We have about a 60% turnout... — Isaac
That 40%... who are they? If they did "turn out", how would the vote change? What is the systemic bias here? — Banno
The two main political parties here only managed to garner about a third of votes each. Because of proportional representation, a third of the Australian Senate consists of minor parties, with whom the government must make deals in order to pass legislation. They actually have to talk and negotiate. — Banno
That 40% makes a huge difference to who has the cross-bench seats. — Banno
My suggestion is that compulsory voting, especially in combination with proportional representation, leads to greater diversity within parliament, and that this is an overall good. — Banno
Refusal to cast one's vote can be, inter alia, because one has lost faith in the process (rigging, poor quality candidates, and so on) or for the reason that one prefers/advocates for getting rid of democracy for a more authoritarian alternative. — Agent Smith
This obsession with (benevolent) despots is (psychologically) most intriguing, wouldn't you agree? — Agent Smith
So, Starling swarming behavior is chaotic? How exactly is it so? They give me the impression of syncrhonized events/sports, the kind you see in the Olympics. — Agent Smith
I'm fairly certain I'd rather live in a democracy than any of the other available options. — Isaac
I don't vote (and never have) — Isaac
mainly because of the first past the post system in the UK, I probably would if we had PR, but I still would object strongly to any deification of voting. It acts, when treated that way, like an opiate, allowing people to think they 'done' politics by ticking a box once every five years, and can then rest on their laurels for the intervening time.
How does a president represent the will of millions of strangers? You can't represent someone's will unless you know their will. Just getting elected by the strangers doesn't grant you some magical ability to know their will once elected. — Yohan
If enough people don't vote, a minority can, through what is on principle a democratic election, establish a dictatorship and abolish democracy altogether. — baker
In a political situation that is this dynamic, voting does make a difference. — baker
But enough people do vote. — Isaac
Yeah. I don't object to voting, or with a compulsion to vote where it's necessary. What I object to is the ludicrous notion that I have no means at my disposal to check whether I'm in such a circumstance prior to any given election. It's absurd. I know the political landscape in my part of the world very well. I know almost exactly how much use my vote will or won't be. Where it won't be of any use, there's no point in doing it. It's not magic, it's just a bit of paperwork. It either needs doing or it doesn't.
A democratically elected representative is supposed to represent the will of the democratic republic, is how I thought its supposed to work.Representative democracy is about the elected people representing those that voted for them. Not everyone. — baker
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