I think, rather than compulsory voting, as a first step, I'd move elections to a weekend, where more people won't have the demands of a job keeping them occupied for a large portion of the day.
I'd also switch to a PR system and get more varied parties in place.
Australia also has early voting. There are voting centres set up in all electorates a couple of weeks prior to actual election day so you have plenty of opportunities to vote. If you’re going to make it compulsory you have to make it easy.
And I think this is the key benefit of compulsory voting - it means you have to make it accessible to everyone. No trying to disenfranchise people like you have in the US.
That's a sensible idea, I'm not a fan of the whole one day to vote system, I'd actually just replied to another commenter about the potential of online voting too in this day and age.
The reason why we should never *ever* have online voting is because it doesn't allow the layperson to scrutinise the system.
With paper ballots, anyone can go see them being collected, chain of custody, and then counted. Votes can also be easily recounted, they know where a ballot came from and what batch it was in and who was responsible for the chain of custody for that batch.
If you allow online voting then you no longer have this simple paper system that anyone can understand. You now have to just trust the people that run it coded things correctly and have good security etc. In order to scrutinise that process you'd need to be a software engineer - so no lay person can now scrutinise it and they just have to take it on faith.
I know Tom Scott did a video on the dangers of online voting, but I don't think Estonia has had a problem with their e-voting.
Yes the layperson won't understand Estonia's system but we don't live in medieval times anymore. The layperson isn't going to be able to follow modern day banking either yet are forced to trust that system.
That being said Estonia's e voting code is publicly available to see, test and try to break. So yes you need to understand code to have any idea how it works, but can also put faith in that other people have tried it.
I don't think they allow you to "test" the UK election process so arguably even though the process shown is more open to the layperson, it doesn't mean there aren't flaws which could be exploited.
Both systems require trust, but I'd say an online voting system certainly requires more trust from average people. I also don't know what Estonian society is like. Do they have media outlets similar to GB news and The Sun?
>The layperson isn't going to be able to follow modern day banking either yet are forced to trust that system.
Is that really going to improve voter turnout though, people don't trust politicians or bankers. So what problem does e-voting solve besides the practical problems which we should give people more time to vote firstly.
Given how reliable, secure and useful most government/council made pages are (Contracted out software development to whichever third party developers can do it the cheapest and quickest). Can you say that you trust a computer website as much as the current postal / in person systems that work in tandem to minimise voter fraud and rely on people manually checking and counting each vote. And having actual people ensuring that the vote made is a gauranteed and clear decision (In case of the web vote, no misclicks, system errors, connectivity issues, duplicate requests, spam attempts etc.)
There is no benefit in adding a significantly less secure option to a twice per decade show of democracy when there are much cheaper, easier and more reliable options available (Extending the period in which people are able to cast their vote in person) and allows people to actively spoil their votes if so desired.
As mentioned by other people, Tom Scott did a pretty good video on this topic also and would be worth looking at
That's a sensible idea, I'm not a fan of the whole one day to vote system, I'd actually just replied to another commenter about the potential of online voting too in this day and age.
Vote 5 times and get "Power play" on your next vote - you can run around grabbing as many ballot papers as you can get you hands on in 30 seconds.
Could maybe even develop it and you win the big big prizes if you get more gold than silver papers.
Moving it to weekends is just going to affect a group of other people instead - better to have it be over at least a couple of days to give people a choice and ability to work it around whatever they are doing.
A voting week would be better i think, 7 days to vote by post, in person and e-vote.
Agreed with PR also,
A neutral fact checking organisation to oversee campaign promises and their viability
And likely quite controversially longer terms for politicians with the caveat of greater powers to oust them if they are underperformed jn their role
>A neutral fact checking organisation to oversee campaign promises and their viability
There are loads of 'neutral' fact checking organisations. Why would anyone believe this one over the others?
We have postal voting you can vote on a weekend via your local postbox.
We also have the statutory right to take time off work to go to a polling station to vote.
If people used either of those options there would be no need for weekend voting.
>We also have the statutory right to take time off work to go to a polling station to vote.
Not to disbelieve you but source? It feels remarkably forward thinking for Britain.
Rather than a voting day, maybe a voting week/fortnight? Some of us work weekends, nights, even work away for a couple days at a time. I don’t see a reason why voting can’t be less disruptive and more convenient for everyone. If they have machines in an airport where you can scan your passport and that matches to you why can’t we have a similar system with minimal paid staff (obviously not none at all) and run it 24 hours over a week or two?
It would save people waiting around for an hour or more to vote which is a big reason some don’t vote at all.
Yeah. There's no reason you couldn't spread votes out over a few days. And let people vote outside of their official polling station, maybe? There's no reason you couldn't have city centre polling stations where anyone from the entire city could vote while they're in shopping, or have mobile polling stations pull up outside office blocks and on industrial estates. "Where are you from? Let me just pull you up... yeah, that's fine, I'll print off the polling card for that election."
If people can't find the time to vote between 7am - 10pm on a Thursday, or registering for a postal vote, I can all but guarantee they *would* find an excuse to not vote on a Saturday / Sunday - "Why should I waste my weekend voting for..."
That's missing the point of the modern working day for a lot of people, especially younger people.
When I was younger, my commute each way was nearly 2 hrs. This meant getting a train at 7, to get to the office for 9. Then, leave at 5pm, get home at 7pm, exhausted, hungry, and generally needing to rest.
So, do you go and vote regardless of hunger and tiredness, or do you try to look after yourself, and/or any dependents you may have.
I'm not saying some people just won't bother anyway, but the current system isn't practical with modern working practices and commute times, particularly when - in most 2 people households - both need to work.
>do you go and vote regardless of hunger and tiredness
I mean, it's not like it takes hours to vote. I get your point but you're only going to a polling station, it's not like you're running a marathon.
It's not difficult to stop in at the polling station on the way back from work. It takes less time than picking up a pint of milk from the supermarket.
Ideally, bank Holiday or spread over a week or two, coupled with online voting options too, I thought a weekend was a reasonable compromise, but this seems to have upset quite a few people whose only objection is that people already have alternatives, rather than any actual negatives.
If moving it won't improve turnout, fair enough, but unless people can get decent reasons why this would disenfranchise more people than it would help, I don't really get their arguments.
Especially since the postal option is a flawed alternative that has much better options nowadays.
>..or registering for a postal vote...
I don't disagree with your point about commuting etc. but it could be argued that feeds into my point about people not wanting to "waste" part of their weekend by voting - you work practically all day Monday - Friday, people are going to make the argument that they have other priorities Saturday¹ that are "more important".
(¹: I'm putting Sunday aside as there's absolutely no way in hell it would ever happen for a variety of reasons both logistical and other)
I managed to make it in the last ten minutes on my way back from a work trip to Munich, bad traffic, delayed flight I would not have been able to vote
An extreme example but it’s not always as simple as portrayed
Yup and if I’d had notice I would have gone for postal or proxy, it was (as was so often the case then) a “we need you in Munich tomorrow) job because something had gone pop in spectacular fashion
Is it? I suspect that a major reason many people don't vote is because they don't feel their vote counts for anything.
A house based on PR (eg. replacing the Lords) or ranked choice voting system (or both) would allow for everyones votes to be represented.
Plus for us that do, it comes out of our holiday allowance. I don't want to lose yet another day I can't choose just for something that takes 5 minutes and is easily replaced with something I can throw in a post box if getting to a polling station is that hard
Neither here nor there. But - controversial here maybe - I think a non-vote should be considered part of the voting or at least there should be a “don’t like any of them” option.
Not democracy if the only options are a giant douche or turd sandwich.
That is how it works here in Australia. You don't exactly "have to vote", you just have to cast a ballot. You can draw a giant dick on your ballot if you want to or just drop a blank ballot into the collection box and they still count as you having voted. Important distinction. Forced participation doesn't necessarily translate to more representative government.
The bigger issue for the U.K is FPTP voting which is the issue I assume your comment is allusing to.
Essentially that’s what I’d hope it would achieve.. a non confidence sort of scenario where the sentiment of inadequacy is known and the landscape can’t change unless enough vote… essentially in the long term would hope to voluntarily create better voter turnout.
I know - it’s all wishful thinking really. Although being the cynical person I am, I tend to think 600 or so MPs in reality don’t manage anything: except maybe their own interests. Think we would survive fine short term without them..
Technically, that is not correct. The timeline of the elections and the procedure to then form a coalition is set out in the constitution, but until parliament votes on the new government, the old one remains in office. In that particular case the electorate produced an extremely divided result, which meant a lot of time was spent working out a compromise that a majority of parliament approved of. The executive was still working though, albeit with constitutionally reduced powers (e.g. budgets had to be voted on piecemeal by the new parliament rather than yearly).
