If they want to get rid of the incumbents then they can.........vote. It worked four years ago and there's no reason why it won't happen at the next one. The labour party are fairly sure they can win a majority with 35% of the vote and hey presto you get change.
My comment was in reference to RedFlames saying he didn't bother voting because there was no chance of removing the MP as his constituency was a strong hold.
Stand yourself? Encourage someone who you is better to stand? I'd be surprised if many people have looked into the policies of all the independents and still think they're all similar. If you're arguing that there's no difference between Labour, Tory and Lib Dem candidates, then no, there probably isn't, but that's not the point.
I don't like to encourge them by voting they're all a bunch of liars and crooks. How many people who voted Conservative are now homeless cause of welfare reforms they say one thing to get into power and then do another. It's the other parties job to disagree with everything the party in power says so that they can get into power and do the same. Them stealing tax payers money was brushed under the carpet pretty quick and the focus was put on the unemployed which is a tiny part of what the tax payers money gets spent on.
And the likelihood that voting for a fringe party/candidate will effect any change is next to zero, isn't that why so many people don't bother voting, or vote for a party like UKIP. If the 35% of people that didn't vote in the last general election decided that instead of showing their disdain for the current parties/candidates by not voting, and instead they decided to vote for UKIP because they are different, where would we be now ? We are already seeing similar things in other parts of Europe where there is greater support for far right parties. Is that because people actually support the far right, or is it because they are not happy with the current politicians. If those people instead spoiled their votes, knowing that by voting for none of the above it maybe possible to effect some changes, would they be less likely to vote for extremist, single policy parties ? What would happen if more than 50% of the voting population said none of the above, would politicians just carry on as normal ? AFAIK they wouldn't have a mandate to govern, because more than half the population have just said said they don't want any politicians, or at least the ones put up for elections.
I vote in every election, even the primaries, but I also know it's pretty pointless. Politics in this country are driven more by demographics than issues and while an energizing personality can occasionally make a difference, relatively little if going to change from year to year. I also know that my own views are far enough outside of the mainstream that if I voice them loudly or tried to run as a candidate I would end up hurting my cause rather than helping it. Certainly in the US, and I suspect in the Uk as well, democracy is working reasonably well. We have a dysfunctional population electing dysfunctional leaders to fix vague problems without actually changing anything.
UKIP were a fringe party. They were only formed twenty years ago. It won't effect immediate change, but it's still a valid approach.
UKIP still are a fringe party (IMHO) as they don't have a single seat in parliament. But that doesn't answer what would happen if 51% voted none of the above, and if that lack of knowing what would happen in such a situation causes people to vote for far right, far left, single policy, extremist or other potentially harmful political figures.
That's actually a brilliant way of describing the problem we face today. I suspect compulsory voting won't change anything in the long run because instead of not voting because they don't care, people will vote blindly because they don't really care. They'll pick the name that sounds best, the first name on the list, just tick the 'straight ticket' box, or do whatever else is needed to get back to the NFL draft as soon as possible. I don't cast a vote in every election, but when I do, I rarely complete a full ballot. If there is a race I know nothing about, I don't cast a vote because it would uninformed.
I suspect that even if a supermajority of the populace voted "none of the above" the incumbents would remain in office because, well, someone has to do the job. While an office might be technically vacant, there has to be someone doing the jobs of that office in order for government, and hence society, to function. As for rising support for fringe / extremist leaders, that's what happens when people feel comfortable with the ststus quo and that it's not going to change. If they feel that an election is going to be close and that their vote might make a difference in the outcome, then they will vote for the mainstream candidate who most closely reflects their viewpoint. Of course, most closely is a relative thing and the difference between two choices may well be which is the less bad one. When the outcome of the election is considered known, then people are more likely to vote for parties who actually come closer to their views even when they know those parties have no chance of winning. Let me throw out an analogy here. Imagine a ruler from 0 to 10 representing the political spectrum on an issue with 0 being extremely opposed and 10 being extremely supporting. We've got three candidates, Al, Bob, and Daryl who are running for office. Al is moderately opposed on this issue, say a 4.5 on our spectrum and Bob is Mildly supportive, say 5.5. Daryl is completely against, with a rating of zero, but everybody knows he's a bit off his rocker and not going to win anyway. Now, let's say your own position on this issue is 2, you're strongly opposed. It's clear that either Al or Bob is going to win the race and get elected and Daryl has no real chance. Who are you going to vote for? Clearly it's not going to be Bob, because his position is most dissimilar from your own. The The obvious choice would be to vote for Daryl, because his position is most similar to yours, even though you know he's not going to win. If you think Bob might win though, you'll probably vote for Al because though his position on the issue is very close to Bob's it's still slightly closer to your own. On the other hand, if it's clear that Al is going to win then you're more likely to vote for Daryl because even though he has no chance, you are at least supporting the candidate most aligned with you. Studies have shown that voters really do engage in this kind of strategic voting, changing their votes depending on the nature of the election.
