I was inspired by a politician this morning that said, “More people didn’t vote in the last election, than people that voted for the current party.” (Green Party President, CBC Newsworld)
So my question for debate is, “Should not-voting count?”
As I type this I realize that I still haven’t figured out exactly how it would count.
One scenario would be that non-voting is a sign of general apathy, and reflects contentment. The people are complacent, things are good enough, so the incumbent should get the vote.
The other scenario would be that the vote should count against the incumbent. People should be encouraged to get out and say they still want their leader, failure to do so means their leader has failed to inspire them.
The obvious problem with counting not-votes is that people might be prevented from voting against their will (what you see in many African democracies as the leader tries to prevent votes against him). This would be all too common in many new democracies around the world, but I’m not sure this would work in more developed countries.
As voter apathy continues to grow, should we instead raise the required participation for a vote to count? Would that do anything?
IIRC, voting in Australia is compulsory, but a “None of the above” option is always included on the voting sheet. This is a system that has always apealed to me, although I think it would create as many problems as it solves.
I come from a land where the right to vote is still appreciated by larger chuncks of the population than elsewhere in the world, and I see it as a civic duty, but being able to actively “not vote” sounds like a good thing to me…
This is a pretty simple question to answer - half the “not-votes” should go to the incumbent, while the other half should go to the leading challenger.
Absolutely not. Not in the US. It’s so damn EASY to vote that if you can’t get your lazy-ass to do it, then you get no say. None, zip, zilch, nada.
That makes no sense. Does the constitution require that leaders “inspire” their constituents? No it doesn’t. If you want to change the constitution, then go ahead and try to do so. Until then, don’t read stuff into it that isn’t there.
There is ABSOLUTELY no way to determine why a given person doesn’t vote, so I see no reason to try to assume it is one reason vs another.
As far as “none of the above” goes, that’s sounds nice, but we (in the US) actually do have that option-- it’s a write-in vote. If you can’t think of anyone, write your own name down.
This question is dealt with briefly in Doppelt & Shearer’s Nonvoters. In it, they separate a group of confirmed nonvoters into different ‘types’ of nonvoters.
Some people don’t vote because they don’t care. Some people don’t vote because they don’t see a difference between the two main parties. Some people don’t vote because they want to reject all the current candidates. Some people don’t vote because they’re just satisfied with the system without participating.
The only way to codify the none of the above vote would be to put the option on the ballot, but really, you’re probably not going to get people who would serially vote NOTA to come out. You’d get regular voters to come out and occasionally check NOTA in a race between candidates they disliked.
But anyone can sign up for an absentee ballot and vote whenever he or she chooses. That’s the way I always do it.
Do people drive over to the bank to pay their credit card bills in person? No, they send in their bill by mail.
Yeah, we could move it to Saturday, but then all the Orthodox Jews would claim discrimination. Tuesday was chosen for a reason. No one has a claim on that day.
Voting is compulsory in Australia at all levels of government (federal, state and local). But there is no option given for a vote for “None of the above”. In fact, since voting is done in secret, there is no way to compel anyone to vote. The compulsion relates merely to turning up at the polling booth, getting one’s name crossed off the electoral roll and putting a ballot paper (whether completed or not) in to the ballot box. If you wish to cast a protest vote, scribble all over the ballot paper or simply write nothing at all then you are free to do so. But your vote will be invlaid and won’t be counted.
But part of the problem there is that it is not defined. You are basing your evaluation on the status quo: that people don’t vote for a variety of reasons. In my situation, a non-vote would have a meaning, people would be informed of that meaning, and then be required to deal with it.
At the very least I think non-voting should count against both parties, not voting should be a sign that you are unhappy with the options presented.
As you pointed out, voting is easy, but when citizens choose not to vote there should be a concequence.
I used to think this too, because my sister and her friends once cast votes for my mother (she wasn’t running) for a local office in our Boston suburb whose established candidates both sucked, and the results were reported in the paper.
That’s all fine and good, but how are we supposed to divine why the other 40 million odd non-voters didn’t vote?
Should be? In what way? What if it isn’t? What if someone is happy enough with all the possibilities to simply not bother?
Well, there are consequences. They don’t ge a say in the political process. Why **SHOULD ** there be other consequences?
SA: Thanks for the correction. But one is still able to write in any name, even if it isn’t counted. We’re just not in the habit of reporting those types of “none of the above” types of votes. We did, in FL in '00, have a lot of reporting about “undervotes”, which is sort of the same thing.
I have zero sympathy for people who complain about the system yet fail to vote. If you don’t like any of the candidates, vote for a third party. Write in “Micky Mouse” as a candidate. At least that would make a statement to candidates that people want change and are willing to go to the polls to work towards it.
Sitting on your lazy ass and getting drunk that day while bitching that the system will never change? It becomes a self fufilling prophecy exactly because of your inaction. :mad:
Same here than in Australia (except that the vote isn’t compulsory). Ballots without any name on them, or with insults (common), or whatever else are counted as “white” votes. They’re counted (though they are counted together with cancelled votes, for instance a ballot including a mark which could allow to identify the elector who casted it ), but not taken into account. So, it just gives some idea of the number of people who are pissed off enough to go to the polling stations just in order say they don’t want to vote for anybody. Plenty of people would like the “white votes” to be taken into account, but I can’t see how it could be possible, since it could only result in nobody being elected, in the best (worst?) case.
During the last presidential election, “whites” and cancelled votes amounted to 3.4% during the first round, 5.4% during the run-off.
The penalty for not voting is a fine. I’m not sure what the current fine is - about AUD$150 or thereabouts. Once the election has been completed the electoral office goes through the process of checking the names on the electoral roll and sending out fine notices to those who haven’t voted. If you have a reasonable excuse the fine is waived. However, “I forgot” or “I didn’t want to” would not be considered reasonable.
It helps that elections are always held on Saturdays in Australia. There are provisions made for pre-poll voting and postal voting before the election day as well as absentee voting on the day itself i.e. you can cast your vote anywhere in the country for a federal election or anywhere in the state for a state election.
All of this leads to voter turnouts of around 95-98%. Whether this means a better informed and more “democratic” outcome, of course, is an entirely different question and one that is routinely debated here. I suppose, if nothing else, compulsory voting forces Australians to recognise that the right to vote is a very valuable one. Anyone who attends a polling booth and still chooses not to vote is at least made aware of the right he is not exercising.
I don’t see any feasible way to count or use “non-voters”. What I would like to see here is Instant Runoff elections where the winning candidate must get at least 50% of the vote total.
Here’s a chart on the popular vote results from the 2000 Presidential election: http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/prespop.htm. Note that no candidate got 50% of the votes of the people that voted (and only 51.21% of the eligible voters actually cast a ballot for president!).
There’s a very interesting FAQ on the subject of IR HERE.
An excerpt from the above link that explains why IR would be good:
Finally, you can see how a sample IR election would work HERE.
This is actually subject to state laws, some of which allow anyone to have an absentee ballot if they want one, some of which require you really be “absentee”. I, for example, am not qualified to get an absentee ballot this election, since I’m not planning to travel or to become disabled. I watched a guy get grilled over his business trip, so they take this quite seriously around here.
The problem with absentee ballots is that you lose the opportunity to react to last minute news and you can’t get them back if you subsequently change your mind. I remember reading that in the last CA election when it was discovered that Schwarzenegger was a true “touchie-feelie” kind of guy, that some people who had voted early for him via absentee ballot now wanted to change their vote - and couldn’t.
