The system that the OP proposes is (as I think hels pointed out) pretty much exactly the same as the one used in Australia. People are obliged to show up. They have the option of voting None, but in practice, having made the effort to show up, most people will actually cast a vote.

The result is a much higher turnover but not (AFAIK) any fundamental difference in how their politics works.

I’m not sure I buy compulsory voting as an infringement of my rights, except in the most basic sense of infringing my right to do what I want all the time. I have to pay the taxes levied by the people making the laws, so requiring me to select who makes the laws does not seem to be a greater imposition.

🙂

I think i’d vote for the most inappropriate candidate on the sheet if I was legally obliged to vote. I’m sure I can’t be the only bloody minded person in the UK 🙂

There have been many more posts on here than I expected: thank you.

Would it hurt to pop down to the polling station? I think not: it’ll probably be pretty close. And it does matter!

Would it hurt to pop down to the polling station?

That’s not what hurts.

It’s the feeling that I’m voting for someone to enrich himself/herself at my expense that hurts.

It’s the feeling that, because my wife has to work in London during the week, we have to bear the full cost of two homes, when MPs line their pockets by claiming ludicrous amounts for living with their sisters or claiming for their parents’ house.

People may have died for the right to vote, but I bet if you told them it was only the right to choose between Gordon Brown and David Cameron, they’d ask for their lives back.

Politicians are in it for what they can get for them selves, power and money. Doesn’t matter what the “Great unwashed” vote, we do not decide who get the job.

Politicians can all **** off – i don’t vote for any of them, i vote for the black market economy as its the only thing keeping the people of this country alive. IMO

80/20

Citizen Peregrine.

No!

eldridge, peregrine and spungebob have just proven themselves to be the kind of utter wnakers that are ruining this country and exactly the sort of thoughtless **** that I want to escape by leaving this country.

Yes, I’m sure you’ll say ‘good riddance’ but I say ‘good riddance’ to you, you mindless arseh*les.

You deserve the country you’ll get, as do all those who who are too stupid to see the writing on the wall.

Maybe when it is compulsory for these elected people to do what they say they will, give us straight answers and to be fully accountable to the electorate I’ll consider voting for one of them. At the moment we give them a cushy lifestyle and a job we can’t sack them from if they are incompetent or even proven liars, so I see no reason why I should actually offer them my confidence

Guilliano = +1

Would it hurt to pop down to the polling station? I think not: it’ll probably be pretty close. And it does matter!

I didn’t vote in the last election.
I thought carefully about it – my choices were the existing conservative mp – who is an excelent local mp, but idelogically we share nothing in common. Labour, who won’t get my vote whilst the memory of iraq is still in my mind, or libdem – who normally I’d vote for (even though they don’t stand a chance of bein elected locally) but the prospective parlimentary candidate showed herself to be a complete idiot by desperately trying (and failing) to spin various local events in her favour.
None of these candidates had any merit over the others so I chose not to vote. Had we a proportional voting system, then I would have voted libdem figuring that even the local idiot wouldn’t get in, the party would get a vote. But we don’t.
Had I been compelled to vote, I still wouldn’t have chosen any of the above. The only difference being that the country would now have more legislation, and would be spending a lot of extra money to enforce it.
Making voting compulsory is silly if you don’t have a system where your vote is worthwhile.

IanMunro – Member

I didn’t vote in the last election.
I thought carefully about it – my choices were the existing conservative mp – who is an excelent local mp, but idelogically we share nothing in common

Excellent in which way then, since you ‘share nothing in common ideologically’?

all thatcher’s fault Politician = Thief

There you go then: the level to which political debate has sunk; for some, at least.

No wonder we have the shambles we currently ‘enjoy’

eldridge, peregrine and spungebob have just proven themselves to be the kind of utter wnakers that are ruining this country and exactly the sort of thoughtless **** that I want to escape by leaving this country

Are you actually reading what you are typing?

Telling us all we MUST vote. Who to vote for and damn anybody that does not share your opinion.

I do agree that there are undoubtedly benefits to a more politically engaged population but fail to see how coercing people to vote achieves this. If people are disinterested enough in politics not to vote but then are forced to do so how can any elected government claim legitimacy?

I think you need the trolling station not the polling station 😉

I firmly believe that voting should be made compulsory.

I firmly believe it should be compulsory for everyone to take LSD at least once during their lifetime but it isn’t.

It’s all bollocks and at the end of the day, they are all out for themselves and couldn’t give a flying squirrel who they bend over and anally rape along the way.

A vote is like making your choice on with way to the gallows you go.

I don’t vote and have no right in complaining about the state of how the country is run, if i did vote, we’d still be in the same state right now reguardless…damage was done way before i had a righ to vote and each government since has done it’s bit to make it better but in doing so has made it worse elsewhere.

We’re all screwed so forget it, i say everyone should not vote and let them work that **** out!