Sorry if this is the wrong place for this, It seemed pretty specific but I also understand if this is more a news sub.
Now for the topic at hand, I’m personally not a fan. I think it’s a sticking plaster over the top of some significant shortcomings in education and disenfranchisement that fails to get people engaged in politics in a meaningful way.
The end game shouldn’t be getting a load of ignorant voters to ignorantly cast a vote; it should be to have an informed, educated and interested electorate going out to perform their civic duty in a way that brings everyone into the process, old, young, rich and poor.
I’d much rather see a focus on teaching our young people how our system works, why it’s important and how and why we have a duty as individuals to turn up to vote, hold our elected officials accountable and become a part of the democratic process.
What about you?
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Only if there’s an option to vote for none of the candidates or abstain.
Yes, and if none of the above wins, it should trigger another election, and another until candidates are fielded that can actually win the popular vote (50% +1 of the constituency). None of this “the winner only has 37% support” nonsense that we get at the moment.
Hard yes, even with a small fine for failing to vote (£50-100) - With the caveat that spoiling the ballot/voting none of the above is also an accepted admission.
We need to start taking steps to reverse political apathy asap, this can be one of many.
Getting a stick out doesn’t fix apathy. It just gives you people going through the motions just so they don’t get hit with a stick.
What about positive reinforcement? Maybe a tax credit instead a fine.
That’s benefiting people with higher income more than people with lower income. I don’t think that’s fair
I figured it would be more fair than a fine.
A fine would also be unfair in mostly the same way. A flat payment would be best
If a fine is the way you want to go, an income based fine would be more fair, wouldn’t it? Otherwise it would succumb to the same problems as other fines that punish poorer people while the rich barely feel it. Though granted, I’m sure the rich already vote with their money.
I meant a flat payment towards the people voting. That would benefit people with lower income more than people with a higher income while still being positive reinforcement
Horrible idea.
The right to vote is also the right not to vote. Besides, a lower turnout with a more engaged electorate is preferable to forcing everyone to turn up and either picking something at random or not picking anything at all, which renders forcing them to turn up a complete waste of time anyway.
Only if they give me sausage, like Australia 🇦🇺.
Anyhoo, your argument seems to rely on the idea that voluntary voters are some how more skilled at choosing a candidate than mandated voters, which I think is silly.
A lot of people forgetting in this thread you can choose to invalidate your ballot, even with mandatory voting, as a kind of ‘none of the above’
We have it in Australia, but also have ranked preferential voting and stuff. Some people don’t vote and cop the $40 fine (which is easy enough to get out of), some people send in empty ballots. Pretty much every primary school becomes a ballot centre for a day, as well as many churches and community centres, so it’s not particularly omerous.
It probably improves state legitimacy if elections have a 95% turnout rate and is very cheap to implement without really changing the structure of parliament or the political class.
If you want those sorts of numbers without compulsory voting, you have to make voting easy to do, with accessible politicians from the local community, and feel like your choice in candidate is significant and impactful.
(Also, it’s compulsory presence at a ballot centre, the votes are sealed and anonymous)
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It works here in Australia… Because it also means employers can’t screw you over and block you from voting, since its compulsary
It’s tough.
Mandatory voting encourages young people to vote, who are far more likely to vote progressively, so it works in favour of my preference.
However, I don’t think it’s right to force people to have an opinion about something, of which they know nothing about.
However, I don’t think it’s right to force people to have an opinion about something, of which they know nothing about.
Which is why referendums are not great.
Although politicians make laws on things about which they know nothing, so there’s that…
Although politicians make laws on things about which they know nothing, so there’s that…
I really wish there was a better way. I’ve thought about the idea of discarding representatives entirely.
Imagine if people didn’t need to vote for people who were going to make choices for us, and we got to choose the outcomes of each point of tension.
Example: if 60% of the population voted to end solitary confinement, then it gets passed immediately.
This wouldn’t need to be done at a particular time either - we could submit our opinions via a government website, and update them at our convenience.
Of course people will say that voting via internet isn’t secure, and it could be hacked, but I think utilising a block chain might actually prove useful for the first time ever.
I’m sure there are flaws with this idea, but there are flaws with the way things are now.
