[Closed] Who is going to vote in the elections,and why?

I shall vote. Because I CAN. People have died to give me that right and whoever is in government, no matter how bad they may be, has been elected by a democratic vote. If you don't vote, you have no place moaning about them either.

You should be able to abstain if you don't like any of the candidates

Because Vince Cable is my local MP and I want it to stay that way.

I will vote, if only for the fact that I will only have myself to blame if I don't do so & the lot that gets in start doing things that I don't like.

I live in a pretty marginal seat, but it's blue or red only here; yellow doesn't count - yet. (Currently blue but could go either way)

TBH in my opinion the best we can hope for is a hung parliament with LibDems holding the Kingmaker card. Labour as they are today are all washed up, but will "Call Me Dave" & his mob be any better? LibDems don't have a hope in hell of actually [i]winning[/i] this election, but this country needs a credible alternative to the Labour/Conservative (non-)options

You should be able to abstain if you don't like any of the candidates

You can. Go in and spoil your voting card. At least it gets counted that way.

no, cos i never have, cos they are all eerrmm shyte.

Me. Because it sustains the illusion of democracy

May vote, bit pointless though really, my area is tory fullstop and tbh they are all freeloading c*%nts whatever brand. {apart from vince who is ok and boris who is entertaining)

If their are more people who abstain in a constituency then no MP should be returned

PP well put

I'm voting despite the futility of the act in West Oxfordshire!

lib dem

Vote for the con-servatives and you get a greasy blair clone,with the plastic family.

At least thatcher was somenbody you could hate for a long time.Where as cameron will be gone soon after,and soon forgotten,who remembers Vague haigh.

who remembers Vague haigh

Is that the same one who is now Shadow Foreign Secretary and is in the news almost every day ?

Yes, I think I do.

I will when they add "none of the above" to the voting slip.

If you don't vote - you really can't complain when it doesn't go your way later on!

Plus, not voting is a right we still have in the UK; not so in OZ where it's a offence.

The TV debate will, I think, be hugely influential. It might get an otherwise apathetic (towards politics) population up off their backsides - something that's not been the case for a while.

But really, what's the difference? More of the same "v" something similar? Unless something monumental happens I'm not turning out for the political elite.

I'll be voting, its my chance to say who I want. Doubt it'll have any huge effect but I'll have had 'my say'

lib dem, just cos it's not the other.

If you don't vote - you really can't complain when it doesn't go your way later on!

They can and they will.

Probably louder than most people.

Labour, as I don't want Dave in yet.

Tempted by Lib Dems too.

Will have to look at at what the Libs policies are.
Voted for them locally in Bristol.

Just been on the lib dem site-I don't agree with fee free university though. They have nice ideas but how to pay for it???

The Tories website is pretty good but to make massive cutbacks how can they promise all these things.

Labour's site is dull but at least they don't promise anything...tick!

people die for franchisement.
if you don't vote you have no right to complain about who got in.
I will never trust a politician but I will fight to the death for the right to vote.

VOTE

REVOLUTION

Anyone?

As others have said because the bottom line is people have made the ultimate sacrifice so I can live in a democracy.

[i]REVOLUTION

Anyone?[/i]

in this country? not a chance. As soon as anything kicks off, we'll all be at the back of the queue going "no, after you" and "shocking weather"

With the massive amounts of tax cash these days corruption is rife. Pre election principals seldom last the full term.Do we really have freedom of choice,of speech,of religion? Democracy? Do we really have 'representation'? I don't know....... but I've got a pointy stick

revolution? hahhaahahahahahaha.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAAHHAHHAHAH

The proportions of votes cast for each party nationally affects their rights to election advertising and possibly some funding, too. Maybe other things. So while voting against the sitting candidate in a safe seat doesn't do much it does do a little.

Just been in the garage. Now have a chainsaw :|.......... and a pointy stick. Fight anyone?? People have maimed and killed for my right to maim and kill
😕

We've had our Revolution JAM29er ......

[img] [/img]

[i]Gawd bless you Maggie[/i]

If I submitted a spoiled paper that would be counted as a spoiled paper, not as a 'voter deliberately spolied paper to show his distrust of the entire system. They know how many people live in Britain who are able to vote so the best thing you can do to show you think they're all shysters is not vote at all.

