How Do We Get The Younger Generation Interested In Voting?

[Cyclone]

Parties of all colours seem to target the so called 'grey vote' purely down to the fact that generation do vote. The problem with this is when that generation passes on and the next generation either rarely vote or don't vote at all the political system will face a crisis so how can we get the younger generation engaged in politics and voting?

 

That's not how it works.

The young have always had lower voting turnouts, as they age they become more likely to vote, so there is no crisis in the wings.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 09:59 ----------

 

Why should the young bother to vote if they don't want to? Perhaps they have a perfectly clear view of our political elite and don't like what they see?

 

The bottom line is that the percentage of people voting is dropping, and politicians don't like that. They like to pretend that we are an engaged participative democracy.

 

We aren't. The falling percentage of people voting is a perfectly accurate reflection of how the public see the politicians.

 

Why participate in this farce of a democracy, why give it any validity by voting?

 

This is cop-out nonsense.

Stand as an independent, do something about it. If all the people that don't vote, voted for independents, then there would be no existing political party that got a single seat.

It IS a democracy and when you don't vote you give up the right to complain about how it's run and what decisions are made.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:07 ----------

 

Someone tell me why a young person should vote here in S6? It has been a Labour seat for 80 years.

 

Safe labour seat as you say, about 80% labour votes right.

 

56% turnout. That means 44% of votes not cast.

 

If that 44% voted against labour it wouldn't be a safe seat at all.

Presumably as a 'safe' seat, it's voters against labour who don't bother in the largest numbers, because they've convinced themselves that it doesn't matter.

 

In fact, in the last by election the turnout was only 33%. The idea that the remaining 67% couldn't make a difference is quite clearly nonsense.

Rather embarrassingly UKIP were the second highest vote.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:08 ----------

 

Make it a legal requirement like Australia.

 

Only if you add a "none of the above" option which forces all candidates to stand down and be replaced if it wins.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:16 ----------

 

If the price of houses dropped "through the floor" who would build them? If there's no profit to be made then none would get built..

 

If the value of houses dropped, then the cost of building them would also fall.

 

You don't actually believe that the cost of building a house has tripled since 2000 do you? The cost of the land went up, but everything else, bricks, wood, mortar, kitchens, bathrooms, labour, they've gone up in line with inflation, which is what, 54%.

 

For reference that would make my first house now worth about £80k, instead of the zoopla valuation of 130k. (And Walkley didn't have one of the higher rates of house price inflation).

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:17 ----------

 

It'd probably go on forever though...you'd have to assume the first lot are the best lot wouldn't you?

 

No, it would encourage independents to stand on the 2nd or 3rd round, when they realised that the usual suspects weren't going to get it.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:21 ----------

 

The Labour party would give the vote to 16 year olds ..... why ?

 

Because they have the right to go out to work, to join the army and die for their country, to smoke and to get married and start a family.

There is no good reason why we have two different ages of majority, 16 and 18. We should settle on one age for everything.

[Guest]

Agree with PR but I can't see us ever getting it, unfortunately. Dead against 16 yar olds getting the vote though.

 

If young people don't want to vote I don't think that they should be stigmatised for it. If they don't like the choice on offer then it's their right to step away.

 

PR would probably lead to perpetual broad coalitions that will never agree with one another on all sorts of policy issues. Recipe for disaster.

[Anna B]

PR would probably lead to perpetual broad coalitions that will never agree with one another on all sorts of policy issues. Recipe for disaster.

 

I don't think a coalition is necessarily a bad idea. It works in other countries.

 

Yes it would mean interested parties would have to fight their corner to win a point but is that not useful? I watch the TV house of commons debates sometimes and the attendance is woeful, often only a handful of people out of 600+

 

It strikes me that opposition be it Labour or Conservative or anyone else rarely gets a look in. They neither discuss, decide or even influence anything. The government of the day is surrounded by 'yes'men and don't get a balanced view of things. Which is why our Governments seems so out of touch with popular opinion and make so many bad decisions.

