as if, had all the informal voters voted formally, their votes would not have distributed in the same manner as everyone else's. And the fact that a hung parliament is somehow
(a) a bad thing or
(b) in any way anyone within a 5% margin's fault

I did not vote informally, I think doing so is odd, if not down-right silly. But I also believe voting above the line in the senate - and thereby allowing some unknown party official to select who gets my real vote - is also stupid. And I think that voting for One Nation or Family First is stupid - all of which just goes to show that what I think is stupid is not a measure of what should (or should not) be permitted.

Nonetheless, to vote informally is my right. Should I wish to go to the polling booth and draw on it, or write a poem on it, or simply leave it blank, then that is my right. There seem to be several arguments against this, and I'd like to address some of the popular ones

Why I'm voting for the NBN

I started to write this as I grew progressively more tired listening to arguments against the NBN. The first version (being that I was angry and such) became rather a rant. This, hopefully, is closer to objectivity.

First. Allow me to direct you to Mike Quigley CEO NBN Co's speech from Aug 18, on why it is better to invest $27b rather than spend $6b. I highly commend it. So there would seem to be a few arguments to draw..