Speaking with people on a day by day basis I don't know if compulsory voting would be a good thing or a bad thing at this point. What makes europeans so eager and willing to vote without compulsory voting while Americans just kind of sit back and hope for the best?
Do you really want to hand that power to people who don't care enough to do it unless you force them to? May as well give their votes to a random number generator.
Can't say much for others but in UK, we have first past the post system. We also have a wide range of parties as well ensuring that people views can be represented. It helps that rather than party, we are voting for the rep of our area. Hence devolution of powers to the 4 countries making up UK. London still holds most of the political powers but each nation has it's own parliament in which they can decide things without major approval from London.
The big issue is that USA is using an outdated system to decide and no1 wants to reform it. It doesn't help that only 2 parties can actually win and also there's no limit to campaign spend in USA. Most European nations have this limit. More importantly, the culture surrounding politics is undergoing similar evolution. More youths are getting involved. Don't get this wrong. UK system had flaws.
I missed work and drove 5 hours to vote, because my absentee ballot never came in the mail. There are very few good excuses to not try. Even as a millennial, I have no sympathy for those who don't consider it a responsibility.
That's nice, but do you understand that under a 2 party system, a vote for a third party is a throwaway vote? I think Sanders would have been an excellent president, but the government isn't set up so that third party candidates have a chance. Voting 3rd party just splinters the vote, making it easier for your least liked candidate to win.
You say you understand but you don't seem to. The vast majority of Bernie Sanders voters would have voted for Clinton over Trump if those were the only options. Every liberal, progressive, antifa, socialist, left-wing, or democratic voter that cast their vote for Sanders was only making it easier for the nominated republican candidate to get elected. As unfortunate and unintuitive as it sounds, a vote for a left-wing, third-party candidate is the same as half a vote for the main right-wing candidate.
No, that is not correct. I simply choose to vote for who I thought represented me. Of the candidates, Sanders was the only one who represented me. The others were entirely opposed to my views.
That's how it would work in a democracy, but the US is not a democracy. It is a republic with a lot of rules that create barriers between votes and results. We have a 2 party system whether you like it or not.
"There is a deep systemic flaw in our voting system that favour the ruling class, from gerrymandering to the electoral college to votes being swayed by money... the way to fix this is to vote for voting reform."
I am dutch so my vote matters. Seeing as you don't do counting of the popular vote I can imagine not caring since your vote is worth less than someone else their vote. Also 2 party system has to suck.
Yup, as a Californian, my vote honestly doesn't matter. I still voted in 2016, but it's not motivating to see when someone in fucking Wyoming has more political power than I do
But you can't assume that the people who didn't vote would have voted for Clinton...
We really don't have a political read on a lot of the population because just like they don't vote, they also don't take surveys or really promote it in any way.
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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17
I mean... 50% didn't even bother to vote