[Hairyloon]

A less crooked party to vote for would be a good start.

 

Well, you know what they say about wanting a job done properly...

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 23:39 ----------

 

I think the current system is not fit for purpose. It was designed for toffs and still has the most ridiculous myriad of anachronisms and traditions that we could well do without if we want a parliament for the 21st Century. I'm embarrassed when I compare it to other countries. Is it a tourist attraction or a place of work?

 

If it were up to me, I would move the business of parliament to something akin to an internet chatroom, and keep the current house on as a reality TV show.

 

Surely the way to engage young voters is to give it the whole system a radical overhaul it so desperately needs, with new, more efficient ways of doing things, and let them have a say in the design of that. I'd start with a competition to come up with new ways of doing things and a new building to do them in.

 

Yeah, good luck with that. How do you suggest we persuade the current plutocrats to hand over the reigns?

 

Short of holding a revolution (which as I have said elsewhere need not be a violent one), the only way forward that I see is to set up a party which operates through effective engagement with the public by use of modern technological systems, and get that party elected.

I have not yet found any party that makes anything approaching a half decent attempt.

 

As it happens, there was a conference scheduled for tomorrow at the House of Commons entitled "Democracy in the Digital Age", but it has been postponed because of the election.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Hairyloon

[crookedspire]

That's not how it works.

The young have always had lower voting turnouts, as they age they become more likely to vote, so there is no crisis in the wings.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 09:59 ----------

 

 

This is cop-out nonsense.

Stand as an independent, do something about it. If all the people that don't vote, voted for independents, then there would be no existing political party that got a single seat.

It IS a democracy and when you don't vote you give up the right to complain about how it's run and what decisions are made.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:07 ----------

 

 

Safe labour seat as you say, about 80% labour votes right.

 

56% turnout. That means 44% of votes not cast.

 

If that 44% voted against labour it wouldn't be a safe seat at all.

Presumably as a 'safe' seat, it's voters against labour who don't bother in the largest numbers, because they've convinced themselves that it doesn't matter.

 

In fact, in the last by election the turnout was only 33%. The idea that the remaining 67% couldn't make a difference is quite clearly nonsense.

Rather embarrassingly UKIP were the second highest vote.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:08 ----------

 

 

Only if you add a "none of the above" option which forces all candidates to stand down and be replaced if it wins.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:16 ----------

 

 

If the value of houses dropped, then the cost of building them would also fall.

 

You don't actually believe that the cost of building a house has tripled since 2000 do you? The cost of the land went up, but everything else, bricks, wood, mortar, kitchens, bathrooms, labour, they've gone up in line with inflation, which is what, 54%.

 

For reference that would make my first house now worth about £80k, instead of the zoopla valuation of 130k. (And Walkley didn't have one of the higher rates of house price inflation).

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:17 ----------

 

 

No, it would encourage independents to stand on the 2nd or 3rd round, when they realised that the usual suspects weren't going to get it.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 10:21 ----------

 

 

Because they have the right to go out to work, to join the army and die for their country, to smoke and to get married and start a family.

There is no good reason why we have two different ages of majority, 16 and 18. We should settle on one age for everything.

 

This election is very different from the past ones young people need to be aware what's a at stake it's them who will have to live with the policies that are made by the next government.

[Cyclone]

PR would probably lead to perpetual broad coalitions that will never agree with one another on all sorts of policy issues. Recipe for disaster.

 

A recipe for the majority of constituents being fairly represented. Policy made by having to hammer out an agreement. Sounds ideal.

 

---------- Post added 02-05-2017 at 07:22 ----------

 

All the students that I know are very politically engaged, they certainly all seem to be intending to vote.

But I suspect that my sample is very skewed from the norm, as being a student at Shef Uni isn't an 'average', it immediately puts you in the 50% who are likely to end up with a degree, and a good one at that.