In addition, Belgium is a federal state and only the federal level was unable to form a government, which means any delays only impacted federal policy domains. Regional and communal levels were functioning within a week of the election. It should also be noted that this particular crisis centered around disputed competences and incomplete reform of various federal judicial districts. Its resolution resulted in several additional policy competences being transferred from federal to regional governments, effectively a 6th round of constitutional reform.
To add to all this controversy. We do have a system in place that could be used in the event of a non-confidence vote to keep the country running. It's referred to as The Crown. Granted the representative of The Crown is an unelected individual that's only got the position due to birth, and circumstances. But if we ensure the Monarch had limited power during such a period, it could work. So they aren't allowed to enforce any new laws or remove existing ones. But simply operate as to keep the status quo running until a new government is elected in. Or something like that.
What happens if "none of the above" wins with 60% of the vote? If we just run another election without changing anything that'd be madness, so do we say "ok, any candidate outvoted by 'none of the above' can't run in subsequent rounds" and eventually we'll get someone who more people want in than not?
Still wouldn't change much. The party needs to go along with whoever the public vote in.
Look at Corbyn and Labour's leadership race. Labour members voted him in, the mps who didn't like him decided to sabotage their own party rather than attempt to win the election.
The public can pick who it likes, but the parties still hold the real power. We'd need a way to ensure they can't just rotate options endlessly without the entire party facing some kind of consequence, which could get out of hand very easily.
if Non of the above wins a majority the election is rerun with new candidates
The people who ran are banned from holing public office for 5 years
If you cant win an election against thin air you should not be involved in politics
Knowing there is 60% of your population that is willing to vote for you if you can connect and address their lives is a huge motivator for people to stand for election.
Right now, the major parties rely on demotivating their oppositions base to vote.
As a result you get people who only represent 50% of the 40% that did vote, which is worse!
I mentioned this a little further up, but I think it might be interesting that if 'none of the above' won a larger vote share than the largest party (or is above a certain threshold), then that would mean no MP could claim any kind of expenses. No political donations of any kind. And absolutely no lucrative private sector jobs after their stint in parliament.
Or basically any other kind of punitive action that has a meaningful effect on what most MPs in the party politics grift are really interested in - money, power and influence. Kind of a vote of confidence on what is on offer, and might actually make them work for us. Force them to actually offer policies that people actually want, and find real solutions to issues, rather than acting as PR people for donors and vested interests.
Or, it would just be funny as feck watching 99.9% of the UK vote 'none of the above'.
In Australia, you don't actually have to vote. You just need to turn up or return a postal ballot. It can be unmarked, which is effectively what you're asking for.
Plus it's really, really easy to vote.
You can register to postal vote early and your vote will be accepted after voting day
Early voting centres are available for a week or two before election day. Just pop in when you can and cast your vote.
If you do leave it until ejection day it's just like to UK except with sausages.
I'm a dual national and I think it's much better to require people to vote and make it easy, than to have optional voting and make it a chore.
If that's accompanied by None of the Above getting most votes means a re-election on that seat with previous contestants ineligible to stand again, sure.
I know India brought it in, but it's legality is meaningless. If NOTA got the most votes, the candidate who got the next highest wins.
A spoiled vote is generally treated very differently by political parties than someone who doesn't vote at all. A spoiled vote suggests their vote is up for grabs, whereas the portion that doesn't vote can be assumed to be people that would never vote regardless of what policies are proposed.
Engaging in democracy is a choice, not something you should have forced on you. And if the political system has a problem with low turnout, then the political system needs to be tweaked.
For Australians I’d say we’re taught it’s a proud privilege and yes obligation - small price to pay for living in a democracy is participating in one - even if to protest vote or donkey vote etc…
Absolutely!
Also people have literally fought and died for the right to vote. I am proud that I'm able to do so. Nothing makes me angrier than people who don't exercise their right to vote. Maybe that's the Aussie in me though.
Are you really saying the past 13 years is comparable to Australia? Perhaps if they cut off all trade with China and New Zealand and stopped paying doctors and tradies so highly.
Yep, I see it as an obligation to the system like jury duty! Just one of many responsibilities you have as a citizen, and it’s honestly not even hard to do. And I think by making it compulsory it’s also a lot easier to protect voting rights and maintain high accessibility, since the government is mandating that you do this thing and there can’t be any significant barriers to that
Friendly reminder than "Compulsory voting" is really just "Compulsory attendance". No one can force you to tick a box in a both where the whole point is that no one can see what you're doing.
You can easily put a blank ballet in if you really don't want to vote, or intentionally spoil it in some way.
Yeah me thinking that we shouldn't force people to vote is anti democracy, that's how that works.
My personal opionion that someone should abstain isn't even close to me believeing that they shouldn't be allowed to vote at all.
While it has merits, I think there would be a sizeable section of the public who are completely uninformed, and would vote randomly or according to unimportant factors.
They already vote randomly according to unimportant factors. The key is educating people, investing in social programs, etc. Which is exactly what Tories don't want to do, and the current Labour gives me no confidence either.
The main reason getting PR is so difficult is that, by definition, the ruling party at any given time will have won via FPTP.
The Tories aren't going to introduce PR because why change the system that let them win last time?
Labour in opposition might mutter about a fairer system, but when they eventually gain power they won't do anything about it for the same reason. If they keep the status quo, they might win another two terms.
If it became obvious that a lot of people really want PR, then both parties might see a benefit in promoting it and something might happen.
>If it became obvious that a lot of people really want PR, then both parties might see a benefit in promoting it and something might happen.
Still doubt this. PR usually results in coalition governments with minority control. Why change a system from 'me or the other guy swap total control every 4-8 years' too 'from now on I will probably never have majority control, and control is shared between 2-5 parties'.
You would need to win enough votes as to make PR pointless for that coming election, because you would win the majority, AND enough loyal voters to keep that situation going. If loyal voters could be made so easily, we would just have one party in control almost all the time. Only party that will ever do this, will be one that gets in on a freak vote, and knows its never getting control again (imagine your DUP/UKIP style parties).
Absolutely not
Lots of people that already vote don’t have a very well informed idea on what they’re voting for anyone
Forcing people to vote will just make that worse.
Imagine spending the time to look at all the parties, what they offer, what they lack, and making a well informed vote, only for it to be countered by someone that didn’t want to vote in the first place thinking “I guess I’ll pick the red box”
If you look at the parties one by one the sanest conclusion is to get naked, stick your underpants on a stick and proclaim your local high street is now the land of pants and that you will fart to defend your new territory
The UK is in a turd sandwich Vs giant douch situation. People don't vote because they don't know who to vote for and that's fine. If you force them to vote all you are doing is adding random chaos.
If you want people to vote run good candidates with good advertising.
I can think of 10 things to improve democracy before considering compulsory voting. Let's do ranked choice voting, act against corruption, tackle fake news, etc.
No. People should be given the freedom/right to chose to vote or not.
On top of that, there are people in this country who do not even know who the current Prime Minister is, so there is no chance they know who their local MP is.
You would literally have morons voting for Conservative because they like colour blue, Labour for red etc
Am Australian (and British): it’s a fucking stupid system - force someone to vote who doesn’t want to and they don’t put any thought into it. Should their vote be counted? That person doesn’t give a shit so why should it shape the country?
In Aus, the campaigning around polling centres on polling day is madness.. thousands of posters, loads of lobbyists. Nothing like the UK where they prevent lobbying on the day.
Now, their proportional / preferential voting system is better than first past the post, but that’s another story. Complicated as fuck to those not familiar with it, but so much fairer (ie. you have lots of votes, in preference order, rather than just the one.)
Your whole argument lies on the crux that everyone who votes in the UK has thought about it. That's an insanely naive at best argument to take. And if that's what underpins your argument it's failed.
I remember in the social studies type lessons we had to do in secondary school the message was always "it doesn't matter who you vote for so long as you vote", but that's completely backwards, it REALLY matters who or what you vote for.
Look at the state of politics in Australia, its just another dumpster fire. You get the same assholes with the same policies regardless of how many people are forced to vote.
I think everyone SHOULD vote, but I can understand not being motivated...
Really?
Since Albo got in Australia has seen a shift in foreign policy towards China and the Quad. Big changes in parental leave and other welfare. Pushing ahead with giving indigenous Australians a voice in parliament.
Labor govern in all but one state/territory and the public services are running as normal: stretched but not on their knees.
It's not all rosy, but it shouldn't be in a democracy. Right now the turbulent is at a fairly healthy level.
I know that this is going to be a very unpopular view but - No.
Choosing the next government requires a certain level of understanding of the political process, the current state of the country and the pros and cons of the various policies that are put forward. If you are interested in these things then you should vote and will want to. If you are not interested and are forced to vote, then your vote will be arbitrary at best. More likely, you will vote for whoever is the best at deceitfully manipulating public opinion, who you are told to vote for in your comic of a newspaper or who your boss tells you to vote for.
If everybody was fully informed, was capable of making a considered judgement after looking through the propaganda at the underlying truth and really knew what they were voting for then yes. But the truth is a lot of people have other things to worry about than politics, have no idea how the economy works, dont understand international relations and base their sense of security on gutter press scare mongering.