I certainly don't get this complaining thing either. I don't vote because I don't believe anything any of them say. Why would I then bitch about the ones who got in? That doesn't make sense. If I voted because people made it illegal not to or because someone guilted me up to vote for just anyone, *then* I would be complaining like crazy.

made a generation uber rich. a 3rd world ultra poor. I'd have poked her first 😉

So why exactly does not voting exclude people from having an opinion? The day my party loses by 1 vote because I didn't bother turning up is the day I'll accept that argument. (yes yes, if everyone thought like that blah blah blah...)

Spoiling a vote is essentially pointless because spoiled votes are not split into deliberate (by reason) or accidental and no real attention is paid to them. In addition the very act of turning up to vote/spoil is an endorsement of Parliamentary Democracy run by a "professional", party based, political class - a system I believe is inherently flawed.

So no matter who I vote for or even if I spoil my vote it still won't "go my way", but do I have to go through the motions before I'm allowed an opinion further down the line?

What if I decided to establish a party and attempted to change the system from within because I disagree with it? Would this action be considered to be based on an illegitimate opinion because I'd not ticked a box a couple of years previously?

Until there's a genuine "none of the above" box to tick which would automatically trigger a proper look at establishing a truly representative system of democracy upon gaining a majority then I'm ****ed if any of them are getting me in a voting booth.

I will never vote conservative. And I will never vote Labour or Lib-Dems.

Just hope there is some alternative by May 6th???

In Germany a poor performing head of government has been known to shoot himself. In the USA someone will usually attempt to do it for them. The French have been known to guillotine particularly obtuse public servants.

Over here we simply re-elect them.

REVOLUTION? - no need, we have the right to vote.

Protest voting is better than not voting at all. Gives your protest double weight - if you simply don't vote for your usual mob, that's just one vote taken away, but if you vote for another party that's not just a vote taken away, but one added to the other side.

That's what gives pollies sleepless nights. Voter apathy doesn't bother them at all.

[i]Protest voting is better than not voting at all. Gives your protest double weight - if you simply don't vote for your usual mob, that's just one vote taken away, but if you vote for another party that's not just a vote taken away, but one added to the other side.[/i]

Like Brewsters Millions?

lol at epicyclo. I'm glad voting makes you feel better

I'll probably vote for Plaid Cymru, or not at all.

All governments naturally lean and drift towards fascism, the totalitarian state whatever you want to call it. It's a marriage between big business and big government, but they like to keep up the pretence of democracy by letting us put a tick in a box every few years. I ask you, will it really make such a huge difference which party gets in? Try to remember how so many people were so excited when Blair got in first time, a change at last, things would start to get so much better, more equality, less corruption etc. etc.

The European Union as it has turned out to be was the Nazis idea originally, read The Tainted Source by John Laughland for the real history of Europe.

Arthur Miller said something about how it's really hard to give up believing that the government has our best interests at heart, and that society somehow has to make sense. So it ends up being another thing which has to be denied internally, in order to make life more bearable.

2 million + people marched in protest to try to prevent us going to war in Iraq. The government ignored them, and given the small percentage of the electorate who actually voted for them, I don't see how that can be considered a democracy.

Saddam Hussein claimed to be a democrat, as do Mugabe and many other distasteful characters.....I'm with JAM29er

i'm glad people fought for my freedom not to vote if it's the course of (in)action i choose to take

i'm not giving my endorsement to someone who i feel doesn't deserve it, just because they may be mildly less vile than anyone else on offer

party politics should be culled

I believe in Australia if you don't vote, and you were eligible, you're fined. The correct approach.

Don't agree with the candidates? Write an essay on the back of the poll card and hand that in instead. In my mind, not voting because they're "all shyte" is shorthand for "I'm a lazy **** who can't be arsed."

[i]Write an essay on the back of the poll card and hand that in instead.[/i]

Why would one of the monkeys counting the cards want to read that?

You've got a fair point on the **** thing. I can be arsed though, I just need something decent, honest and good to vote for, and I'm not seeing it.

yup as alrady said , people have died so i can , still not sure, still want to know what they think / say about immigration etc, not the bull shit about tax rebaits etc that the country cannot afford to pay out ,

Read Seeing by Jose Saramago.

I have always exercised my vote as the above novel describes - I submit a blank ballot paper. It's the closest I have to hedging my bets.

If you're not sure who to vote for, try [url= http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ ]this site[/url]. I'm not 100% convinced how independent it really is, but it lets you compare a set of policies without attributing them to their owning party before revealing how you'd actually vote for to get those policies implemented. I guess the problem is that any party actually stands for a set of policies that (they claim) work together, so by cherry picking policies you'd end up with a flawed system and a failing economy - hmmm...

OR for the cynincs - [url=

along to this[/url]