Ok, internet voting is not secure, so let’s ignore that part for now. (There’s an XKCD that deals with it flippantly and a Tom Scott video that goes into a bit more detail, but with things as they are, electronic voting simply cannot be trusted)
That being said. The simplistic reduction to the general idea is that people are too dumb to know what they’re voting for, but, as with reality, it’s a little bit more complicated than that.
There are far too many issues for people to be able to make informed decisions about everything. That’s one of the reasons we have elected officials in the first place.
Let’s take your example - should we end solitary confinement?
Personally, I don’t know what you have to do to end up in there. Do you shank a guy in the shower? Mouth off at a guard? Don’t know.
Then there’s the efficacy of it. Does it increase the chances that the person put there will get rehabilitated? Dos it increase the chances for everyone else in the prison while that person is not around? Don’t know that either.
Is it ethical? Surprise, I’m not even sure about that.
So should we end it? I’ve no idea.
And that’s something reasonably simple. What about the tricky questions, like the death penalty (I’m against that) or euthanasia (for, but not just in a “let’s off granny before the care home eats all our inheritance” way…)?
No, I like your thinking, but I don’t trust the general population (including myself in that, I have no illusions I’m smarter or more ethical than the average bear) enough for it. Knee-jerk policies after high profile events would lead to bad outcomes, I think.
There are a lot of issues which people know nothing about, sure, but it would be nice to let people ignore issues they aren’t familiar enough.
Though, if you were to present the question, it would be pertinent to let both sides weigh in. It would be good if people were presented both sides of the argument before voting on an issue and required a basic test to confirm they understand each sides point.
Though my example for solitary confinement would be maybe too broad, perhaps there are possibilities for voting with gradations? Similar to how we can vote for someone who is somewhere in the middle of an issue.
I’m an advocate for ending solitary confinement - completely, for any crime. The statistics show that it doesn’t deter violence, and breaks minds in a way where recovery is impossible for some.
No.
Votes from people who don’t care would water down votes from people who do.
Getting people engaged would definitely be a good thing (I wrote the previous paragraph before reading the post) but I don’t think people should be forced into it.
I totally agree with your thinking. The focus needs to be on education and reversing disenfranchisement.
I believe a lot of apathy comes from a society continually moving towards penalties and punishment for “undesired” behaviour. It all just leads to a mindset of “Why should I bother? I’ll have to deal with the fallout regardless”.
Compulsory voting would just be another negative on top of a whole bunch of others.
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I’d go the other way, and stick a carrot on voting.
The 2015 election cost £114m, why not spend a little more, and give everyone a free sausage roll when they vote?Yes, even if its a blank vote - it is our duty as citizens and necessary for a functioning democracy.
Even prisoners should have to vote! This is to invalidate the strategy of jailing your political opponents.
Ideally it would be paired with decent education and a free press to keep the populace well informed.
IMO voting should be:
- mandatory
- by mail
- ranked choice system (or approval voting, or whatever system is supposedly the best - I haven’t kept up-to-date on that aspect)
- empty ballot is valid, just sign it (or whatever)
While we’re at it, abolish the electoral college and enforce mathematically defined districts (end gerrymandering). And publicly funded elections - with PACs, etc banned of course.
I agree with your point about education and communication, but I’d counter that plenty of informed/educated voters assuming an foregone result has caused some unpopular outcomes in the part; a voter who would be otherwise be disenfranchised enough to not bother might as well vote for what they want if they’re going to be voting anyway. Having thought about this a bit in the past I’d like to see all of these changes made to the process:
- As mentioned, mandatory voting with a fine for nonattendance calculated as a proportion of income.
- Postal voting by default. Your polling cars is also postal voting card and can be returned up to four weeks before election day.
- In addition to the right to leave the polling card blank or spoil it, specific options for formal protest options along the lines of “No vote due to inadequate candidates” and “No vote due to lack of faith in the electorate system.”
- Constituencies three or four times bigger than they are at the moment, since people are more travelled and communities are more spread than they were in the past, leading onto:
- Single Transferrable Votes with the number of representatives returned calculated based on the population of the constituency; currently the biggest and smallest have populations of 113,000 and 21,000, but both have equal representation.