[Hairyloon]

Can somebody explain to me how PR works with independent candidates?

 

Perhaps I have misunderstood the concept, but as I understand it, if Party A gets 40% of the votes, and Party B gets 30% then Party A gets 40% of the seats and Party B gets 30% of the seats.

 

There is something fundamentally wrong with that idea because it means we are voting for parties not for people... and the parties are hugely corrupt.

[Anna B]

Can somebody explain to me how PR works with independent candidates?

 

Perhaps I have misunderstood the concept, but as I understand it, if Party A gets 40% of the votes, and Party B gets 30% then Party A gets 40% of the seats and Party B gets 30% of the seats.

 

There is something fundamentally wrong with that idea because it means we are voting for parties not for people... and the parties are hugely corrupt.

 

Unfortunately very few independent candidates become MPs. I think there have only been about 12 since the end of the second world war, and most of them were already well known in their own right. It's a pity, but there it is...

 

I agree PR isn't perfect, but I don't know of a system that is. I'm certainly open to better ideas.

 

---------- Post added 02-05-2017 at 13:03 ----------

 

Well, you know what they say about wanting a job done properly...

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2017 at 23:39 ----------

 

 

If it were up to me, I would move the business of parliament to something akin to an internet chatroom, and keep the current house on as a reality TV show.

 

 

 

Yeah, good luck with that. How do you suggest we persuade the current plutocrats to hand over the reigns?

 

Short of holding a revolution (which as I have said elsewhere need not be a violent one), the only way forward that I see is to set up a party which operates through effective engagement with the public by use of modern technological systems, and get that party elected.

I have not yet found any party that makes anything approaching a half decent attempt.

 

As it happens, there was a conference scheduled for tomorrow at the House of Commons entitled "Democracy in the Digital Age", but it has been postponed because of the election.

 

Because Jeremy Corbyn is suffering from such blatant anti-Labour bias in the mainstream media, he has had to move a lot of his operation online and embrace the internet, (for example he encourages people/members to get in touch with questions they want asking at prime ministers question time.)

 

That, and hiking round the country in person to meet the people long before the election was called.

 

It's worked, in that he has an intensely loyal following amongst those that follow him online, or have seen him in the flesh, but those that haven't, agree with everything that's written about him in the press.

 

Pity that the Digital Conference was postponed, but I shall watch with interest when it takes place. However in my experience most politicians and their aids want to see the internet castrated because they can't control it.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Anna B

[Hairyloon]

Unfortunately very few independent candidates become MPs. I think there have only been about 12 since the end of the second world war, and most of them were already well known in their own right. It's a pity, but there it is...

This is a symptom of the problem: most people have to vote for one of the lizards to stop the other lizard getting in.

A solution that eliminates the non-lizards altogether is no solution.

 

I agree PR isn't perfect, but I don't know of a system that is. I'm certainly open to better ideas.

 

The best idea I have found thus far is the additional member system: a hybrid between what we have and PR.

In brief, constituency MP's are elected much as before, but additional members take seats in the house to account for the numbers of votes cast for parties.

 

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/additional-member-system

 

Because Jeremy Corbyn is suffering from such blatant anti-Labour bias in the mainstream media, he has had to move a lot of his operation online and embrace the internet...

 

He is using it, but he's a long way from what I would call embracing it: the big advantage of the internet that none of them are making use of is that it is interactive.

Posting a notice on Facebook, and ignoring the responses is not the interaction we are looking for.

I had high hopes briefly for Momentum: they could easily have set up a good system for grass roots interaction, but they are more involved with their internal power struggles and keeping their ideology bubble closed.

[L00b]

PR would probably lead to perpetual broad coalitions that will never agree with one another on all sorts of policy issues. Recipe for disaster.

Germany have been governed by coalition for decades. They don't look like much of a disaster zone to me