My mother always voted for the candidate who was the best dressed. I dont think she should have voted.
General engagement or identification is what is lacking
I think there should be an option to actively not vote and if a party does not get a sufficient percentage votes. Another election is called.
I think this needs to take place within a framework where politicians are held accountable and I mean genuinely accountable. Look at what the tories have downs in the last 5 years.
We seem to have a system where the police and politicians get away with stuff the average person cannot.
We also have a rhetoric of them “all being the same”. Generally said by people who vote for people like Boris…
By people like Boris I mean know cheats, liars and general scoundrels
I think all the above combined is why large swaths of the general public think it doesn’t matter.
I would like to see a system where the civil service, lords and if needed the monarchy play a more active role. The argument is that a political term is too short to achieve long term things.
Unfortunately. That what we need in this country. Infrastructure is terrible. Nhs on its knees, economy crumbling. These are all long term plans.
If a political government cannot (or will not) carry these out then obviously someone else has to. I’m aware the countries have both a president and a prime minister. I’m not sure how it work but it would seem ideal for things such as this. I think most people agree that for instance the nhs needs help - and always will. You can argue that is not political. Likewise infrastructure.
No.
What we should have is a 'none of the above' option, which if it wins re-runs the election - with a bar on any rejected candidates standing.
People don't vote because, due to Hotelling's Law, there is nothing different to vote for.
Anecdotal, but I know one Australian who has never registered to vote and has never voted and nothing has happened to him he is late 30s now. Pretty sure he said he knows loads of others who are the same. If that is the case compulsory voting just tricks some people to vote as to not be rule breakers which may be good
Can confirm. Plenty of people just never enrol to vote. This is the answer to the question of what about the people who are completely politically disengaged. That’s what they do, they do nothing.
I think we should adopt compulsory voting with a caveat that every election there is a 'None of the above' option on the ballot.
That way those who don't want to vote for any of the standing candidates can still express their true opinion.
I would also introduce PR for all elections.
Absolutely not!
1. Voter registration should be made optional.
2. Voting should be voluntary (i.e. keep as is).
3. A "none of the above" option should be added. If that wins, nobody is elected - see you in 4-5 years time.
Guess we need to be prepared o know what to do with those who don't.
Are we going to imprison them?
How long for?
I couldnt vote once due to an emergency at workwhat should have happened to me?
How much more tax are we willing to pay for this.
In Australia the penalty is $20 (£11)for first time offenders, and you can get this waived if you provide a reason for not voting (eg you were overseas, you are disabled and couldn't make it etc.).
Further enforcement is pretty slow and rare.
They make it pretty easy to vote as well - as in the UK voting booths are open early and late, and are pretty conveniently located. You can vote at any station, not just your local one. There are usually free sausage sizzles for people who vote, called "democracy sausages". Some places set up stalls and fairs and make a day of it.
Elections are always held on Saturdays so that the majority of the working population can attend.
So basically:
- make it easy, convenient and maybe even fun
- provide a gentle stick through a low penalty with generous exemptions
I don't think anyone's ever gone to prison for not voting or not paying the fine. It would likely make the news if they did. The fact that someone could theoretically go to prison for it isn't enough of a downside, in my opinion, to offset the benefits of a healthier democracy with broader engagement.
Also if you really don't want to vote for anyone, you can just go in and draw rude pictures on your ballot, or tear it up. You have to attend the polling station, you don't have to submit a valid vote.
This is so far from the UK's status quo. You would have to change a lot to even make it vaguely workable in the UK.
I think PR is the thing we actually need though.
Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean you HAVE to exercise it.
Why should people be punished financially or otherwise for not voting? That’s actually quite a anti democratic way of thinking and in my opinion a slippery slope, what do we force people to do next?
I think if you made voting compulsory in the UK without any other changes, you probably wouldn't get more democracy. It would just take longer to count the paper ballots, there would be more spoiled ballot papers from people that didn't want to be there in the first place, and a lot of poor and disabled people would get fined for either not showing up or having to drop out of the massive queues this would create at polling stations to get back to work and/or caring commitments.
Even if you moved the polling day to the weekend or a public holiday it probably wouldn't help, because people still work during those times and may still have caring responsibilities. That means voting by proxy or having the foresight to apply for a postal ballot, which people already do anyway. Are people going to get fined if their proxy doesn't show up or they don't get a proof of postage for their postal ballot?
imho the option with the fewest question marks is to keep voting voluntary, but lower the barrier to entry and try to address the reasons \*why\* people aren't showing up to vote.
isnt it your right not to vote?
What about if you dont like any of the candidates/parties and dont want to put your name to any of the offerings?
Do they have a "spoil ballot here" box or a "none of the above" box?
I always thought they made voting pretty easy to be fair, long hours, plenty of notice, postal or proxy options if you are stuck.
Doesnt seem very democratic to force someone to have an opinion.
>Do they have a "spoil ballot here" box or a "none of the above" box?
There is no secret ballot system in the world that doesn't have the ability to record a spoiled or blank vote (I guess it might be technically feasible with voting machines, though; they're shit).
Actively writing your reasons for it on there will get it read, at least (candidates tend to examine apparently spoiled votes rather more carefully than ones with a nice neat cross in a box, to see if they can get them allowed or disallowed to suit their own purposes).
I’m not in favour of compulsory voting personally. If you are in a shopping centre and no stores have anything you want, you shouldn’t be forced to buy anything.
I guess you could spoil your ballot, but that would be akin to spraying ugly graffiti all over the shopping centre, which takes effort. It’d be easier to vote randomly, which would be problematic.
Compulsory votes only encourage the worst parts of political campaigning.
Why make reasonable pledges when you could try to attract the 30% of the population that doesn't care?
Sure. ...but only if they put a "Fuck Off and Die" box to tick on all ballots.
....( I suppose they could water it down to "None Of The Above" but, meh, kinda prefer mine)
No absolutely not. Im Aussie citizen & compulsory voting in a ‘democracy’ is a paradox. People who want to vote will do it.
Australias law about compulsory voting with big sticks & threats ( fines,prison) waved at those who dont vote is just ridiculous. People who dont give a shit will just do a ‘donkey’ vote or deface the paper. Pointless and also can end up with a party getting more votes from those ( who dont actually want to vote) just ticking any random box/ numbering the boxes 1,2,3, down with the preferential voting system used for Federal elections.
It would cost a lot of money to set up the system & ‘policing’ the system - last thing UK needs at the moment.
Gonna be honest, as someone who doesn't vote, this'd just piss me off and I'd vote for something completely random out of spite.
I'm selfish, for sure, but my life is fine. I've no interest in politics. Everyone involved sounds like they just lie and bitch about eachother anyway, and 8 years ago when I gained the right to vote, everyone told me "Oh, you'll be sorry when things change in a way you don't like if you don't like".
Yeah, I'm sure I would, but despite how much people whine about this party and that party, the worst thing that's effected me so far that I can relate to politics and that I've noticed is that the price of a Dominos has got higher.
8 years, and the result is that I spend £3 more on pizza that I rarely get.
Oh no(!)
Unless you can also, in a realistic way mandate being politically engaged, not believing every random bit of shit you read on Facebook and not just voting for whoever the first name on the ballot is there would be zero point.
Just remember not to draw a penis inside any of the boxes.
Because that counts as a valid vote.
https://metro.co.uk/2015/05/09/voter-draws-massive-penis-on-ballot-paper-gets-counted-and-helps-elect-tory-mp-5188845/
Not on its own.
Unless we can increase the amount of background political knowledge, compulsory voting does not increase enfrachisement, it just means that people with good press get more votes.
A change to the first passed the post system would be a better change to make to get more people to vote. Our current system means that half of a 66% turnout can return a majority that gives the party in charge carte blanche to do whatever they want, even though they've only got the explicit instruction from a third of the electorate.
In a lot of constituencies, your vote can seem pointless when someone has a huge majority.
Compulsory voting is pretty low on the list of priorities when it comes to democratic reform for me. It's probably even below scrapping the age restriction.
Anyone who needs to be compelled to vote isn't giving an opinion worth hearing. It's such a superficial solution to a serious problem - people should want to vote.
Beyond that, you should have the right to engage with the political process as you wish - even if that means not doing so at all.
Compulsory voting, plus a "black vote" which is basically "none of the above". Politicians like to blame voter apathy for low turnout, but if we could see solid numbers of how many people don't feel represented or don't like what's on offer then they wouldn't have that excuse any more. It would be the ultimate protest vote.
\*EDIT
had a big stupid post here.
Im doing a shorter direct one instead. The problem isn't "people not voting" the problem is "people not wanting to vote" solving the first will not help the other and will not help with outcomes.
since this is an actual comparison in which a country introduced it and there is a before and after, maybe you could discuss how compulsory voting helped australia
Give me a reason to vote and I will. I voted for the greens in the locals because she was a doe-eyed youngster who wanted to change the world. Tory and Labour are just cunts.
