On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 11:38 AM, Miron Mizrahi
<mironmizrahi@yahoo.com> wrote:
I have criticism but I also feel very lucky to be living in a country where I am allowed to vote. and I feel sad that we have to force people to do so to get a decent turnout. many many people on earth don't enjoy this fundamental right and it would seem we have a fair number who couldn't care less
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I've never really understood this line of reasoning - as I see it, forcing compulsory voting only encourages popularist campaign tactics (handouts, grants, tax cuts, "community" funding). As far a I can tell, forcing the uniformed to vote just nets you a lot of uniformed votes.
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I agree that everyone has the RIGHT to have a say in the running of their country. But when people who have no real opinion ("oh, my dad voted labor all his life") or who conduct only a very shallow analysis ("I just think it's nice we have a woman in office", "Julia is promising to give tax rebates to cover school uniforms, isn't that nice!") are forced to vote, we ascribe more weight to those votes than the voters did when they lodged them.
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Even amongst my friends (mostly university students between 18 and 21, studying engineering or science) the majority are politically uniformed, and will vote based on a single issue - "I'm worried that Tony can't separate his Catholic views from his policies", "I'm voting Green because the other parties are all the same", "Labor are liars", "I'm never going to vote for�the Liberals after�Howard",�"Labor listen to the will of the people" and so on. Certainly SOME are capable of sustained debate, but most make up their their mind, find a rationalisation, and then tune back out, because THEY DON'T CARE. The reason they give isn't the one they care MOST about, it's the only one they can be bothered to care about at all, and even then only because they're EXPECTED to have an opinion.
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- Chris
