Mandatory Voting.

[Ian The Poet]

Mandatory Voting.


How would feel if you were forced to vote at elections. With the currently low turnouts on election days, most is caused by apathy, with people saying I cannot be bothered to vote, there is no one worthy of my vote. I have a solution.
Make mandatory to vote.
Have this printed at the bottom of the ballot sheet: NONE OF THE ABOVE (and you put your cross next to that.)

[Henry P]

People shouldn't be forced to vote for the power-mad tossers we get as polticians. A plague on all their houses

[Ian The Poet]

In some countries you have no choice.

[Nature's heartbeat]

In Sweden, there's the possibility of "blank" voting. This is an option for those not wishing to vote for the options presented on any of the ballot sheets, but who still want to demonstrate that they care, who then take a blank ballot sheet without the name of the party or candidate. However, if this sheet doesn't have the name of a party, it will be counted as an invalid vote. So even if people may care, in reality, their votes are treated as if they don't, as invalid votes.

[Antipodi]

One of the problems with a non mandatory voting system is the fact that all the fringe area nutters then put their own candidates in power (like seems to be happening) and ensure that their people vote and vola we have a senator not for all the people but for this nutter fringe group because they lobbied hard and voted hard...so you get the right wing christians party guy ruling the country telling you not only how to live your life but mandating unreasonable censorship laws and values on those who dont want or need them ...no my friend if you have an interest in your country and want the freedoms you feel and deserve you MUST vote each vote may not count as one but a whole block of votes can be powerful especially when it comes from the real silent majority..

[k2hsharpe]

i'm with Antipodi (a fellow antipodean) on this one.
Mandataory voting is at times a pain in the arse
but i believe a necessary and even desirable
pain in the arse.

I have on a couple of occasions scrawled in large with texta "a pox on both your houses". An invalid and wasted vote, but it allowed me to vent exactly how i felt. But such times have been rare in my voting life

[smorzando]

Voting is mandatory here. I think its a good thing but I'm not always a fan of it. For my seventeenth birthday I got a card in the mail from the electoral commissioner saying 'happy 17th birthday! open your card for a present that you'll use for the rest of your life!' it was a form to enrol to vote because here you can enrol when you're 17 so that by the next election you're able to vote. i still havent filled it out and it's been months since my birthday. every seventeen year old here gets one. =.=

it's a pain in the butt but i think we need it. otherwise it just aint a democracy -- a government for the people by the people. it'd just be a government for the people by a select few people.

smorz.

[Gardenhead]

it'd just be a government for the people by a select few people.


Surely only insofar as they select themselves?

It could be easily argued that forcing people to vote isn't a mark of true democracy, as freedom is an ideal clung onto by the system. I certainly think that people should vote, but I'm uncomfortable with telling them that they have to. Persuading people is one thing, ordering them is another thing entirely.

[Mr. Blocks]

I'm with Gardenhead.

Telling people they have no choice in weather or not they vote, is ridiculous. I enjoy the privilege of choice, I don't need to be told to do something if I don't feel I want to.

If people want to vote, good for them, if they don't, so be it. It may not be ideal, but forcing people into it isn't exactly ideal either.

[Ian The Poet]

I'm with Gardenhead.

Telling people they have no choice in weather or not they vote, is ridiculous. I enjoy the privilege of choice, I don't need to be told to do something if I don't feel I want to.

If people want to vote, good for them, if they don't, so be it. It may not be ideal, but forcing people into it isn't exactly ideal either.

As I say quite often when challenged APATHY kills your choice as well.:)

[Mr. Blocks]

I know a few apathetic people when it comes to voting. And almost everything in life, I could find someone who is apathetic towards it.

Still, I don't force people to watch football if they are not interested in it.

[Gardenhead]

Apathy is not an excuse to force people into action. Apathy does not kill your choice, your choice is to be apathetic - whether it's the right choice or not is another matter entirely.

[smorzando]

*shrugs*

each is to their own on this topic. just the idea of not having to vote sounds, well, foreign to me. i guess it's from growing up somewhere where you don't get a choice, and it isn't going to change any time too soon because the law's just too tiresome and complicating.

smorz.