Voting

I have a busy day tomorrow, but there’s a provincial election here in Ontario so I was trying to figure out to fit voting in. It led me to wonder how people value voting these days. When I was younger I only bothered to vote federally, but now I really try to make all elections in all levels of government. Tomorrow’s election is a foregone conclusion in my riding (the Liberal guy will win in a landslide, the Conservatives haven’t held it since the 1970s), but I figure that citizens in a liberal democracy should at least participate in the process. Even if I vote for a small party with no possibility of winning, I’m still making my voice heard in some form.

I vote in every election, and have done so since my early 20s. I also donate and occasionally volunteer for both provincial and federal political parties. I admit to not following municipal politics all that closely, but I still vote.

I always vote. I sometimes, however, write-in for Arnold Judas Rimmer.

I vote if the issues are important to me. Last local election, none of them were, so I didn’t.

I always vote in every election, have since I was 18 years old.

Occupy QT3 until our Shit, Bonerz! poll option is restored!

You could have voted early, you know.

joins Jason in the protest, wearing his knit hat

None of the above. I vote for Federal and State elections. If the only thing on the ballot is Water Board members or School Board members, I won’t vote – I figure voting on issues that I’m ignorant on is not helpful, and I don’t want to vote strictly on candidate statements provided along with the ballot.

So Federal and State, yes. Municipal generally no, unless there’s a particular issue such as a local initiative that I have knowledge on.

All four of you that selected “voting is for chumps” are hypocrites.

I always vote federally, but not always locally. I came here for the work, and what the hell did I know or care about the school board or property tax allocation or the provincial budget, this isn’t really ‘home’… 15 years later and some of that attitude still lingers, even though I should know better.

I always vote in every election although I do not always vote for every option. There are some things even I don’t know enough about to vote on…:)

I went with ‘other’. I’ve never voted, and don’t plan to do so anytime soon, but I don’t think people who do vote are chumps.

Why don’t you vote?..Just curious.

Australians might skew your poll since we are legally mandated to do option 1.

Really, the law is you “have” to vote…?

What kind of democracy is that…?..:)

Yep, vote or get fined. You can always leave your ballot blank, of course, but you must show up to the polls or do a postal vote. And since it’s mandatory, they put votes on a Saturday, so that people are less affected by work, and employers must allow their employees to go and vote.
And since it’s mandatory, everyone over 18 is on the rolls, so less opportunity for voter fraud, or accusations thereof. I think we got early enrolment cards at school, since you can enrol at 17 so that you’re on the rolls as soon as you turn 18.

http://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/Compulsory_Voting.htm

And looking at that, maybe State elections aren’t compulsory in other states. Huh.

I don’t know if I like that or not but I did not know they did that…

We also have Preferential Voting, which most other places call automatic-runoff. You can choose the guy you really want as your first preference, and when he loses, have the person you think can actually win as a 2nd preference.

I feel like my vote is pointless for some things. Presidential elections in certain states, like california, when was the last time that state didn’t vote dem? Though there are usually other stuff on the ballet that are worth voting on, like Prop 8 I think it was called.

The local stuff is always worth voting for, I’m glad that washington will mail you ballots. I wish I could vote online.

The Aussie mandatory vote is crazy, but I’m not sure I’m against it. I mean, you can force people to vote, but you can’t force them to vote intelligently. And by that I mean making an informed decision, not neccesarily agreeing with whatever I believe.