A single vote never made a difference, or so the saying goes, by those who believe going out to cast their vote is a waste of time and effort. However, inspired by a thread in IMHO, the question of whether enthusing everyone to vote to vote is a crucial facet of a working democracy, or a patronising attempt to get people involved in an activity which really doesn’t matter in the slightest.
In that thread, I said that I voted and was proud of it, stating that a politically apathetic population with low voter turnout would be a godsend to any government seeking to infringe any of our so-called rights. However, I’m tempered by the fact that I don’t hold anything against citizens who don’t wish to vote. However, I think these people are undermining the core principles of a democracy, in that the government will never be truly representative of the people whilst people exist who don’t care to pick representatives that match their views - they’ll simply never be known and thus never accounted for in any branch of government. The beauty of democracy is that the system works out the kinks by itself - if elected representatives enacted a policy that seriously irked the silent voters that can’t be bothered to vote them out next chance they get, then they probably deserve to be irked.
So; the act of casting an individual vote in the ballot box - is it an utter waste of time? Would you support a compulsory voting system, like Australia has? Is it a nice ‘safety valve’ or a civic duty?
I’d personally guess that people who vote with more regularity are people who are more knowledgeable of who the nominees are and what they stand for. As such, you get a better informed electorate if the voter turn-out is lower. Large turn-out voting is more prone to people just voting for whoever FOX or MTV told them to vote for.
And I don’t see any reason why a smaller turn-out makes our rights come at risk. Voting isn’t us vs. the politicians and we only win if we have a larger number. The people who vote aren’t going to want to vote their own rights away any more than you would. Of course, you might interpret it that way if they vote for someone you don’t like, but then again it’s likely that if they voted and you didn’t, that they knew something you didn’t and that’s why they voted that way.
Pointless; you won’t change the outcome, and your independent decision to vote or not vote won’t affect others much. The only benefit is a selfish one - to signal that you’re intelligent, well-informed, and patriotic. (Of course consipicuously refraining from voting can signal the first two as well.)
Anyone who votes has lost the right to complain about the outcome since they have validated the system that failed them.
Quite simply, I cannot imagine any merit to a process which relies upon how many more people chose one option over another option. It’s not as if people would invite their neighbours around to run their private lives and go with the majority opinion.
It’s a good question though - is the electoral system intended to achieve the best political system, or to function basically a placating measure to keep people satisfied that “their voice is heard?” If the former, mandatory voting is bad, and in theory a well-designed voting-rights exam would produce an electorate that makes better decisions. If the latter, mandatory voting may be a good way to quell instability - not that we particularly need it now, but who knows what we might need in the future?
Good book for anyone interested in voter irrationality.
Seriously dissecting and understanding politics is hard; I suspect that at any political body larger than a hunter-gatherer tribe, some serious bystander effect kicks in - which is why most political discourse is idiotic and tribalistic rather than technocratic.
Citizens are more like shareholders than members of a board of directors. They have relatively little say but are affected by corporate governance and the fortunes of the company. Difference is, it’s infinitely easier to stop being a shareholder of a company than to leave a country.
It’s more shady aspects of government being able to slip unpalatable things past an electorate that doesn’t give a damn and who they aren’t accountable to, who they don’t represent and who haven’t given them a mandate. Again, this may seem far fetched and paranoid, but the public (regardless of how much of a damn they give about politics) has a vested interest in keeping a *very *close eye on the people supposedly representing them, and should always be willing and able to give them the boot.
My point was that the people who are more likely to vote are the ones who -are- keeping an eye on things. The people who don’t regularly vote are the ones who -aren’t- paying attention.
Forcing people to vote doesn’t force them to study up and stay informed. It just makes them pull whatever lever someone has programmed them to pull.
I agree, which is where democracy works - it punishes the ignorant with policies they may not like. However, this might be the beginning of a slippery slope into a tyranny of the voting majority. TJ puts it better than I ever could;
"The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. "
I would say that you are overly optimistic regarding the intelligence of the voting electorate and overly dismissive of the intelligence of the non-voting public. Not that you’re completely wrong, of course.
And, just as a gut feeling, I disagree with your second point: I would hazard to guess that compulsory voting would infuse those who would otherwise not vote with a certain sense of responsibility to at least understand the differences between the candidates. I wonder what kind of studies have been done on this issue.
I’d say the exact opposite. It’s people who don’t vote who have lost the right to complain. It’s wrong to say you don’t vote because the system doesn’t listen to you. The truth is the exact opposite - the system doesn’t listen to you because you don’t vote.
Where I work, we are required, every 24 hours, to check the function and preparedness of our crash carts. I can’t remember the last time one of these checks revealed a major compromise in our ability to handle a cardiac arrest. Still, it would never occur to me to suggest that we should stop checking them.
And yet, I can name several elections which came down to under two thousand votes cast, ranging from GWB in 2000 to Al Franken in 2008. And don’t forget the extraordinary effort required to make Lisa Murkowski senator again just this year.
The one thing I have learned in the last decade is to never, ever, ever say something won’t count in politics. So, I must deny your argument from the first hypothesis.
What would you be saying now if the policy was checking them every 12 hours?
2000 != 1. And out of how many political contests do you have to cherry-pick in order to find the few so-called “close” ones? That should be factored into your calculation too.
In the original thread Frank pointed out many elections where it did come down to the wire, and in my own parliamentary system winners often have a very slim majority - so I don’t endorse the sentiment, merely state that it exists.
I think you missed my point. In fact, the hospital I used to work at did check them every 12 hours, but that’s no more relevant than suggesting we elect a president every 2 years instead of every 4 years would be in a thread on the value of voting at all.
What I’m saying is that even though we rarely find a problem, and even though we miss it occasionally and bad things don’t happen, I’m confident that if we stopped then I would reach for something someday and it wouldn’t be there. I’m suggesting a parallel between the effectives of a single vote, and the cumulative effect of voting.
Yeah, one vote doesn’t make a difference, but millions do. Voting is a group activity. That’s why we all do it on the same day.
‘I don’t vote; I’ll let everyone else deal with it’ … when you go to a baseball game do you not cheer because everyone else has it covered?
People who vote are at least contributing to the system, for good or for bad. The special snowflakes who are above it all and don’t even bother to give it a go because it’s pointless, sound like bigger whiners than people who’s votes went to losing candidates if you ask me.
Convincing people that voting is a waste of time is not a waste of time.
The effort increases the value of your own vote, and makes minority rule more likely.
Once minority rule sets in, it becomes easier to convince people that their vote doesn’t matter, and hence any effort spent convincing people their vote doesn’t matter is amplified.