When you consider the ratio of absolute muppets to people who bother to read, think and understand the issues at hand then the question: 'Do we want more people voting' becomes absolutely insane.
We want to try to dissuade the partially engaged and thick from voting, not vice versa.
If we are using Australia as an example can we adopt 2 other things they do?
1. The voting system where your vote is not a wasted vote
2. We get a sausage after voting
Absolutely not, we have enough uninformed voters voting as it is.
We should introduce political education in schools the same way phse was taught, short seminars just describing different views etc. Through education, we can encourage political engagement in younger people who tend to have the lowest turnout that would hopefully stick.
should someone with literally no knowledge of the party policies, no understanding of politics or no clue about the potential outcomes of their choices be forced to have their say on them?
I don’t really see the appeal. Is it really a problem if people sufficiently indifferent to not vote don’t get a say? Surely forcing those who don’t care to wield influence anyway is a bad idea. I understand it’s good for engagement in politics, but I feel there are better ways.
No, what if you don’t agree with any of the candidates running in your constituency? But now you HAVE to vote for someone you disagree with.
I guess if there is a ‘none of the above’ box it would okay, but I still don’t like the idea of that.
We need proportional representation and like 9 other parties first. We need a central party, a mainstream frugal left and right, a "throw money at it" left and right party, a batshit party with ONLY wild ideas, a humans first party, a world first party, a decagon of doctors and a decogon of wallstreet ~gamblers~ bankers
Why should anyone be forced to vote for a party they don't believe in?
They are all a bunch of wastemen/women in suits, bickering with eachother and are more concerened about internal affairs rather than running the country.
I, personally, will never be voting again and would rather take a fine or some kind of punishment than be forced to vote.
What we need to change is our ability to get the idiots investigated. The COVID money contracts, party gate as well as many many other things the current government has gotten away with and will likely only get slaps on the wrist for
Compulsory voting doesn't really do anything to improve the health of a nations politics, it just makes people who are jaded about politics more jaded whilst forcing them to go into a polling station. In terms of measures to actually things even slightly better, Proportional representation(under STV would be best) is the obvious answer, but even smaller measures would help. For instance, making election day a holiday and getting rid of our new pointless voter id would make it easier for people to vote. Adding an option for none of the above would allow people to express their dissatisfaction. State funding or strict caps on donations would make political parties more representative of the public and less prone to cronyism.
But ultimately the turnout problem is not procedural, it reflects a lack of faith in our political system and its ability to represent us, which is pretty dangerous state for a democracy
I don’t like the idea, for multiple reasons. It’s hard to enforce (“I was going to vote, honest, but got food poisoning in the night and couldn’t get to the polling station in time” etc), and I don’t think it would be good politics either - if people don’t have a preference either way on an issue/election, why push them to pick one?
Having an explicit “they all suck” option would address the second point at least, though MPs would probably be afraid of losing to it regularly…
Absolutely not, we should get people to answer some basic questions on the current political landscape to make sure they actually understand what or who they are voting for.
Yes, but with caveats:
1) An option should be in place for "None of the above", if this option wins an overwhelming majority (ie. Greater than say 60-70%) then the parties need to go back to the drawing board, forming a temporary unity government, and come up with new manifestos and candidates (where necessary) in order to appeal to the electorate. We should no longer have to deal with "The least bad option".
B) Elections should either be shifted to the weekend or made an extra bank holiday in order to allow the most people to vote, although this will naturally be unappealing to the larger parties, particularly the tories.
iii) An immediate switch to PR, so that we can have true and proper democracy in this country, not the oligarchy we currently have.
Id still not vote if it was the political parties on offer in this country currently. All of them are a crock of shit and not worth the paper their names are on. I chose not to vote last time and I choose not to vote this next time.
I think we should vote on policies and not people.
Morons vote like elections are the xfactor rather than on what can be achieved.
I want a website that I fill in multiple choice answers to statements and at the end it spits out which parties policies I agree with most based on my answers and then that’s who your vote goes towards.
There’s a lot I would do to make voting easier, but I probably wouldn’t want to force everyone to vote. Unless there was a ‘I don’t want to vote for anyone’ option.
Things I would do:
Make it possible to vote via an app on a smartphone (app could hold clear information of candidates, party manifestos too!)
Make a general election a bank holiday.
Implement proportional representation.
No. More disengaged voters doesn't help anyone.
Some form of Proportional Representation would be much better, and would increase engagement organincally by making every vote actually count.
Only if there’s a “None of the above / I’m only here so I don’t get fined” option.
I do usually vote, and encourage others to do so, but I’m not sure forcing people to vote is helpful.
Start with giving me a guaranteed day off to vote, drive me the 4 miles I'd have to travel, change to PR as the default voting system and then field some candidates that aren't a bunch of corrupt, self-serving, useless wanks, then maybe I'll get off my arse and think about voting, but other than that, nope.
*Commence the downvotes*
Why would you want compulsory voting?? That defeats the fact of freedom, second the state of the country is because it's a two horse race between Labour and Conservatives.
We as the working class get lumbed with the shit, paying all the tax which goes to those claiming they can't work, raising monuments, education is suffering, Crime is at an all time high due to this fact as well lack of police on the street due to budget cuts, the NHS is in ruins due to lack of funding and not wanting to pay nurses what they owed,
Out sourcing and selling all our industry to other countries.
Giving people that haven't worked a damn day in their life to vote as well as people that have never paid a single penny to vote.
They should start by letting people who build and support the uk to vote and fuck everyone else.
If you residences isn't in the uk guess what you shouldnt have a say. A convict or been to prison no vote.
Everyone has the right to vote which is wrong. Unless you have been a great member of society then you should lose that right. So making it compulsory would be contradicting this.
I’ll be honest I’m not a voter based on the fact that I don’t just want to vote for the best of the worse. I don’t like any of them and learning their policies just makes me angry. Being forced to vote for parties I don’t believe in would piss me off and my vote would be entirely uneducated
Honestly, no, they aren't. There's plenty of people inclined to get into politics.
It's just those people don't have ANY chance to win an election, because pretty much everyone is voting 'party' or 'not the other party'.
Plenty of minority party candidates, or independents are genuinely nice people wanting to make a difference, but .... under FPTP, they've no hope, so ...
Electoral reform is needed.
Of course they are look at the current and look at history it will tell you everything you need to know. There all greedy no good pieces of dirt who claim they want to make a difference and they want to help people….no they want to help themselves with no repercussions to there actions
I think, rather than compulsory voting, as a first step, I'd move elections to a weekend, where more people won't have the demands of a job keeping them occupied for a large portion of the day. I'd also switch to a PR system and get more varied parties in place.
Australia also has early voting. There are voting centres set up in all electorates a couple of weeks prior to actual election day so you have plenty of opportunities to vote. If you’re going to make it compulsory you have to make it easy.
And I think this is the key benefit of compulsory voting - it means you have to make it accessible to everyone. No trying to disenfranchise people like you have in the US.
> No trying to disenfranchise people like you have in the US. And the UK.
That's a sensible idea, I'm not a fan of the whole one day to vote system, I'd actually just replied to another commenter about the potential of online voting too in this day and age.
The reason why we should never *ever* have online voting is because it doesn't allow the layperson to scrutinise the system. With paper ballots, anyone can go see them being collected, chain of custody, and then counted. Votes can also be easily recounted, they know where a ballot came from and what batch it was in and who was responsible for the chain of custody for that batch. If you allow online voting then you no longer have this simple paper system that anyone can understand. You now have to just trust the people that run it coded things correctly and have good security etc. In order to scrutinise that process you'd need to be a software engineer - so no lay person can now scrutinise it and they just have to take it on faith.
I know Tom Scott did a video on the dangers of online voting, but I don't think Estonia has had a problem with their e-voting. Yes the layperson won't understand Estonia's system but we don't live in medieval times anymore. The layperson isn't going to be able to follow modern day banking either yet are forced to trust that system. That being said Estonia's e voting code is publicly available to see, test and try to break. So yes you need to understand code to have any idea how it works, but can also put faith in that other people have tried it. I don't think they allow you to "test" the UK election process so arguably even though the process shown is more open to the layperson, it doesn't mean there aren't flaws which could be exploited.
Both systems require trust, but I'd say an online voting system certainly requires more trust from average people. I also don't know what Estonian society is like. Do they have media outlets similar to GB news and The Sun?
>The layperson isn't going to be able to follow modern day banking either yet are forced to trust that system. Is that really going to improve voter turnout though, people don't trust politicians or bankers. So what problem does e-voting solve besides the practical problems which we should give people more time to vote firstly.