There is some (ok a lot) of truth to that, but there is also a fundamental realization that many of the issues that really matter to people are not things which can be changed by whomever they elect to office. A government can really only do three things, collect money, spend money, and pass laws. Those three things may cover a lot of ground, but they are literally the only three levers a government has on the world around it and they all have limitations. One of the big issues in the US right now is the economy, and specifically jobs. Lots of people lost jobs during the recession and can't find new ones. Ok, let's look at those levers. A government can collect money form it's citizens, but that's probably not going to help much here. It can spend money, either directly in unemployment insurance or job training, or indirectly on infrastructure projects which will create some jobs, but the effect is small. Also, the money it spends has to some from somewhere, either debt or taxes. Finally it can pass laws which might prevent a future recession, but a government can't really do that much to actually create jobs. Another big issue is entitlement reform. Since the big social programs were put in place starting in the 1930s the government has collected taxes to fund them (the same basic narrative is true, with a few changes, for pensions). Unfortunately, rather than putting that money away for the future when they knew they were going to need it, previous governments spent some of it on various programs so they could do things without having to raise taxes. Problem is, now they need the money for it's intended purpose and it's not there. We can argue about who's to blame (which I'm surprised no one is doing), but the bottom line is that in order to meet our entitlement obligations we need to either raise taxes or else cut benefits. Keep in mind, these are two of the easy, or at least relatively uncomplicated, issues in American politics. The problem is that the American people have said, through the ballot box, that it's unacceptable to either raise taxes or reduce spending, and if you try to pass new laws we'll fight you every step of the way. The "Gridlock in Washington" is a direct result of the people electing representatives to change things and then demanding that they not make use of the tools of change. While hardly democracy at it's finest, it IS democracy in action.
But wouldn't that be undemocratic, as the majority voted to say they don't want or like the current political system. Wouldn't it be down to the politicians to propose an alternative way of carrying out the majority's wishes and/or wants. When a *similar* thing happened in the 2010 Belgian elections it took them almost a year to come to an agreement on how to govern, during that year there was no government and they eventually came to an agreement for institutional reform of the political system. And far from everything collapsing Belgium actually saw the economy decline by 0.3% in 2012 and stagnated in 2013. The budget deficit was reduced from 4.1 % in 2011 to 2.5 % in 2014, surely not a bad result given that this was during the Eurocrisis. *(people didn't vote for none of the above, just none of the 11 parties received more than the needed 20%) I would have thought they vote for fringe / extremist leaders because they are not happy with what the main parties are doing or proposing, so they make protests votes to send a message to the establishment. Speaking personally i would spoil my vote, in other words i would say none of the above, because none of them reflect my own world view. But policies are rarely as simple as having a sliding scale to judge them on, take the debate about if we should or shouldn't be an EU member. There are only 3 position's on the subject, stay in, get out, and the third way, to renegotiate and then offer a referendum to stay in or get out.
The problem is that 1) the populace generally can't agree on what it wants and 2) even when they can their elected representatives either can't provide it, or else can provide it only at an unacceptably high cost. The demands of the citizenry are often visceral, contradictory, and practically impossible. Case in point is a survey I read a while back (and will try to find) where they asked people about the national debt. A majority of people said the debt was a major problem and that government should do something about it, but when asked about specific measures to combat the debt the people opposed every single one of them. That history shows, in my mind anyway, just how little power a government has over the economy of the nation. There was doubtless some sort of caretaker government in place that made the day to day decisions needed to keep the country going, but deferred making any major policy changes. There are however sometimes costs to delaying decisions and so it's hard to say is the deficit reduction was real or if the gains may have gotten eaten up in deferred spending later. And that may be what people are doing by not voting. Certainly some of them are saying "Whoever, it doesn't matter to me" Getting back to your original point at the start of the thread, how would mandatory voting change the fact that the outcome isn't relevant to many, if not most, people? Perhaps they need to add two additional options, "None of the above" and "I don't give a f**k" That's true. Most issues are presented as black and white "either / or" choices. The problem is, we seldom vote for issues, but rather for candidates. I was using the scale analogy to represent how how many binary either / or issues the candidate agrees with you on, but still keep it to a single issue for simplicity. This is a big problem for me living in the US where I have to select from only two candidates for most offices. My choices are limited to the democrat who I agree with about 50% of the time, the Republican who I agree with about 20% of the time, or don't vote. There are no other options. It's a systemic limitation inherent in having only two parties.
Whilst I'm 100% sure the politicians locally [at all levels] couldn't lie straight in bed. I voted for the status quo [by not voting] because the candidate were all idiots who couldn't get laid in a brothel and in a couple of cases couldn't even string a sentence together... The Labour guy at least was a known quantity... I *knew* he was an idiot and i knew exactly what kind of idiot he was so in that regard, as much as I think the guy is a corrupt cockwomble who embodies everything wrong with politics, depressingly he was the best of a bad bunch. Ultimately though, none of them convinced me they were worthy of my vote and as such none of them got it...
Wouldn't someone who wanted to maintain the status quo vote for the current government. Where as someone who isn't happy with any of the candidates spoil their vote (none of the above).
Only if you can guarantee that there's a party to cater for absolutely all views/values/ideas/interests/ideology, which is an impossibility, so no, it isn't time for compulsory voting. No party particularly represents my ideas and points of view, so I can't vote for any of them
You can still vote even if you don't vote for anyone, they count spoiled votes (none of the above) If you don't vote they just think people are disinterested, can't be bothered, or come up with their own reasons.
Aside from the annoying issue of them coming up with their own reasons/conclusions on the matter, there's little practical difference between a non-vote and a spoiled vote - so I'm definitely not going to the trouble of a visit to a polling station just to spoil a vote
Nothing in my opinion - unless I'm very much mistaken it just informs the elected minority of an ever so slightly more proactive segment of the apathetic populace.
Indeed (sorry, I edited my post a little). I actually protest voted the first few times, but then realised it was probably a bit of a dangerous game
