Addendum: the British National Party has doubled its number of Councillors. The biggest gains were in Barking and Dagenham, where it seized 11 of the 13 seats it contested, becoming the second party. One ward has still to declare. The BNP also won seats in Epping Forest, Stoke-on-Trent and Sandwell. The party fielded more than 350 candidates and now has 46 seats in England. Before Thursday's local elections it held about 20. If you don't vote, somebody will. And you may not like who they end up voting for.
Yes people have died for democracy, this gives us the right to vote. it also gives us the right to abstain from voting. I'd agree that those who pay no interest in politics are doing themselves and the country no good. but people can and should be allowed to abstain from voting for people who they do not agree with. Personally I want a "non of the above box" included on my slip. Currently if I abstain it is not counted and classed as apathy. If I vote and spoil the ballet, its classed as incompetence. We also do not have a democracy we have a semi democratic representational society. we do not vote on policies we vote people in to vote on policies for us, and in this system i have yet to find a candidate who is a match to my beliefs. I could also point out that if you look at issues being debated in the houses and at how many of the MP's vote on all the issues its a disgrace unless a three line whip is in place. Your demanding that the entire population should vote in people to represent them when these MP's wont vote on the issues themselves and yes I feel strongly about it as well
I disagree, I think it should be illegal not to vote, there should be a public holiday on general election voting days, and there should be a steadily increasing fine for every year someone doesn't vote(starting at £100, maybe an increase of £50 every time). I'm not saying people should have to vote for someone, sure, go along, spoil your vote, fair enough. That says "I do care, I just don't like anyone". But not going just says "I don't care, and I'm too lazy to even not pick someone". Spoiled votes may be classed officially as incomplete, but everyone knows what they mean, and thats the important thing.
Hey. I'm underage at the moment and can't vote, but when i reach 16 or 18 i will vote. I certainly don't want extrmeist parties like the BNP coming into power, as i'll get kicked out of this country. Don't believe the BNP are racist?............ google them. I agree with whisperwolf, but i think it's important that you vote so that the patries you don't want don't come into power. Labour lost so many seats...terrible Also just generally all the parties core pricipples maybe diffrent, but now they all promote pretty much the same things, and so youngsters just don't bother.
In the same way that Labour isn't a pro-smoking party(even though some of their members smoke), the BNP isn't a racist party. I did actually have cause to look through their party manifesto a few years ago, and I couldn't find anything racist. I know they're not nice people, and I know most of them are assuredly racist, and that the founder was a right tosser, but the party, as far as I read back then, isn't.
A manifesto won't account for anything. It just gives outline. You're quite right that the party leader is indeed a to***er. I'm not basing my knowledge on articles or manifestos. Last year or two years ago, a very brave man, decided to expose the BNP for what they really are. He infiltrated the party, and gained theuir trust, he was very nrevous as you can imagine. So after this nervewracking documentry, we were shown images and videoclips of BNP mebers assaulting 'Pakis' and vehemently swearing at them. The documentray was amazing. It showed a party, behind it's farce of visualising a 'Greater Britain'. Their idea of a greater Britain is to purge it, get rid of immigrants. Now tell me you think the party isn't racist..... Also are you comparing anti-smoking, to racism? Smoking is an entirely differnt matter, as important and hypocritical as the member of the labour party are.....racism is an entirely different matter
I still say the party isn't racist. I was using the anti-smoking thing as an analogy. We don't say that the labour party is pro-smoking just because some of its members smoke, and I wouldn't say the the BNP are racist just because most of its members are. Saying that, I don't view a party as its members, I view it as a seperate entity, a collection of ideas and opinions, and the way the BNP sets those forth, while obviously coming from a xenophobic point of view, doesn't strike me as directly racist. I saw the documentary that you're talking about by the way.
Sums it all up really. The BNP is racist. Simple. The party will try and distance itself from that image, but it is still racist. They base nearly all their arguments for the problems in modern society on immigration, and most of the time aimed at non-white immigrants. It can cause problems yes, but is not the reason why a bunch of "hoodies", who are more than likely white in my experience smashing your windows or threatening you in the street. Immigration can be a good thing for a country, I genuinly believe that most people coming to live here want to have a better life, and by doing so will contribute to our society either culturally or economically. If their members gain power then they will enforce skin-colour based legislations and laws, because they are racists. If you don't vote against them then you might as well as voted for them, and the same for any other party.
Good that you do, and your points are all valid, but two posts earlier (#20) I explained why not voting at all will backfire on you.
What's gotten to me about these local elections is the lack of thought people have really put in to working out who they want running their local council. Being approximately a year since the last general election, many people are simply seeing this as an opportunity to submit a protest vote to the government. As the results prove, the considerable gains made by the Conservatives and slump in Labour's hold is an accurate reflection of the way the media and the public view the situation in the Commons- a far cry from the people who will be running our local councils. Sure, voting for candidated will be affected by their member party, but my suspicions tell me that very few people will have read the leaflets that come through their door laying out an election 'manifesto' and aren't too interested in what their particular candidates are promising. This is particularily abnormal when you consider the fact that the party system is less of an influence in local elections- with no part whip system or 'free votes' when needed, the government and executive are really not linked tightly to these local councillors at all except in basic policy. Maybe I'm being over-critical of the way the public has dealt with their criticisms of the current government, but it does make me suspect that if we didn't have crisis with the Labour cabinet pre-elections, the shape of the results would be noticably different. <A88> n.b. I did not read all the posts preceding this one and so have more than likely repeated what others have said
Postal vote, as already stated it's less hassle. Respect party - not sure if I should say I voted for them though.
