Voter Apathy

[Ancalagon]

Should countries adopt the same approach to voting as Australia and make voting compulsory? Not only are citizens legally bound to vote, but so also are ex-pats, students and all foriegn workers.
With most elections across the West only showing about a 5th of the population casting their vote, do you think this weakens democracy or epitomises it? Is voter apathy a destructive right or an essential freedom?

[ReadWryt]

If someone is so ignorant that they would decline from practicing their responsability of voting I'm not certain I would want hundreds of thousands of people closing their eyes and poking their fingers randomly at ballots simply because they are required to do so by law...Such an act as making voting compulsary works if one assumes correctly that all people of voting age educate themselves about candidates and issues, which would be a wrong assumption to make about a group of people so woefully bereft of the knowlege of why voting is important in the first place...Oh, um...that of course is just my opinion, not necessarily fact.

[Walter]

Until some 10 years ago, voting was not only a right, but also a duty of every legal adult here in Austria too (with fines up to about 2000$ if memory serves me well). Voting participation has significantly gone down since.

Now the question if voter apathy is a destructive right or an essential freedom? I would answer with: It is both, but also IMO plain ignorance or even stupidity, for everyone who refrains from voting is also declaring: "I am not interested at all in who governs me"! Which is a very dangerous message and has not seldom in the past directly or indirectly lead to - or at least enabled - dictatoric regimes.

Unfortunately to make voting compulsory, doesn't help either because it then will most likely become a farce as RW rightly stated (e.g. IIRC voting was compulsory in the USSR where only one party to be voted for existed...). But what could actually help would be a proper form of "political education in the sense of democracy", carried out by parents, schools and government.

[DGoeij]

A dutch politician once said: 'The more boring politics in a country are, the better.'
Meaning that if not all too many people get worked up much about political issues, it seems that on the whole, everthing is just fine. So in a society that runs smoothly, politics will be boring and a lot of people won't vote at elections.
Others stated the opinion that nobody votes because people think it doesn't matter, things do not change anyway.
So is it apathy or happiness?
At the faculty here the debate certainly isn't over, with teachers disagreeing with eachother about this. But after the politician Fortuyn was shot, the debate concerns other issues lately, as you can imagine.

I don't know for myself, but I picture non-voters more as people who don't think their vote matters or would make a difference, or even care mcuh as long as they get their pay-check and the new car, than as people perfectly happy with the status quo.

[Rangerdave]

There are of course some positive aspects of voter apathy.

1. Votes are only cast with those whose political understanding is such that they feel that their cause must be either supported or other's causes must be detered. This makes for a better informed electorate, always a good thing.

2. The less people that vote, the more the chances that my particular canidate or proposal will win. Also a good thing. (despite the fact that I am 2-3-0 in picking Presidents and 1-4-0 in picking Governers)

3. And the most useful aspect of voter apathy is that I can always feel morally superior to all those who did not vote. Like my Dad always told me "If you don't vote, you can't gripe". (Ok, he did'nt use the word gripe, but this is a family show.)

RD

[Chymaera]

The people get the goverment they deserve whether they vote for it or not.

If you don't cast a vote then that is a vote for the winner

In Canada we have had the same PM since '93 and he has won four elections. If he could keep his party under tighter control he could be Leader for Life!

His sucessor will become PM and the opposition parties can't do a thing about it.

[Picture, no Executive Branch and no Senate and the Majority Leader of the House is the Leader of the country, the states with the biggest populations would contol the country and the agenda. That is Canadian politics in a nutshell]

Very frustrating some times.

[7doubles]

voting is a waste of time, unless like RD said you strongly appose the existing candadate. in the last election i voted for pat bucaughon, befor that i voted for ross perot twice. so you can see why i get frustrated over voting

[ReadWryt]

Well stop voting for whackos silly! Perot is, well..., Perotnoid. Buchannon is a radical extremist bent on levying terifs of the likes this nation hasn't seen since the events leading to the great depression... :) I'm more the Alan Keyes type myself...That's a "whacko" I can get behind...Anyone for replacing the Income Tax with a Federal Sales Tax gets my vote.

[Rangerdave]

Originally posted by ReadWryt
Buchannon is a radical extremist bent on levying terifs of the likes this nation hasn't seen since the events leading to the great depression... :)

The main thing that I think of whenever Pat Buchannon's name comes up is that his speeches are much more entertaining in the original German.

RD

[7doubles]

i am for reform. i think we should fix what we have before buiding new things to fix.

[Chymaera]

Canada, the US, and the UK, are the last democracy that still have first past the post elections.

Look at Bush he couldn't get the majority of the voters to vote for him let alone the whole electorate. Not that whathisface who ran against him was any prize either.:D

The Europeans do it better, and even then it is not too much of an improvement.

Bring back the Monarchy!! :o sorry getting radical again:p ;) :D

[7doubles]

i don't know, they're all crooks just about.

[ReadWryt]

*Sigh* Yes, I have the same problem with the Govornor's race here in California...it's the "Evil of two lessers"...if you take my meaning master Frodo.

[7doubles]

hay RW, does Joe "jello" Beofra still run in the california election?

[Arvedui]

True democracy means that you have the right to make your own choises. If there is no candidate that I can identify with, I have the option to make my case by not voting. It's as simple as that. In Norway, the largest party is those who do not vote:eek:

[Walter]

Not to vote is a decision that cannot be interpreted clearly. Hence, by not voting your decision can and will also be interpreted as: "I don't care who wins this election" or "I don't care whether I have the right to vote", or "I don't care about democracy", etc.

If there are elections where I have the right to take part and cannot identify with a particular party or candidate, I go and make an invalid choice.