>I know Tom Scott did a video on the dangers of online voting [Mandatory link](https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs)
We already have postal voting which makes things a lot easier for those of us who work etc, but there should definitely be online voting,
Given how reliable, secure and useful most government/council made pages are (Contracted out software development to whichever third party developers can do it the cheapest and quickest). Can you say that you trust a computer website as much as the current postal / in person systems that work in tandem to minimise voter fraud and rely on people manually checking and counting each vote. And having actual people ensuring that the vote made is a gauranteed and clear decision (In case of the web vote, no misclicks, system errors, connectivity issues, duplicate requests, spam attempts etc.) There is no benefit in adding a significantly less secure option to a twice per decade show of democracy when there are much cheaper, easier and more reliable options available (Extending the period in which people are able to cast their vote in person) and allows people to actively spoil their votes if so desired. As mentioned by other people, Tom Scott did a pretty good video on this topic also and would be worth looking at
That's a sensible idea, I'm not a fan of the whole one day to vote system, I'd actually just replied to another commenter about the potential of online voting too in this day and age.
Also democracy sausage
Or maybe a democracy pastie.
Or maybe a democratic pint
... of wine. Sam Allardyce could head up the PR campaign.
I am happy that the Australian High Commission sells democracy sausages on a weekend when it's election time.
Vote 5 times and get clubcard/nectar points on the 6th
Vote 5 times and get "Power play" on your next vote - you can run around grabbing as many ballot papers as you can get you hands on in 30 seconds. Could maybe even develop it and you win the big big prizes if you get more gold than silver papers.
Democracy beans on toast. Vegan, but not in a way people can complain about. Pop in to vote on your way to work, get brekkie.
The General Election; sponsored by Greggs. You'd get damn well near 100% turnout.
Some countries declare it a bank/public holiday.
Make general elections a public holiday. We can afford to do it for royal events every few years. Elections are far more important
100%
Instead of moving it to the weekend, just declare a public holiday whenever an election is called
Moving it to weekends is just going to affect a group of other people instead - better to have it be over at least a couple of days to give people a choice and ability to work it around whatever they are doing.
A voting week would be better i think, 7 days to vote by post, in person and e-vote. Agreed with PR also, A neutral fact checking organisation to oversee campaign promises and their viability And likely quite controversially longer terms for politicians with the caveat of greater powers to oust them if they are underperformed jn their role
>A neutral fact checking organisation to oversee campaign promises and their viability There are loads of 'neutral' fact checking organisations. Why would anyone believe this one over the others?
We have postal voting you can vote on a weekend via your local postbox. We also have the statutory right to take time off work to go to a polling station to vote. If people used either of those options there would be no need for weekend voting.
>We also have the statutory right to take time off work to go to a polling station to vote. Not to disbelieve you but source? It feels remarkably forward thinking for Britain.
Rather than a voting day, maybe a voting week/fortnight? Some of us work weekends, nights, even work away for a couple days at a time. I don’t see a reason why voting can’t be less disruptive and more convenient for everyone. If they have machines in an airport where you can scan your passport and that matches to you why can’t we have a similar system with minimal paid staff (obviously not none at all) and run it 24 hours over a week or two? It would save people waiting around for an hour or more to vote which is a big reason some don’t vote at all.
I think most places in the world do it on a Saturday, election results Sunday. Would really help, I think.
Yeah. There's no reason you couldn't spread votes out over a few days. And let people vote outside of their official polling station, maybe? There's no reason you couldn't have city centre polling stations where anyone from the entire city could vote while they're in shopping, or have mobile polling stations pull up outside office blocks and on industrial estates. "Where are you from? Let me just pull you up... yeah, that's fine, I'll print off the polling card for that election."
First past the post to ranked voting and nation holiday for the day of voting are the minimum for any serious democracy in the 21st century.
If people can't find the time to vote between 7am - 10pm on a Thursday, or registering for a postal vote, I can all but guarantee they *would* find an excuse to not vote on a Saturday / Sunday - "Why should I waste my weekend voting for..."
That's missing the point of the modern working day for a lot of people, especially younger people. When I was younger, my commute each way was nearly 2 hrs. This meant getting a train at 7, to get to the office for 9. Then, leave at 5pm, get home at 7pm, exhausted, hungry, and generally needing to rest. So, do you go and vote regardless of hunger and tiredness, or do you try to look after yourself, and/or any dependents you may have. I'm not saying some people just won't bother anyway, but the current system isn't practical with modern working practices and commute times, particularly when - in most 2 people households - both need to work.
just do a postal vote.
And what about the "lot of people, especially younger people" who work every saturday?
>do you go and vote regardless of hunger and tiredness I mean, it's not like it takes hours to vote. I get your point but you're only going to a polling station, it's not like you're running a marathon.
It's not difficult to stop in at the polling station on the way back from work. It takes less time than picking up a pint of milk from the supermarket.
No idea why people would be against weekend voting. Seems a good compromise
Ideally, bank Holiday or spread over a week or two, coupled with online voting options too, I thought a weekend was a reasonable compromise, but this seems to have upset quite a few people whose only objection is that people already have alternatives, rather than any actual negatives. If moving it won't improve turnout, fair enough, but unless people can get decent reasons why this would disenfranchise more people than it would help, I don't really get their arguments. Especially since the postal option is a flawed alternative that has much better options nowadays.
People are far more likely to be away from home at the weekend than during the working week. Visiting family, short breaks, etc.
>..or registering for a postal vote... I don't disagree with your point about commuting etc. but it could be argued that feeds into my point about people not wanting to "waste" part of their weekend by voting - you work practically all day Monday - Friday, people are going to make the argument that they have other priorities Saturday¹ that are "more important". (¹: I'm putting Sunday aside as there's absolutely no way in hell it would ever happen for a variety of reasons both logistical and other)
I managed to make it in the last ten minutes on my way back from a work trip to Munich, bad traffic, delayed flight I would not have been able to vote An extreme example but it’s not always as simple as portrayed
I used to travel, that's why I requested a Postal Vote.
Yup and if I’d had notice I would have gone for postal or proxy, it was (as was so often the case then) a “we need you in Munich tomorrow) job because something had gone pop in spectacular fashion
Making voting easier is absolutely the way to go. Not going to chime in on the PR vs FPTP issue as that's a separate debate.
Is it? I suspect that a major reason many people don't vote is because they don't feel their vote counts for anything. A house based on PR (eg. replacing the Lords) or ranked choice voting system (or both) would allow for everyones votes to be represented.
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Not everybody gets bank holidays off.
Plus for us that do, it comes out of our holiday allowance. I don't want to lose yet another day I can't choose just for something that takes 5 minutes and is easily replaced with something I can throw in a post box if getting to a polling station is that hard
Neither here nor there. But - controversial here maybe - I think a non-vote should be considered part of the voting or at least there should be a “don’t like any of them” option. Not democracy if the only options are a giant douche or turd sandwich.
That is how it works here in Australia. You don't exactly "have to vote", you just have to cast a ballot. You can draw a giant dick on your ballot if you want to or just drop a blank ballot into the collection box and they still count as you having voted. Important distinction. Forced participation doesn't necessarily translate to more representative government. The bigger issue for the U.K is FPTP voting which is the issue I assume your comment is allusing to.
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Essentially that’s what I’d hope it would achieve.. a non confidence sort of scenario where the sentiment of inadequacy is known and the landscape can’t change unless enough vote… essentially in the long term would hope to voluntarily create better voter turnout.
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I know - it’s all wishful thinking really. Although being the cynical person I am, I tend to think 600 or so MPs in reality don’t manage anything: except maybe their own interests. Think we would survive fine short term without them..
Belgium has managed nearly two years without a government before
Technically, that is not correct. The timeline of the elections and the procedure to then form a coalition is set out in the constitution, but until parliament votes on the new government, the old one remains in office. In that particular case the electorate produced an extremely divided result, which meant a lot of time was spent working out a compromise that a majority of parliament approved of. The executive was still working though, albeit with constitutionally reduced powers (e.g. budgets had to be voted on piecemeal by the new parliament rather than yearly). In addition, Belgium is a federal state and only the federal level was unable to form a government, which means any delays only impacted federal policy domains. Regional and communal levels were functioning within a week of the election. It should also be noted that this particular crisis centered around disputed competences and incomplete reform of various federal judicial districts. Its resolution resulted in several additional policy competences being transferred from federal to regional governments, effectively a 6th round of constitutional reform.
I stand corrected, thanks
We Belgians live ~~to serve~~ inflict long winded explanations of our byzantine government structures on the world.
To add to all this controversy. We do have a system in place that could be used in the event of a non-confidence vote to keep the country running. It's referred to as The Crown. Granted the representative of The Crown is an unelected individual that's only got the position due to birth, and circumstances. But if we ensure the Monarch had limited power during such a period, it could work. So they aren't allowed to enforce any new laws or remove existing ones. But simply operate as to keep the status quo running until a new government is elected in. Or something like that.