"voided" my voting slip, they're all idiots down here in the south, made sure mother did the same for my proxy vote up in the midlands too
The only way to even come close to being able to force people to vote is to include an none of the above box. A few years ago I would have said this would never happen in this country as forcing people to vote would be a violation of civil liberties and human rights, these days however these rights seem to have gone out the window. I belive the compulsary voting and none of the above votes are operational in Australia, but am unsure if the NOTA vote gets counted and used or if they are ignored. I.e. if 50% voted NOTA would the election have to be re run as no-one secured a majority, or is it the next highest vote wins? None of the elections i've seen reported on over here have ever given the statistics of spoiled votes, or have i just not seen them.
According to my Australian friend, there is no NOTA option, but there is a way to void your vote called making a "donkey vote". In the Australian system you list the canidates by preference, so for example, if there are 5 canidates you would list who you prefer from 1 to 5 on the form. A donkey vote is when you just put 1-2-3-4-5 down the form and they throw it out.
On looking at a few documents on the austrialian electoral commission www.aec.gov.au it would appear that donkey votes and reverse donkey votes are counted as some people might indeed vote in that order, only ballets which contain only 1 number, an incomplete sequence of numbers filled in with ticks and crosses and blank ballets are not counted and seen as informal voting. as per usual these are not seen as abstaining but misunderstanding of how to vote.
I'm sorry but which ones and how? People often bring up civil liberties and human rights whenever they think something should be against either civil liberties or human rights, but I havn't a clue why forced voting should be illegal. Heck, they do it in Austrailia. I find the idea that that would happen pretty unlikely. But even if it did, the simple solution would be to give the person or party who won the most votes/seats the majority and rule. Regardless, the idea behind compulsory voting is that you force people to make an actual choice, the worst it can do is hurry our society onwards towards direct democracy, where-as right now with a huge number of our population either not bothering to vote or not legally allowed to vote(if a 16 yr old pays taxes they get the vote, no vote should mean no taxes) we're just going round and around in this partially apathetic punishment cycle where every 4 years those of the country who care get the least hated bunch of egits into office.
To a certain point I agree with you, speck, but there is a dark side to that arguement. To wit, you can make a person vote, but you can't make them think or give a damn. I'm not sure that the best answer is to take a bunch of people who couldn't care less who wins the election and make them vote in itAfter all, not voting is a vote for whoever wins. If people want to voluntarily disenfranchise themselves, I don't have a problem with letting them.
hrrm just like what whisper said thats not actualley a donkey vote a donkey vote would be for local\state lower house\fed lower house a vote that did not put a number in every box that wasnt repeated as in 1,2,3,4,5 down the page in a 5 candiate election <-- legit vote 1,2,2,3,4 / (a tick) /scribbles over the page <-- donkey vote for the upper houses (senate in all states\ and the act iirc bar qld and the nt who dont have an upper house) you have a 2 line system you number 1 square above the line or at least 10 below it (or all if there are less then 10) the square above the line means that your vote will be distributed according to that members noted preferences below means that your preferences are counted that way in .au we also have the election on a public holiday and all employers if you are working on that day must provide some method of allowing you to vote failing to vote is a au$100 fine the polling stations go everywhere remote areas vote early via remote polling booths 2 4wd with crew in them going out to communities to run polling stations for a day some times up to 2 weeks before the election date (good money earner as a second job pitty the tax rates sucks for it) polling stations really do go everywhere they run them in prisons in hospitals on our naval ships at consulates and embassies world wide the main reason i see in making it compulsory to vote means that those who wish not to partake can choose not to (donkey vote is one way blank sheets are another) and noone can restrict those who wish to vote local elections are in some states not compulsory though they are here (alice springs nt) just a question for atanum141 how hot is it over there atm any more questions about the federal election system or the nt ones i can help with as i normally work for the aec\ntec when the elections are called
So you don't see a problem with forcing people to pick someone/policies they dont agree with? would you also like to force them who to vote for? If you took the simple solution of giving the person who won the most votes when over 50% of the voters said non of them you would be making a mockery of democracy. More so than already happens. I mean look at it "hmmmm these 10k people said they didnt like anybody and didnt want any of them to rule. Ah stuff it lets just say they voted for bob who got 3000 votes shall we." If we are going to have a democracy lets have a democracy. We should be voting for policies not people or parties. we should be allowed to abstain if the policy is one we have no opinion on. and if someone At 16 can be earning money, married and be in the army they should be allowed to vote where there taxes go and who controls the army.
