Compulsory Voting

DapperGent

I was wondering how people felt on the issue of compulsory voting. I think it's law in certain countries (Australia for one I believe) to vote. If such a thing as the ability to say "none of the above" was also possible do you think it would be fair to force people to vote?
Democracy as a responsibility aswell as right type of thingy.

cornell babe

its another tricky one, isnt it? essentially its anti-democratic. but its so hard to get people out there to vote especially the young.
i think that voting should be made more readily available. i think people should be automatically registered. my brother for one was automatically put on the british electoral register when he started third level over there. however as an irish person living in ireland i find myself and others fighting for information to get registered in the first place not to mind postal votes, etc.

you have to ask what are the politicians afraid of? do they think is it of benefit to them to disenfranchise the young?
youth wings of political parties i think deserve credit for registering third level students on fresher weeks etc.

all we can do is get ou there and i ssupport ron or an equivalent being a choice on the ballot papers as well!!!

please vote for change
thank you

Biffa Bacon

No you shouldn't be forced to vote. The reason there is so much abstention is because the political parties are such a joke - pure and simple. It's demeaning to vote for them. The policies they come up with don't represent their actual beliefs or principles, they just propose whatever they think gives them the greatest chance of being elected.

If people don't want to vote, who cares?

DapperGent

But i think the point of compulsory voting is that you are required to register your opinion even if that opinion is no opinion at all. Or Re Open Nominations or none of the above or whatever. Ie that everyone has an obligation to give an input into the society they live in. I think that for governments compulsory voting would be even more scary than a stupid low turn out like we're going to have as perhaps there would be a large amount of negative voting. I believe apathy is as valid a choice as any other but I think that you should have to register your apathy- this would give a true accout of a nations stance in any particuler referendum/election.

johnKarma

i have to agree with you there: if there ever was compulsory voting, i would hope that there would be an option to spoil your vote or to tick "none of the above".

That's one of the problems with the current electronic voting system that will be tried out in a few constituencies in the general election: all you can do at the polling station is list your preferences, there is no way of registering your dissent.

although i suppose you could "spoil" the computer, but that would be going a bit too far

EmilianoZapata

No you shouldn't be forced to vote. The reason there is so much abstention is because the political parties are such a joke - pure and simple. It's demeaning to vote for them. The policies they come up with don't represent their actual beliefs or principles, they just propose whatever they think gives them the greatest chance of being elected.

If people don't want to vote, who cares?

Agreed


And as for it being hard to get young people both interested in politics and vote, you just have to look at An Gardai Siochana. A group of young people, interested in politics go out and use their democratic right to protest and get beaten with batons for their 'cheek' of actually acting out against the politics policies of this country.