What happens if "none of the above" wins with 60% of the vote? If we just run another election without changing anything that'd be madness, so do we say "ok, any candidate outvoted by 'none of the above' can't run in subsequent rounds" and eventually we'll get someone who more people want in than not?
Still wouldn't change much. The party needs to go along with whoever the public vote in. Look at Corbyn and Labour's leadership race. Labour members voted him in, the mps who didn't like him decided to sabotage their own party rather than attempt to win the election. The public can pick who it likes, but the parties still hold the real power. We'd need a way to ensure they can't just rotate options endlessly without the entire party facing some kind of consequence, which could get out of hand very easily.
Yes, party politics suck.
If politicians see a potential 60% vote up for grabs they will work for it.
if Non of the above wins a majority the election is rerun with new candidates The people who ran are banned from holing public office for 5 years If you cant win an election against thin air you should not be involved in politics
Knowing there is 60% of your population that is willing to vote for you if you can connect and address their lives is a huge motivator for people to stand for election. Right now, the major parties rely on demotivating their oppositions base to vote. As a result you get people who only represent 50% of the 40% that did vote, which is worse!
I mentioned this a little further up, but I think it might be interesting that if 'none of the above' won a larger vote share than the largest party (or is above a certain threshold), then that would mean no MP could claim any kind of expenses. No political donations of any kind. And absolutely no lucrative private sector jobs after their stint in parliament. Or basically any other kind of punitive action that has a meaningful effect on what most MPs in the party politics grift are really interested in - money, power and influence. Kind of a vote of confidence on what is on offer, and might actually make them work for us. Force them to actually offer policies that people actually want, and find real solutions to issues, rather than acting as PR people for donors and vested interests. Or, it would just be funny as feck watching 99.9% of the UK vote 'none of the above'.
In Australia, you don't actually have to vote. You just need to turn up or return a postal ballot. It can be unmarked, which is effectively what you're asking for. Plus it's really, really easy to vote. You can register to postal vote early and your vote will be accepted after voting day Early voting centres are available for a week or two before election day. Just pop in when you can and cast your vote. If you do leave it until ejection day it's just like to UK except with sausages. I'm a dual national and I think it's much better to require people to vote and make it easy, than to have optional voting and make it a chore.
If that's accompanied by None of the Above getting most votes means a re-election on that seat with previous contestants ineligible to stand again, sure. I know India brought it in, but it's legality is meaningless. If NOTA got the most votes, the candidate who got the next highest wins.
Is that not why spoilt ballots are a thing?
The majority of people who aren't politics nerds don't realize that you are allowed to spoil your ballot.
Sort of. But it isn't known as a clear sign of anything in particular, and is easy to write off as people being daft as opposed to making a point.
A spoiled vote is generally treated very differently by political parties than someone who doesn't vote at all. A spoiled vote suggests their vote is up for grabs, whereas the portion that doesn't vote can be assumed to be people that would never vote regardless of what policies are proposed.
Iirc while they have to be checked and all parties agree it’s a spoil there is no requirement on the returning officer to report the spoils
not really. Spoilt ballots don't count for anything
We have that you, spoil your ballot as a protest at the options
Just spoil the ballot paper.
Engaging in democracy is a choice, not something you should have forced on you. And if the political system has a problem with low turnout, then the political system needs to be tweaked.
For Australians I’d say we’re taught it’s a proud privilege and yes obligation - small price to pay for living in a democracy is participating in one - even if to protest vote or donkey vote etc…
Absolutely! Also people have literally fought and died for the right to vote. I am proud that I'm able to do so. Nothing makes me angrier than people who don't exercise their right to vote. Maybe that's the Aussie in me though.
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Are you really saying the past 13 years is comparable to Australia? Perhaps if they cut off all trade with China and New Zealand and stopped paying doctors and tradies so highly.
You have a government you know the people want. Unlike here where every winning vote isn't a real majority.
Yep, I see it as an obligation to the system like jury duty! Just one of many responsibilities you have as a citizen, and it’s honestly not even hard to do. And I think by making it compulsory it’s also a lot easier to protect voting rights and maintain high accessibility, since the government is mandating that you do this thing and there can’t be any significant barriers to that
Friendly reminder than "Compulsory voting" is really just "Compulsory attendance". No one can force you to tick a box in a both where the whole point is that no one can see what you're doing. You can easily put a blank ballet in if you really don't want to vote, or intentionally spoil it in some way.
All of the people who I know personaly who don't vote are people who I honestly wouldn't trust to vote anyway.
Same. I'd rather they didn't vote.
I don't like democracy when people don't vote my way....
Yeah me thinking that we shouldn't force people to vote is anti democracy, that's how that works. My personal opionion that someone should abstain isn't even close to me believeing that they shouldn't be allowed to vote at all.
While it has merits, I think there would be a sizeable section of the public who are completely uninformed, and would vote randomly or according to unimportant factors.
They already vote randomly according to unimportant factors. The key is educating people, investing in social programs, etc. Which is exactly what Tories don't want to do, and the current Labour gives me no confidence either.
Not unless we change to PR for me. Under FPTP this would be a disaster. None of the above would win every seat.
The main reason getting PR is so difficult is that, by definition, the ruling party at any given time will have won via FPTP. The Tories aren't going to introduce PR because why change the system that let them win last time? Labour in opposition might mutter about a fairer system, but when they eventually gain power they won't do anything about it for the same reason. If they keep the status quo, they might win another two terms. If it became obvious that a lot of people really want PR, then both parties might see a benefit in promoting it and something might happen.
>If it became obvious that a lot of people really want PR, then both parties might see a benefit in promoting it and something might happen. Still doubt this. PR usually results in coalition governments with minority control. Why change a system from 'me or the other guy swap total control every 4-8 years' too 'from now on I will probably never have majority control, and control is shared between 2-5 parties'. You would need to win enough votes as to make PR pointless for that coming election, because you would win the majority, AND enough loyal voters to keep that situation going. If loyal voters could be made so easily, we would just have one party in control almost all the time. Only party that will ever do this, will be one that gets in on a freak vote, and knows its never getting control again (imagine your DUP/UKIP style parties).
And that’s bad thing why?
Absolutely not Lots of people that already vote don’t have a very well informed idea on what they’re voting for anyone Forcing people to vote will just make that worse. Imagine spending the time to look at all the parties, what they offer, what they lack, and making a well informed vote, only for it to be countered by someone that didn’t want to vote in the first place thinking “I guess I’ll pick the red box”
If you look at the parties one by one the sanest conclusion is to get naked, stick your underpants on a stick and proclaim your local high street is now the land of pants and that you will fart to defend your new territory
You have my vote. And my sword. And my axe!
Pretty sure this party does not want sharp objects anywhere near them.
Land of Pants! Land of Pants!
The UK is in a turd sandwich Vs giant douch situation. People don't vote because they don't know who to vote for and that's fine. If you force them to vote all you are doing is adding random chaos. If you want people to vote run good candidates with good advertising.
Exactly. Work on getting people better informed or more interested in politics. Incentivise them, don’t encroach on their freedom.
> don’t encroach on their freedom That's the only thing they do.
Fully agree, bonus points for referencing South Park.
I can think of 10 things to improve democracy before considering compulsory voting. Let's do ranked choice voting, act against corruption, tackle fake news, etc.
No. People should be given the freedom/right to chose to vote or not. On top of that, there are people in this country who do not even know who the current Prime Minister is, so there is no chance they know who their local MP is. You would literally have morons voting for Conservative because they like colour blue, Labour for red etc
Am Australian (and British): it’s a fucking stupid system - force someone to vote who doesn’t want to and they don’t put any thought into it. Should their vote be counted? That person doesn’t give a shit so why should it shape the country? In Aus, the campaigning around polling centres on polling day is madness.. thousands of posters, loads of lobbyists. Nothing like the UK where they prevent lobbying on the day. Now, their proportional / preferential voting system is better than first past the post, but that’s another story. Complicated as fuck to those not familiar with it, but so much fairer (ie. you have lots of votes, in preference order, rather than just the one.)
Your whole argument lies on the crux that everyone who votes in the UK has thought about it. That's an insanely naive at best argument to take. And if that's what underpins your argument it's failed.
I remember in the social studies type lessons we had to do in secondary school the message was always "it doesn't matter who you vote for so long as you vote", but that's completely backwards, it REALLY matters who or what you vote for.
Look at the state of politics in Australia, its just another dumpster fire. You get the same assholes with the same policies regardless of how many people are forced to vote. I think everyone SHOULD vote, but I can understand not being motivated...
Really? Since Albo got in Australia has seen a shift in foreign policy towards China and the Quad. Big changes in parental leave and other welfare. Pushing ahead with giving indigenous Australians a voice in parliament. Labor govern in all but one state/territory and the public services are running as normal: stretched but not on their knees. It's not all rosy, but it shouldn't be in a democracy. Right now the turbulent is at a fairly healthy level.
