good idea/bad idea, necessary democratic reform or authoritarian imposition? are there better or worse ways to do it?
Feels authoritarian to me. I think everyone should vote! But I wouldn’t force people to. If you did, I suspect that a lot of votes that ordinarily wouldn’t have been cast would be spoiled anyway
Being able to not choose is, to me, as valid as actually making a choice. So while I do think it could be beneficial, I also hate the idea of losing even just that little bit of freedom. I never like the removal of options.
How would you feel about compulsory voting with an explicit option to decline both candidates?
It would certainly make the choice extremely deliberate.
In Canada we vote with a pencil on a piece of paper so I have spoiled my ballot in the past by not selecting a candidate and writing “NO” on the ballot
I would suggest in the future that instead of spoiling your ballot you can decline your ballot instead. Spoiled ballots are considered rejected because it’s not clear if you meant to vote for someone but messed up versus not wanting to vote. Declined ballots are separately counted and will show political parties that there are eligible voters who went through the work to show up but intentionally did not want to support any candidates on the ballot.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/ontario-votes-2022-declined-ballots-rise-1.6466308
You could still not choose. “I abstain” and “none of these” are valid votes. Submitting an empty ballot would satisfy the law while preserving the right not to choose.
That said, some have a religious prerogative to not vote, and should be eligible for an exemption.
Even better, it makes your rejection explicit. Someone who doesn’t nake the effort to turn up to the polls isnt worth chasing their vote. Someone who turns up and says “Y’all shit” is a swing voter who can be swayed with the right policies. (Of course this all requires a healthy democracy without geremandering fuckery).
Australia has compulsory voting with penalties for not voting. It ensures that people who don’t think they have a voice or that their vote doesn’t change anything actually are required to make their voice heard, even if they think that it doesn’t matter.
We also have first past the post voting, so using said voice is never a waste.
FPTP is the shitty undemocratic system America and the UK use.
We use Instant Runoff Voting, which is a type of preferential (also called “ranked choice”) system. Which, as you say, means you aren’t wasting your vote by voting third party.
Australia has a lot of really borderline fascist ideas. Not a great argument.
Some people in Australia absolutely have ideas like you describe, fortuitously the rest of us don’t have to vote for them.
Do you really want to force cousin cleatus to be involved in the leadership decisions for the country? There are entirely too many people out there with zero clue what the issues of the day even are much less to have an informed opinion on them outside what the nice person in the interwebs/TV told them is the answer.
i find this a very unpersuasive argument in any context because—if you actually believe it—it’s essentially an argument for bringing back literacy/intelligence testing in voting. and i’m sure i don’t need to tell you about the long history of that being used to disenfranchise the “wrong” people for the crime of having a certain skintone or believing in equal rights for everyone; to say nothing of other ethical issues with the notion.
You’re mixing two opposite issues there, the literacy tests you mention where in an effort to exclude people from voting.
In this this topic your asking if we should FORCE the uninformed and disinterested to vote.
These are anything but the same.
the literacy tests you mention where in an effort to exclude people from voting.
yes, which was justified with the notion of there supposedly being people who were “too uneducated” or “not-literate enough” to make decisions for themselves and therefore deserve an equal right to vote—which is the same underlying sentiment of “Do you really want to force cousin cleatus to be involved in the leadership decisions for the country?”
Mandatory voting, for people who have passed a morality test, and a competency test.
Nobody else is allowed to vote.
You really don’t want tests to prevent voting. They will be used entirely for voter supression.
Yeah because there’s definitely no voter suppression going on already. Let’s make sure the dregs of society can share their dumbass opinions when things come to a general vote.
