latest blow against democracy

[Aquarius]

Talking of voting anyone any idea who won the by election held in Gt. Harwood on June 30th.

[Margaret Pilkington]

How can we say that this government is 'democratically'elected when something like 39% of the population failed to vote.....? This Government is almost ruling by default, because it doesn't have a majority mandate.........people need to be educated about their rights to vote and see it as their civil responsibility.

There was an article in the paper today about being 'forced' to vote........if you truly don't want to vote then you can spoil your ballot paper........write on it, or put it in the ballot box blank.......but it means you have to think about that choice......nobody makes you vote for a particular candidate or party. Though I suspect that the Labour party would bring this in hoping that they would get the votes. It is a fair assumption that the disenfranchised youth and the socially challenged would be unlikely to vote Conservative.

The Electorate has lost faith in the politicians....and I speak from personal experience.
Maybe Electoral reform is long overdue.......maybe proportional representation would solve some of the problems......but the main problem is apathy, and that is very hard to reverse.

[chav1]

yes you could spoil your vote but the fact still remains that you would still be forced to go to the polling station so that you could spoil your vote so your freedom of choice is still been taken away from you

The Electorate has lost faith in the politicians

not surprising when nearly every week a politition is exposed as either a crook , sexual devient or for abusing their position

[grego]

I dont always use my vote, but I dont agree with losing that choice.

[chav1]

i do think people should vote but i would never demand that somone voted it simply isnt any of my buisness

[Margaret Pilkington]

No, Chav.......you could register for a postal vote. In fact the postal voting fiasco was supposed to get more people to vote........that was one time when I didn't vote........I thought it was very confusing.......I would prefer to take myself off to the polling station...even if I am going to make a void vote.

[chav1]

i think you have misunderstood somwhere along the line

what i am saying is that if a person dosnt want to vote they shouldnt have to no matter what sytems are put in place like postal , email , carrier pigeon or whatever method is thought of if a person dosnt want to vote they should not be made to do so

freedom of choice is one of the few rights we have left and labour want to take it away from us it would seem

[entwisi]

If attendance at teh station is compulsory then we should definately get a

'None of this shower of $*&!'

option. If we have to tell them how we feel we should be given the opportunity to express our true feeling.

I too always vote. I believe you can't complain about the current goverment if you didn't do your bit to change it. However finding a viable alternative does seem to be getting more and more difficult.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I agree with you entwisi, and this last election was a nightmare......but I did vote.

What point is there in having a democracy (so called) if people do not exercise their right to vote..........and you do have freedom of choice. You are free to choose who to vote for.

Like I said in an earlier post it is compulsory to vote in Australia, and australians do not see that their rights are compromised by this. How can you have a democracy when more than a third of the population do not vote.......?

[cashman]

to me freedom of choice who to vote for is limited freedom of choice.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Gordon Prentice has suggested giving people who vote a free lottery ticket....in an attempt to encourage people to vote.
It would be far better if the politicians realised that the prime reason why people don't vote is because they have lost faith in all politicians.

The politicians need to get their act together and listen to what the electorate is saying.