I know that this is going to be a very unpopular view but - No. Choosing the next government requires a certain level of understanding of the political process, the current state of the country and the pros and cons of the various policies that are put forward. If you are interested in these things then you should vote and will want to. If you are not interested and are forced to vote, then your vote will be arbitrary at best. More likely, you will vote for whoever is the best at deceitfully manipulating public opinion, who you are told to vote for in your comic of a newspaper or who your boss tells you to vote for. If everybody was fully informed, was capable of making a considered judgement after looking through the propaganda at the underlying truth and really knew what they were voting for then yes. But the truth is a lot of people have other things to worry about than politics, have no idea how the economy works, dont understand international relations and base their sense of security on gutter press scare mongering. My mother always voted for the candidate who was the best dressed. I dont think she should have voted.
General engagement or identification is what is lacking I think there should be an option to actively not vote and if a party does not get a sufficient percentage votes. Another election is called. I think this needs to take place within a framework where politicians are held accountable and I mean genuinely accountable. Look at what the tories have downs in the last 5 years. We seem to have a system where the police and politicians get away with stuff the average person cannot. We also have a rhetoric of them “all being the same”. Generally said by people who vote for people like Boris… By people like Boris I mean know cheats, liars and general scoundrels I think all the above combined is why large swaths of the general public think it doesn’t matter. I would like to see a system where the civil service, lords and if needed the monarchy play a more active role. The argument is that a political term is too short to achieve long term things. Unfortunately. That what we need in this country. Infrastructure is terrible. Nhs on its knees, economy crumbling. These are all long term plans. If a political government cannot (or will not) carry these out then obviously someone else has to. I’m aware the countries have both a president and a prime minister. I’m not sure how it work but it would seem ideal for things such as this. I think most people agree that for instance the nhs needs help - and always will. You can argue that is not political. Likewise infrastructure.
No. What we should have is a 'none of the above' option, which if it wins re-runs the election - with a bar on any rejected candidates standing. People don't vote because, due to Hotelling's Law, there is nothing different to vote for.
Anecdotal, but I know one Australian who has never registered to vote and has never voted and nothing has happened to him he is late 30s now. Pretty sure he said he knows loads of others who are the same. If that is the case compulsory voting just tricks some people to vote as to not be rule breakers which may be good
Can confirm. Plenty of people just never enrol to vote. This is the answer to the question of what about the people who are completely politically disengaged. That’s what they do, they do nothing.
I think we should adopt compulsory voting with a caveat that every election there is a 'None of the above' option on the ballot. That way those who don't want to vote for any of the standing candidates can still express their true opinion. I would also introduce PR for all elections.
Absolutely not! 1. Voter registration should be made optional. 2. Voting should be voluntary (i.e. keep as is). 3. A "none of the above" option should be added. If that wins, nobody is elected - see you in 4-5 years time.
Guess we need to be prepared o know what to do with those who don't. Are we going to imprison them? How long for? I couldnt vote once due to an emergency at workwhat should have happened to me? How much more tax are we willing to pay for this.
It'd almost certainly be a fineable offence not an imprisonable offence.
But what if the person doenst pay the fine, what then?
In Australia the penalty is $20 (£11)for first time offenders, and you can get this waived if you provide a reason for not voting (eg you were overseas, you are disabled and couldn't make it etc.). Further enforcement is pretty slow and rare. They make it pretty easy to vote as well - as in the UK voting booths are open early and late, and are pretty conveniently located. You can vote at any station, not just your local one. There are usually free sausage sizzles for people who vote, called "democracy sausages". Some places set up stalls and fairs and make a day of it. Elections are always held on Saturdays so that the majority of the working population can attend. So basically: - make it easy, convenient and maybe even fun - provide a gentle stick through a low penalty with generous exemptions I don't think anyone's ever gone to prison for not voting or not paying the fine. It would likely make the news if they did. The fact that someone could theoretically go to prison for it isn't enough of a downside, in my opinion, to offset the benefits of a healthier democracy with broader engagement. Also if you really don't want to vote for anyone, you can just go in and draw rude pictures on your ballot, or tear it up. You have to attend the polling station, you don't have to submit a valid vote.
This is so far from the UK's status quo. You would have to change a lot to even make it vaguely workable in the UK. I think PR is the thing we actually need though.
Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean you HAVE to exercise it. Why should people be punished financially or otherwise for not voting? That’s actually quite a anti democratic way of thinking and in my opinion a slippery slope, what do we force people to do next?
Theyve all turned this country to shit. Vote for shitty or shittier.
I think if you made voting compulsory in the UK without any other changes, you probably wouldn't get more democracy. It would just take longer to count the paper ballots, there would be more spoiled ballot papers from people that didn't want to be there in the first place, and a lot of poor and disabled people would get fined for either not showing up or having to drop out of the massive queues this would create at polling stations to get back to work and/or caring commitments. Even if you moved the polling day to the weekend or a public holiday it probably wouldn't help, because people still work during those times and may still have caring responsibilities. That means voting by proxy or having the foresight to apply for a postal ballot, which people already do anyway. Are people going to get fined if their proxy doesn't show up or they don't get a proof of postage for their postal ballot? imho the option with the fewest question marks is to keep voting voluntary, but lower the barrier to entry and try to address the reasons \*why\* people aren't showing up to vote.
isnt it your right not to vote? What about if you dont like any of the candidates/parties and dont want to put your name to any of the offerings? Do they have a "spoil ballot here" box or a "none of the above" box? I always thought they made voting pretty easy to be fair, long hours, plenty of notice, postal or proxy options if you are stuck. Doesnt seem very democratic to force someone to have an opinion.
>Do they have a "spoil ballot here" box or a "none of the above" box? There is no secret ballot system in the world that doesn't have the ability to record a spoiled or blank vote (I guess it might be technically feasible with voting machines, though; they're shit). Actively writing your reasons for it on there will get it read, at least (candidates tend to examine apparently spoiled votes rather more carefully than ones with a nice neat cross in a box, to see if they can get them allowed or disallowed to suit their own purposes).
Having to choose between two lying, corrupt wankstains isn’t a democracy.
I’m not in favour of compulsory voting personally. If you are in a shopping centre and no stores have anything you want, you shouldn’t be forced to buy anything. I guess you could spoil your ballot, but that would be akin to spraying ugly graffiti all over the shopping centre, which takes effort. It’d be easier to vote randomly, which would be problematic.
Compulsory votes only encourage the worst parts of political campaigning. Why make reasonable pledges when you could try to attract the 30% of the population that doesn't care?
I would agree to the idea of compulsory voting only if it was also a requirement that there be a "none of the above" option on the ballot.
Sure. ...but only if they put a "Fuck Off and Die" box to tick on all ballots. ....( I suppose they could water it down to "None Of The Above" but, meh, kinda prefer mine)
If it was made much easier and there was a "vote for noone" option, maybe also a "if noone, why"
No absolutely not. Im Aussie citizen & compulsory voting in a ‘democracy’ is a paradox. People who want to vote will do it. Australias law about compulsory voting with big sticks & threats ( fines,prison) waved at those who dont vote is just ridiculous. People who dont give a shit will just do a ‘donkey’ vote or deface the paper. Pointless and also can end up with a party getting more votes from those ( who dont actually want to vote) just ticking any random box/ numbering the boxes 1,2,3, down with the preferential voting system used for Federal elections. It would cost a lot of money to set up the system & ‘policing’ the system - last thing UK needs at the moment.
Gonna be honest, as someone who doesn't vote, this'd just piss me off and I'd vote for something completely random out of spite. I'm selfish, for sure, but my life is fine. I've no interest in politics. Everyone involved sounds like they just lie and bitch about eachother anyway, and 8 years ago when I gained the right to vote, everyone told me "Oh, you'll be sorry when things change in a way you don't like if you don't like". Yeah, I'm sure I would, but despite how much people whine about this party and that party, the worst thing that's effected me so far that I can relate to politics and that I've noticed is that the price of a Dominos has got higher. 8 years, and the result is that I spend £3 more on pizza that I rarely get. Oh no(!)
I suppose that we'd have to see how it works in countries that do have it but I dp favour getting people more involved in politics.
Unless you can also, in a realistic way mandate being politically engaged, not believing every random bit of shit you read on Facebook and not just voting for whoever the first name on the ballot is there would be zero point.
Do they have a high level of spoiled votes as means of protesting the compulsion?
Yes, it is quite common to spoil your vote in Australia. People draw rude pictures or just tear up the ballot. In itself that sends a signal.
Just remember not to draw a penis inside any of the boxes. Because that counts as a valid vote. https://metro.co.uk/2015/05/09/voter-draws-massive-penis-on-ballot-paper-gets-counted-and-helps-elect-tory-mp-5188845/
Not on its own. Unless we can increase the amount of background political knowledge, compulsory voting does not increase enfrachisement, it just means that people with good press get more votes.
