Arising from the Referendum

Shiminay

Hello all,

This is my first time posting here as Politics isn't something I have a massive ongoing interest in (my brother's the political member of the family). However, I have a few questions that have nothing really to do with the issues for or against the Lisbon Treaty, but are related to our voting process.

1) Turnout.
I find it difficult to believe that we can allow governments to change, referenda to be passed etc when we get such low turnouts at the polling stations. I think I read somewhere that we had around 40% turn out for yesterday? This cannot possibly be considered a fair representation of what the people think?
I'm not sure why voting isn't mandatory, or at the very least why people aren't chased for not voting or "removed" from the society they didn't help create.
It's not a perfect system that we have, but it more or less works I suppose. I just hate seeing such a half-arsed job being done by the people it represents.

2) This one's more specific to yesterday I guess, but applies to all similar ellections:
It seems that a lot of people who did vote yesterday didn't understand what they were voting for. This *really* frightens me. Why are people voting if they don't know what they're voting for? I confess, I'm one of the many who didn't understand what was at stake and the few attempts I made to learn some more about it left me confused.

Does it not make more sense to go and spoil your vote instead of saying no because you don't understand or yes cause you're party leader told you to? All of Europe will look at us with distain because we the people couldn't inform ourselves and our ellected representatives did little to explain it to us. I just feel that irrespective of the result, we've let ourselves as a nation down badly by taking this approach. Does not 40 or 50% of the votes being spoiled send a better "this is what we thinnk of this campaign!" message?

As I said, I'm not a regular here, but I'm curious to hear your opinions on these 2 points. I'm certainly not looking to cause more stress for the community of regulars you have here or for the very hard working mods in what's been a hectic couple of weeks for them I'm sure

seamus

Kharn wrote: »

1) Turnout.
I find it difficult to believe that we can allow governments to change, referenda to be passed etc when we get such low turnouts at the polling stations. I think I read somewhere that we had around 40% turn out for yesterday? This cannot possibly be considered a fair representation of what the people think?
I'm not sure why voting isn't mandatory, or at the very least why people aren't chased for not voting or "removed" from the society they didn't help create.

I have no real problem with mandatory voting, except with one caveat; If you're going to require that people cast a vote, then you need to provide some way of them offering their own opinion. "Yes" or "No" isn't sufficient. You would need to add, "I don't want to choose either option, please try again", and/or, "I don't understand the issue enough to choose either way".

In the case of General Elections, you would need a "none of the above" option.

Does it not make more sense to go and spoil your vote instead of saying no because you don't understand or yes cause you're party leader told you to? All of Europe will look at us with distain because we the people couldn't inform ourselves and our ellected representatives did little to explain it to us. I just feel that irrespective of the result, we've let ourselves as a nation down badly by taking this approach. Does not 40 or 50% of the votes being spoiled send a better "this is what we thinnk of this campaign!" message?

Well, the problem is clearly that many people misunderstand the point of voting and think that their vote is somehow going to represent their own agenda, whether it's, "That Bertie fecker will pay" or, "I want the EU to come in and take over". For some reason, they seem unable to realise that there is no connection between their agenda and the issue being voted upon.

DeVore

Boy, I dont want to live in KrAzY Kharnworld!

I didnt vote. I generally dont vote. I have my reasons but suffice it to say that I appreciate the OPTION to vote (and I did in the election of Mary Robinson, simply because I couldnt abide the thought of Haughey and Lenihan in the two highest offices in the land).

I'm very sorry that people "died for my vote". I didnt ask them to. I think you'll also find that they died for my RIGHT to vote, not for it to be mandatory.

On the flip side, as a result of not voting, I am willing to accept the outcome of the vote as it stands. (I reserve my right to voice criticism of the elected representatives but I dont assign blame for their actions on the voters who elected them.)

To say we should hound the people who didnt vote is a bit silly.

Secondly, this was (despite the mindboggling reports to the exact opposite) a quite high turnout, I think we have only had one referendum with a higher turnout (the divorce one). I believe the turn out for Lisbon was 54% ??

Spoiled votes are a waste of time. Spoiled votes are an interesting statistical which are then ignored the next day. A no vote cant be ignored and if people are being asked to vote for change or not, I can understand why people chose to vote No.
I dont accept their reasoning, I think there were many places to get information about this treaty, but I understand the human psychology behind their thinking.

DeV.

johnnyq

DeVore wrote: »

Boy, I dont want to live in KrAzY Kharnworld!

I didnt vote. I generally dont vote. I have my reasons but suffice it to say that I appreciate the OPTION to vote (and I did in the election of Mary Robinson, simply because I couldnt abide the thought of Haughey and Lenihan in the two highest offices in the land).

I'm very sorry that people "died for my vote". I didnt ask them to. I think you'll also find that they died for my RIGHT to vote, not for it to be mandatory.

On the flip side, as a result of not voting, I am willing to accept the outcome of the vote as it stands. (I reserve my right to voice criticism of the elected representatives but I dont assign blame for their actions on the voters who elected them.)

To say we should hound the people who didnt vote is a bit silly.

Secondly, this was (despite the mindboggling reports to the exact opposite) a quite high turnout, I think we have only had one referendum with a higher turnout (the divorce one). I believe the turn out for Lisbon was 54% ??

Spoiled votes are a waste of time. Spoiled votes are an interesting statistical which are then ignored the next day. A no vote cant be ignored and if people are being asked to vote for change or not, I can understand why people chose to vote No.
I dont accept their reasoning, I think there were many places to get information about this treaty, but I understand the human psychology behind their thinking.

DeV.

I heard on the radio about the guy who snuck in a letter with his vote. I wonder did that spoil his vote.

Technically if it's mandatory voting you could also just leave the vote blank which I guess would suffice no opinion.

I would oppose mandatory voting. If people can't or don't want to vote for whatever reason I think people have to respect that.

Sparks

DeVore wrote: »

Boy, I dont want to live in KrAzY Kharnworld!

I think the Aussies would object to that name

TelePaul

Kharn wrote: »

Why are people voting if they don't know what they're voting for?

Because in many cases, people were told to vote 'no' if the didn't understand.

steviec

A 40% turnout makes for numbers that are a plenty big enough sample size in statistics to be considered representative so I've no problem there.

I do think that having people vote on things they don't understand is a problem though. Politicians are elected to do a job and in instances like this I think it would be better left to them to do it.

I guess the counter argument is that the public should have a say in something so important to them. But I'd say that heart surgery is pretty important to me, but I'd rather let my doctor do it without my input, and I think large parts of politics should be treated the same way because there are issues involved that need a lot of time and research invested in them and the average voter doesn't have the time or interest to invest in a proper informed decision. Those voters that do are drowned out by the majority, who just base their decision on whichever campaign was most convincing.