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Should Voting in General/Local Elections be Compulsory?


Should Voting in General/Local Elections be Compulsory  

56 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Voting in General/Local Elections be Compulsory

    • Yes
      29
    • No
      24
    • Just show me the results
      3


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:hihi: you lot make me laugh sometimes. OK, so its not democratic to force people to vote, however is relying on an increasingly smaller number of people to decide the leading party democratic? instead of having the whole nations opinion.

 

The reason we all have different opinions is that democracy is whats known as a 'contested concept' - that is, we can't pin down exactly what it means because it depends on the way you see the world. Some may think that democracy is everyone having equal participation, others may think that it means us electing folk to think for us.

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The idea sounds good, but the people who don't vote often know very little about politics and probably wouldn't show any interest if they were forced to vote. This could mean ending up with anybody running the country, for reasons like its the only one I had heard of or their name sounded nice.:) You know what I mean.

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The idea sounds good, but the people who don't vote often know very little about politics and probably wouldn't show any interest if they were forced to vote. This could mean ending up with anybody running the country, for reasons like its the only one I had heard of or their name sounded nice.:) You know what I mean.

 

perhaps if voting was compolsory, people would be better politically educated. maybe the phrase "well you're gonna have to vote so you will need to know this stuff" could be used more

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I'd like to see compulsory voting, and at the same time get rid of first past the post, and introduce proportional representation.

A non of the above option would be a good idea, and if it wins then I think the election should be reheld.

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I think people who want to vote should have to demonstrate that they've spent some time learning about the policies of all the parties. Maybe log in to a website and watch a broadcast by each party. Then at least folks won't just be voting on what they read in the Sun. (And yes, I know this would complicate things and probably wouldn't work in practice.)

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Yes, I think it should be. With a Abstention option on the ballot paper, and also PR as suggested by Cyclone.

 

Look at the US where turnout is even lower than here. You see Bush voted for by only 25% of the population, and he wins. We shouldn't want our elections to be dominated by people with extreme views who always vote as a result of those extreme views.

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A non of the above option would be a good idea, and if it wins then I think the election should be reheld.

 

'None of the above' is a really good idea. I heard from someone over there that in the US should 'none of the above' ever win an election, then all the other candidates are barred for life from public office. I heard that 'none of the above' came second in Pittsburgh.

Nuf said.

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