Newsgroups: aus.politics
Subject: Re: Compulsory voting (Re: Will Victorians vote stupid yet again...?)
From: mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au
Date: 6 Nov 92 11:19:15 CST
 <1992Nov4.150018.164987@dstos3.dsto.gov.au> <1992Nov5.062459.22056@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>

suter@fawlty8.eng.monash.edu.au (Mr D. Suter) writes:

>If you recognised this simple fact (put another way, we are not
>all political zealots who will vote
>for a particular party for no clear reason, 
Maybe some of these political zealots are so for very good
reasons.

>At least change the situation so that ABSTAINING is recognised
>for what it is - and intelligent reaction when the alternative
>is to toss a coin and be wrongly counted as supporting something.
>SURELY that is a fundamental right.
As I said abstaining is valid on single issues but in an
election there is very likely to be some distinguishing
factor (however small) to aid the discision. I would like to
be able to give equal preferences to some candidates, but I
doubt if that is a countable solution. I too am very pissed
off because I am tired of giving preference to labor over
liberal because I see it as being SLIGHTLY better. I have
wanted to preference Liberal for the last few elections but each
time I hold off because the liberal party seems to get more
RABID each time round.

>>democratically and fairly and we have to put some effort
>>back into that system, and voting once in three years is
>>such an impossition. No one would seriously suggest that
>>people should have the free choice to opt out of the
>>taxation system because they don't like it's style.
>No they wouldn't so why drag it in?
Because in the same way that you would be making me pay
more than my share by opting out, you are potentially
devaluing my vote by opting out.

>Which includes abstaining where appropriate. Jesus, otherwise you
>can be quoted as supporting the bastards!
For me much of this would disappear if we had proportional
representation.

>>I think this is just a case of the problem of the commons,
>>it would be nice if we only had to vote if we cared to, but
>>if we want to ensure everyone can vote effectively, then
>>everyone must vote.
>Oh, I see. Because someone may take the STUPID attitude
>that they may as well not vote because their party has no
>chance of winning  - *I* am denied the intelligent
>option of abstaining when I've tried to find a good
>choice but can't and must be lowered to the STUPID
>reaction of choosing someone at random. You do
>have a good way of reducing everyone to the lowest
>common denominator. 
You have still not answered the major problem here. If you
really think there is no differnce between X and Y you will
vote at random, however, this will cancel out on average
with someone just like you so neither X nor Y is advantaged.
However, you will be placing the group {X,Y} above or below
the other candidates, so if you opted out it would give a
disadvantage to {X or Y} voters and an advantage to others.
These others could wrongly get control of the seat or
parliament.

Why in this entire discussion have you consistently failed
to address the fact that your opting out devalues other's
votes?

>Worse than that - we have people like Brendan Jones and John Collier
>saying that I am simply lazy, take ALL of the good things of a democratic
>process and take NONE of the responsibilities where if I simply
>succumb and cast a random vote I am presumably meeting
>thier standard.
>It's mindless sheer hypocracy!
>d.s.

David, it is imperfect but it is substantially better than
the alternative.

Michael
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