If you don't vote you're an idiot (IMO)

mr_eddy

OK so after chatting with some people in my office several mentioned that they are not voting. The main reason given was "it won't make a difference".

This angered me so thought I would put my reasons down why I think your an idiot for not voting. Again the below reasons are my opinions only:

1. Its f**king disrespectful - Lots of people around the world risk their lives just turning up to vote and lets not forget that not that long ago this country lost countless souls fighting for our democratic freedom so to not vote is imo un f**king acceptable. Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be allowed to openly vote who you want running the country

2. Its so simple - No one can say "I did not have time" , You can vote by post, have a proxy vote for your etc. The polling stations are open from very early until 10pm so unless you become suddenly very ill etc then its not ok to say "I have not got the time". I recently voted in a local election and the entire process took less than 30 seconds.

3. Even if you don't like any of the parties (and I get why you might) you can still make your voice heard by either voting no confidence or protest vote by voting for a complete outsider. Votes still get counted.

4. Voting DOES make a difference ! Just look at what happened in the last year or two so this shows the power of the vote - It may only be 1 voice but enough of those voices can make a difference.

5. Voting encourages people to research parties websites etc which in turn encourages people to subject themselves to intellectual debate and content which encourages a bit more of a open mind / bigger picture thought process.

I told certain people in my office (those who said they are not voting) to not speak to me about the election / politics because as far as I am concerned their opinion is now worthless.


Thoughts ?

Frank the tank

I always vote and for the first time in ages there is a genuine choice to be had.

coopster_the_1st

*you're :roll:

mr_eddy

sorry my bad - you get the idea tho

coopster_the_1st

mr_eddy wrote:

sorry my bad - you get the idea tho

I agree with your sentiment but the(now corrected) spelling mistake lost the message

surrey_commuter

You may want to check the penultimate word in the first line of the second paragraph

dodgy

'my bad'. Are you American?

Agree on the sentiment on the whole, though.

surrey_commuter

Reason number one needs some work on the sixth word of the second line and you have quite unforgivably split an infinitive in the last line.

chris_bass

I get your point but where i live the split last time was 55% conservative, 19% Labour, 17% Ukip and 5% lib dem

I am not voting conservative and given a lot of the ukippers will switch to conservative my vote will make no difference.

rjsterry

Chris Bass wrote:

I get your point but where i live the split last time was 55% conservative, 19% Labour, 17% Ukip and 5% lib dem

I am not voting conservative and given a lot of the ukippers will switch to conservative my vote will make no difference.

Nobody's vote on its own makes a difference. Lots of people voted UKIP and despite them never having more than 1 MP, both Labour and the Conservatives have shifted their policies in response.

So vote for who you want to be your MP even if you think they won't win. If enough others do the same either your party will notice and put more resources in next time to try and increase the vote share or one the bigger parties will notice and try to do something to gain your votes.

Stevo_666

Already voted

meanredspider

I simply don't agree with the OP as I've said in another thread (can't be bothered to repeat myself).

I do normally vote - I can't this time as my postal vote ended up going somewhere I can't - but many of the arguments are the same as "Clear your plate - there are people starving in Africa"

trivial_poursuivant

Why so angry? If someone decides not to vote it's still their choice. To fight for someone's freedom to vote but not agree if they decide not to is a bit hypocritical. We should encourage people to vote but it's not to be demanded. That's not freedom and democracy.

hamish_mctavish

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Reason number one needs some work on the sixth word of the second line and you have quite unforgivably split an infinitive in the last line.

What's wrong with splitting infinitives?

ben@31

I agree with the op.

Politicians don't care about those who dont't vote. Why should they? As you're no threat even if they screw you over.

Politicians only care about those undecided voters in marginal / target seats. As it's you who will decide their fate. Just ask Ed Balls and Vince Cable, but thankfully Esther McVey got sent packing too.

I was reading an interesting article about why vote in safe seats. But I suppose we need to vote tactically by voting against who you don't like, by voting for the other most likely to win favourite. People who say it's pointless voting need to remember that few seats are won with big numbers, many are won with a small percentage of the local population.

I agree the smaller parties have no chance of getting the seat and that does seem a wasted vote in our first past the post system, where the tories can be the Government with only 36% of the vote. While ukip only get 1 seat with a million votes. A poportional representation system would be better (for everyone except the tories, so it won't happen)

Who did you vote for Stevo? The Commies for Corybn

imposter2.0

Chris Bass wrote:

I get your point but where i live the split last time was 55% conservative, 19% Labour, 17% Ukip and 5% lib dem

I am not voting conservative and given a lot of the ukippers will switch to conservative my vote will make no difference.

Vote for policies then. Think of the swing, even if the result is foregone.

Pross

I generally agree but the 'people fought for our democracy' line that gets trotted out all the time isn't strictly true. I assume this refers to WW2 but I would suggest people were fighting to save their country from invasion (and to assist allied countries in liberating themselves) which isn't really the same thing. I could be wrong and people may be referring to the Chartist Uprising of course or women's suffrage.

ben@31

Chris Bass wrote:

I get your point but where i live the split last time was 55% conservative, 19% Labour, 17% Ukip and 5% lib dem

I am not voting conservative and given a lot of the ukippers will switch to conservative my vote will make no difference.

