Michaelson

Apathetic voters who vote randomly just for the sake of it. Many people in a preferential system will vote 1, 2, 3, 4... from the top of the ballot to the bottom. Obviously, though, their vote has to be counted still.

Which is why it beats me they don't put an abstain option, or at least promote the idea of handing in blank ballots.

Per

I just don't get this . How can people not know that? Wouldn't everybody be able to reason:
My ballot is anonymous. -> That means noone can 'punish' me for doing whatever I choose to do with it. -> Therefore I can hand in a blank ballot.

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But I also think in any good look at the issue the type of voting system will come into play. I had a good think about this a while ago when I was arguinng a few guys on a news group. One person telling me I was a fascist for suggesting the idea, and a few other people telling me I was just stupid. Anyway, they were all American, and I wondered why there would be so much objection to the idea from Americans in particular, and the obvious response is that it's infringing on the personal rights of the citizen by making them vote. I was repeatedly told that I was reducing the right to vote to a duty. However, I think another reason that (in the past) any American I've brought it up with has found it such a hard concept to grasp, is because it's first past the post in the US, right? The concept of being made to vote, or made to turn up to abstain, has completely different connotations if there's only the option to vote for one candidate. Under a preferential system you're asked to give a list of how you'd prefer the candidates to be elected, under most other systems you're asked to nominate the person you believe should be president or congressman or whatever. It's a different process psychologically, IMHO.

Yeah, I agree, the voting system is extremely important to turnout. And that is one of the things I suggest to raise turnout, getting rid of e.g. first past the post systems and replace them with proportional representation voting systems, so that everybody feels that their vote count and isn't wasted. My problem with preferential voting is the flip-flops one sometimes has to make, i.e. the 'How to vote' ads from the parties, in order to vote in support of one's party. Why not just have proportinal representation. Seems much simpler to me...

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That said, I still think compulsory voting with an abstain option would suit most systems.

I just don't think that solves the underlying problem of people not wanting to vote.

Ensign Steve

There's your problem right there. I don't mean any offense or to make light of all your other good points, but I am dead serious. If everybody was able to reason there would be a whole lot fewer problems in this world than just this one! JMHO!

Jen

excreationist

I've answered that already... but anyway... it is just a vote that doesn't count because it is invalid. e.g. if you are meant to number the boxes on the ballot paper from 1 to 5 and two of them are numbered 1, then it is invalid and doesn't count at all. If someone ticked all the boxes - or numbered only 1 of the boxes, it doesn't count at all. If they wrote a slogan on the ballot paper but numbered the boxes ok then that is ok.

Michaelson

Though I'm not positive, I'm pretty sure you're mistaken there. That's an invalid vote. A donkey vote is a valid vote with no thought put in to the choices.

Michaelson

Per:

People have trouble with ballots. My mum counts votes occasionally, and she's continually bamboolzled stupidity illustrated by certain people's attempts at voting.

I think donkey votes have become part of electoral culture in Australia. If you don't want to vote, you fill out a donkey vote is the mindset most people have. In fact I think a few years ago they changed the legislation regarding the layout of ballots so that the list was randomly generated, rather than listing the candidates in alphabetical order, so that the results were less skewed.

I guess there's a vested interest in the government acting as though to vote illegitimately isn't a real option. If the government was argue for an abstain option on the ballots, or run a campaign advocating blank votes as opposed to donkey votes, then people would start to ask "why compulsory voting at all, then?"

Especially given that the concepts appear to be mutually exclusive.

Well, proportional representation systems can have drawbacks, because you will generally end up with coalition governments which can for obvious reasons run into trouble. The system in Australia, which I'm a huge fan of, is preferential voting in the lower house, where government is formed (i.e. the party with a majority of lower house seats takes government, and the Prime Minister is selected from amongst those ranks), and the upper house is elected with proportional representation, each state allocated 12 senators. So there's a two-part lower house system in order to form an effective government, and a proportionally elected upper house in order to keep a check on the government's actions.

Melkor

You just described the process by which about 50% of American voters vote.

I think another 40% just vote for whomever looks best on TV.

Then you have the remaining 10% who actually put some thought into it and know the candidates' voting records, positions on the issues, and honestly are trying to better the country.

I say we get rid of the ability for those outside of the last 10% to vote entirely.

Per

Would it not be preferable to reform the systems of, say, education and election campaigns instead of abolishing domecracy?

One thing that can be done for example to decrease the 'he has nicer hair' signifigance is forbidding political tv commercials.

Feather

But then you start getting into all sorts of free speech issues.

Melkor

Feh. People already have educational requirements in order to graduate from high school. I know lots of people that came out of that with pretty good knowledge levels about things political, civic, and historical. In spite of that, most people dump what they were required to learn as soon as they are no longer required to know it. I'm advocating changing the system to make that required again if they want to vote. I don't think that's really that much to ask. Voting is wielding power.

You have to have a drivers license if you want to drive around a 3,000 pound hunk of metal, because you have the potential to harm a number of people if you're out there wielding that power irresponsibly or ignorant of how it works.

Voting arguably has the potential to harm or in the least adversely affect MANY MORE people, yet the only requirement is chronological. You can be a raving idiot (and most voters are) and you can have an immediate ability to drag everyone else in the country down to your level the second the clock turns over on your 18th birthday. There is something wrong with that.

Some simply can't be bothered to take more than a passing interest, and never bother to look past sensationalism to see the issues any deeper than how Dan Rather presents it, or how they are told to see them.

And those people simply shouldn't vote. They have no idea what they're even voting on, no idea who they're electing again and again, and yet they feel they have the right to bitch when things go to hell.

In my opinion, if you helped elect the current administration and things are sucking, then you DON'T have the right to bitch. You put them there, you shut up and live with it.

As far as banning political ads, never. Slippery slope, that. As far as I'm concerned, the only people political ads truly work on are those that shouldn't be voting anyway. Most people who have taken the time -- even a minimal amount of time -- to research the issues and the candidates won't be swayed by political ads, because they will already have made an informed opinion on such things, and are going to vote the way they feel is right for them.