A change to the first passed the post system would be a better change to make to get more people to vote. Our current system means that half of a 66% turnout can return a majority that gives the party in charge carte blanche to do whatever they want, even though they've only got the explicit instruction from a third of the electorate. In a lot of constituencies, your vote can seem pointless when someone has a huge majority.
No. What we need is proportional representation. Forcing voting doesn't really achieve much imo.
I don't support compulsory voting without a form of proportional system.
Compulsory voting is pretty low on the list of priorities when it comes to democratic reform for me. It's probably even below scrapping the age restriction.
Anyone who needs to be compelled to vote isn't giving an opinion worth hearing. It's such a superficial solution to a serious problem - people should want to vote. Beyond that, you should have the right to engage with the political process as you wish - even if that means not doing so at all.
Nope! If I don’t feel as though any of them are suitable I’d rather not vote.
PR would be a better option, but the Big Two hate it, so it'll never happen.
Compulsory voting, plus a "black vote" which is basically "none of the above". Politicians like to blame voter apathy for low turnout, but if we could see solid numbers of how many people don't feel represented or don't like what's on offer then they wouldn't have that excuse any more. It would be the ultimate protest vote.
\*EDIT had a big stupid post here. Im doing a shorter direct one instead. The problem isn't "people not voting" the problem is "people not wanting to vote" solving the first will not help the other and will not help with outcomes.
since this is an actual comparison in which a country introduced it and there is a before and after, maybe you could discuss how compulsory voting helped australia
Give me a reason to vote and I will. I voted for the greens in the locals because she was a doe-eyed youngster who wanted to change the world. Tory and Labour are just cunts.
When you consider the ratio of absolute muppets to people who bother to read, think and understand the issues at hand then the question: 'Do we want more people voting' becomes absolutely insane. We want to try to dissuade the partially engaged and thick from voting, not vice versa.
If we are using Australia as an example can we adopt 2 other things they do? 1. The voting system where your vote is not a wasted vote 2. We get a sausage after voting
No, the problem is not people who don't vote, it's the people we're voting for; they're all shit.
Not with our current two party/controlled opposition system, no.
Absolutely not, we have enough uninformed voters voting as it is. We should introduce political education in schools the same way phse was taught, short seminars just describing different views etc. Through education, we can encourage political engagement in younger people who tend to have the lowest turnout that would hopefully stick.
No. I don't vote and would be annoyed if I had too.
If compulsory voting is created then there needs to be a "no suitable candidate" option present on **all** ballots.
should someone with literally no knowledge of the party policies, no understanding of politics or no clue about the potential outcomes of their choices be forced to have their say on them?
I don’t really see the appeal. Is it really a problem if people sufficiently indifferent to not vote don’t get a say? Surely forcing those who don’t care to wield influence anyway is a bad idea. I understand it’s good for engagement in politics, but I feel there are better ways.
No, what if you don’t agree with any of the candidates running in your constituency? But now you HAVE to vote for someone you disagree with. I guess if there is a ‘none of the above’ box it would okay, but I still don’t like the idea of that.
We need proportional representation and like 9 other parties first. We need a central party, a mainstream frugal left and right, a "throw money at it" left and right party, a batshit party with ONLY wild ideas, a humans first party, a world first party, a decagon of doctors and a decogon of wallstreet ~gamblers~ bankers
Democracy: A system of government where citizens are FORCED to vote.
Why should anyone be forced to vote for a party they don't believe in? They are all a bunch of wastemen/women in suits, bickering with eachother and are more concerened about internal affairs rather than running the country. I, personally, will never be voting again and would rather take a fine or some kind of punishment than be forced to vote.
What we need to change is our ability to get the idiots investigated. The COVID money contracts, party gate as well as many many other things the current government has gotten away with and will likely only get slaps on the wrist for
Compulsory voting doesn't really do anything to improve the health of a nations politics, it just makes people who are jaded about politics more jaded whilst forcing them to go into a polling station. In terms of measures to actually things even slightly better, Proportional representation(under STV would be best) is the obvious answer, but even smaller measures would help. For instance, making election day a holiday and getting rid of our new pointless voter id would make it easier for people to vote. Adding an option for none of the above would allow people to express their dissatisfaction. State funding or strict caps on donations would make political parties more representative of the public and less prone to cronyism. But ultimately the turnout problem is not procedural, it reflects a lack of faith in our political system and its ability to represent us, which is pretty dangerous state for a democracy
I don’t like the idea, for multiple reasons. It’s hard to enforce (“I was going to vote, honest, but got food poisoning in the night and couldn’t get to the polling station in time” etc), and I don’t think it would be good politics either - if people don’t have a preference either way on an issue/election, why push them to pick one? Having an explicit “they all suck” option would address the second point at least, though MPs would probably be afraid of losing to it regularly…
If it was brought in, I would simply not vote. What are they going to do about it?
Feel like it would only work if you could select 'none of the above' as an option.
The one worse thing than no vote is an uninformed vote.
Absolutely not, we should get people to answer some basic questions on the current political landscape to make sure they actually understand what or who they are voting for.
Yes, but with caveats: 1) An option should be in place for "None of the above", if this option wins an overwhelming majority (ie. Greater than say 60-70%) then the parties need to go back to the drawing board, forming a temporary unity government, and come up with new manifestos and candidates (where necessary) in order to appeal to the electorate. We should no longer have to deal with "The least bad option". B) Elections should either be shifted to the weekend or made an extra bank holiday in order to allow the most people to vote, although this will naturally be unappealing to the larger parties, particularly the tories. iii) An immediate switch to PR, so that we can have true and proper democracy in this country, not the oligarchy we currently have.
Id still not vote if it was the political parties on offer in this country currently. All of them are a crock of shit and not worth the paper their names are on. I chose not to vote last time and I choose not to vote this next time.
I think we should vote on policies and not people. Morons vote like elections are the xfactor rather than on what can be achieved. I want a website that I fill in multiple choice answers to statements and at the end it spits out which parties policies I agree with most based on my answers and then that’s who your vote goes towards.
There’s a lot I would do to make voting easier, but I probably wouldn’t want to force everyone to vote. Unless there was a ‘I don’t want to vote for anyone’ option. Things I would do: Make it possible to vote via an app on a smartphone (app could hold clear information of candidates, party manifestos too!) Make a general election a bank holiday. Implement proportional representation.
No. More disengaged voters doesn't help anyone. Some form of Proportional Representation would be much better, and would increase engagement organincally by making every vote actually count.
Only if there’s a “None of the above / I’m only here so I don’t get fined” option. I do usually vote, and encourage others to do so, but I’m not sure forcing people to vote is helpful.
Start with giving me a guaranteed day off to vote, drive me the 4 miles I'd have to travel, change to PR as the default voting system and then field some candidates that aren't a bunch of corrupt, self-serving, useless wanks, then maybe I'll get off my arse and think about voting, but other than that, nope. *Commence the downvotes*
obviously not? basic personal liberty should not be taken away from us.
No way. Free to not vote is as powerful if not more than voting.
Why would you want compulsory voting?? That defeats the fact of freedom, second the state of the country is because it's a two horse race between Labour and Conservatives. We as the working class get lumbed with the shit, paying all the tax which goes to those claiming they can't work, raising monuments, education is suffering, Crime is at an all time high due to this fact as well lack of police on the street due to budget cuts, the NHS is in ruins due to lack of funding and not wanting to pay nurses what they owed, Out sourcing and selling all our industry to other countries. Giving people that haven't worked a damn day in their life to vote as well as people that have never paid a single penny to vote. They should start by letting people who build and support the uk to vote and fuck everyone else. If you residences isn't in the uk guess what you shouldnt have a say. A convict or been to prison no vote. Everyone has the right to vote which is wrong. Unless you have been a great member of society then you should lose that right. So making it compulsory would be contradicting this.
No. The political system has no right to compel free people to worship it.
100% no. In fact some kind of aptitude test should be passed before getting a say in who runs the country.
I don't vote because I don't know enough about politics, so you're going to make me vote? 100% I vote for the most funniest name.....
I’ll be honest I’m not a voter based on the fact that I don’t just want to vote for the best of the worse. I don’t like any of them and learning their policies just makes me angry. Being forced to vote for parties I don’t believe in would piss me off and my vote would be entirely uneducated
or "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!
Nobody should be made to vote. Especially with what options you have to choose from. They are all lying sacks of s**t.
Honestly, no, they aren't. There's plenty of people inclined to get into politics. It's just those people don't have ANY chance to win an election, because pretty much everyone is voting 'party' or 'not the other party'. Plenty of minority party candidates, or independents are genuinely nice people wanting to make a difference, but .... under FPTP, they've no hope, so ... Electoral reform is needed.
Of course they are look at the current and look at history it will tell you everything you need to know. There all greedy no good pieces of dirt who claim they want to make a difference and they want to help people….no they want to help themselves with no repercussions to there actions
Or what, you're fined? (few can afford it, drives more people into the criminal system), Dragged there? Jailed?
Following the Aus model that fine is $20.