But how many in your constituency voted. Yes the tories might have had 55% of the vote but a small number of the local population often turn out.

Where my constituency, has a population of 113,800.
Last time Labour won by a majority of 7000.
But only 41,500 turned out

Where I work has an electorate of 72,600
Last time the tories won by only 1443 votes (3.1%)
There was a turnout of only 63%

sniper68

If you don't vote you can't complain about who gets in.
There's really only two parties who have a chance.Not voting is a vote to the party in power.In this case a vote for anyone but Labour is a vote to the Tories(assuming you didn't vote Tory).So if you don't want the Tories in power you have to vote Labour.
So every vote does count!

joe2008

ibbo68 wrote:

If you don't vote you can't complain about who gets in.
There's really only two parties who have a chance.Not voting is a vote to the party in power.In this case a vote for anyone but Labour is a vote to the Tories(assuming you didn't vote Tory).So if you don't want the Tories in power you have to vote Labour.
So every vote does count!

Not true. We have a Tory in where there has traditionally been a Liberal; Labour is always a very, very poor third, therefore, a Labour vote is a wasted vote. If I want Labour to win the election, I should vote Lib Dem, who have a very good chance of winning here.

capt_slog

When the only way my vote would make a difference would be to sell my house and move out of the "safe seat" it does start to feel a bit pointless. Not just this time but the many times I've had the choice to vote.

But I'm sure whoever gets in, it will be 'business as usual' when parliament restarts. The business of politics that is. Standing in the 'house' bickering over who did what when they were last in power, how they can't do what they promised because of a legacy from x years ago and stupid jeering that would be better off in a playground.

fat daddy

ibbo68 wrote:

If you don't vote you can't complain about who gets in

of course you can ..... likewise you can complain if you vote Labour, they get in and they screw everything up.

Likewise I believe in freedom of choice and if someone doesn't want to vote then so be it

ugo.santalucia

Chris Bass wrote:

I get your point but where i live the split last time was 55% conservative, 19% Labour, 17% Ukip and 5% lib dem

I am not voting conservative and given a lot of the ukippers will switch to conservative my vote will make no difference.

Things might not change this time round, but if say Labour was to gain ground in your constituency, maybe in five years more people would vote and maybe in 10 years time Labour would take the seat...

it takes time to get the ball to roll, but if you don't get it started, you can be sure it will never change

It's just laziness, really

wallace_and_gromit

Stevo 666 wrote:

Already voted

Vote early and vote often is what I always say!

In very safe seats, I think it is legitimate to say that an individual not voting against the incumbent party really does make no difference. However, I strongly feel that unless you vote, you have no moral right to complain at the monumental f*ckup that the other side will undoubtedly make.

And as the OP rightly observes, lots of individual votes can all add up to a significant change.

joe2008

The 2015 results under a Proportional Voting System (First Past the Post seats won in brackets):

Con 242 (331)
Lab 199 (232)
UKIP 82 (1)
LIB 51 (8)
SNP 31 (56)
Green 24 (1)

mr_goo

I'll either not vote or spoil my ballot paper for the hell of it. I'm New Forest West, which after tomorrow night might be the safest Tory seat in UK. The blinkered idiots in the area would vote for a corpse I'd it was wearing a blue rosette. Such is the entrenched belief in Tory policies, irrespective of there impact on the rest of the country.

Labour nor Libs are for me either. Yes I did vote UKIP last time around, but that was in protest and they no longer stand here anyhow. Plus they are more amateurish than Lab or Libs in the area. Greens might just get from me. Will see which way the wind blows tomorrow.

BelgianBeerGeek

I vote against the incumbent.

fat daddy

Wallace and Gromit wrote:

and vote often.

well you ,live in the right country for that !!!!

ugo.santalucia

Mr Goo wrote:

I'll either not vote or spoil my ballot paper for the hell of it. I'm New Forest West, which after tomorrow night might be the safest Tory seat in UK. The blinkered idiots in the area would vote for a corpse I'd it was wearing a blue rosette. Such is the entrenched belief in Tory policies, irrespective of there impact on the rest of the country.

Labour nor Libs are for me either. Yes I did vote UKIP last time around, but that was in protest and they no longer stand here anyhow. Plus they are more amateurish than Lab or Libs in the area. Greens might just get from me. Will see which way the wind blows tomorrow.

Spoil your ballot with a large penis, but please, do vote!

veronese68

I agree with a lot of the encouragement to vote, I think ben@31 put it best. Also as Ugo says it might take a while to get the ball rolling, but if will start rolling. If more young people vote it will improve the lot of the Labour party in this election. If enough of them do it might even make the Tories pay them some attention. As it stands they don't give a monkeys about the young as not enough of them vote. One young person won't make a difference, but en masse their votes will. So better to get out and vote, even in a no hope constituency as if everyone did that things might actually change, or at least make the majority party take note.
Goo, as I've said before, a protest vote is better than no vote at all.

mrfpb

Results here - Hants NE, last time (%) Cons 65%, Lib 10, Lab 9. So does my vote count? Yes, if say, it moves Lab up to 2nd place or just demonstrates a swing against the Con vote. There was a 15% Lib to Con swing last time, so I expect a swing back this time around. I also want to contribute my one vote's worth of reducing UKIPs share in the stats (though that was tiny here compared to some South East seats)