Why Everyone Should Vote

I am not very political, I have no connection with any party and pay little attention to politics in my country, and even less to other countries. I always fail utterly at providing intelligent conversation should the talk turn to politics. I don’t care what politics you have, all I care is that you’re aware of the importance of expressing your opinions.

I AM, completely, utterly in favour of voting, and completely, utterly disgusted by people who ‘can’t be bothered’ to take the opportunity to register their opinions.
I actually believe that voting should be made compulsory, but ONLY if the option to vote ‘none of the above’ is provided. And I’m going to attempt to explain the reasoning behind this, if I can.

Voting is the key to democracy. It’s how the population expresses its opinions on how things should be done. Whether it’s a national election for President, or a high-school class choosing who should clean the board after school, it’s all important. It’s there to give you a VOICE. And yes, that voice may be small, but thousands of voices together can make an impact.

Did you know that in the USA, less than 50% of those people eligible and registered to vote actually bother to go and do it? And only 70% of the eligible population actually register in the first place. So only 35% of the voting population are expressing their opinions. Only 35% of people with the right to vote can be bothered to do it. Voting is a RIGHT that people have fought and died to give you. And only 35 people out of a hundred take up that right. Personally, I think that’s awful.

Right, so first, let’s make one thing very very clear: EXTREMISTS WILL ALWAYS VOTE. That’s why they’re called ‘extremists’! Sadly, most of the general population are ambivalent about politics, they might vote, they might not, it depends on what else they’re doing, how much effort it takes…

Let’s try to give an example:

Say you have 100 people in a population eligible and registered to vote on whether people should be hanged for having their shirts untucked or not.
90 of those people are average people, who quite sensibly recognise that that’s going a bit far and don’t want the new law brought in.
However, 10 people completely, irrationally HATE untucked shirts and definitely want the new law.

Now, if you had 100% voter-turnout, that would mean that there would be a 90:10 split, 9:1 – and the law would be justly ridiculed and discarded.

BUT, as I said above, usually only 50% or fewer people bother to actually vote.

And those 10 people – the extremists – are GOING to vote. Because they feel strongly about it, because they’re extremists, that’s what they DO.

So that’s 10 ‘yes’ votes immediately. We’ll top up to 50% with those of our ambivalent 90 that can be bothered to go mark their piece of paper. And now we have 40 ‘no’ votes.
That’s a 40:10 split. 4:1. That’s a HUGE difference.

Now, yes, in this example, the new law is still voted out, so the end result is ‘okay’. BUT, 90% of the population don’t want the law. But only 40% bothered to tell the government that. So the government believe that a fifth, a FIFTH of the population want to hang people with their shirt untucked. Not the tenth that it actually is. A FIFTH is a huge chunk of people to please, and so maybe they’ll bring the law in anyway, to please that imaginary fifth of people they think want it. And the 90% of people who DIDN’T want it will just grumble quietly in their houses, trapped by their own ambivalence.

When the average person doesn’t bother to vote, the extremist percentage increases.

This is okay when the extremist population is small and the voting system means that the option with the higher vote wins.
But if the extremist population grows they can easily outvote the ambivalent average population.
OR, if the voting system is weighted, (meaning that you get a percentage of power equivalent to the percentage vote you received) then the extremist points of view get more power than they should.

That’s why people should vote. Now to go onto the power of NOT voting.

There are many reasons people don’t vote. Maybe they forgot. Or they physically couldn’t get to the polling station. Or whatever. But the main reason is either they just plain don’t care either way, OR they do care but can’t decide between the candidates.

These two reasons are why I think there should be a “None Of The Above” (NOTA) option on voting papers.

NOTA is mainly for people who can’t decide between candidates because they’re both [or all, if there’s more then two] bad. But it can also be used as an option if they’re both good, or if you just plain don’t care.

Say, for a moment, you’re in a country where there’s a race between two candidates for Presidency and you don’t like either candidate. You think that both are awful and you’d like to see two NEW candidates put forward.
How can you express this opinion? The only way is to not vote. BUT, this implies that you don’t care either way, which isn’t true!
So do you not vote, and risk letting the extremists gain even more power, or do you pick one of the bad candidates and go for that, cos voting for one is better than voting for none, right?

Both options are bad, because the system is forcing you to either sit on your opinion, or choose a bad candidate. This is how bad policies get voted in, because the alternative was worse but there was no way to say “neither”.

If there was a NOTA option, you could inform the government that you are unhappy with the candidates. If enough people voted NOTA, and NOTA got the majority, the parties would be FORCED to present new candidates that the population approved of. So the government would be FORCED to bend to the wishes of the population, not the other way round. This is a much more democratic way of letting the people decide how they should run their own country.

I’ll try to give an example with numbers, if it helps:

There are 2 candidates for Presidency, highest percentage wins. 200 people are eligible and registered to vote (yes, it’s a very small country).
40 people want candidate A.
60 people want candidate B.
35 people honestly don’t care.
65 people hate both candidates.

Without a NOTA option, the ‘don’t care’s and the ‘hate both’ people have no options and so they don’t vote.
Out of the 100 people that DO vote, candidate B wins, 40:60 or by three fifths of the vote.

Now let’s give those 65 ‘hate both’ people a voice:
40 vote A.
60 vote B.
65 vote NOTA.

There’s now a 40:60:65 split. Candidate A gets 24% of the vote. Candidate B gets 36% of the vote.
24:36 is NOT a significant difference. 36 isn’t even half the voting population.

Now, it depends on the system. Some systems would vote candidate B in, as he got the higher percentage of the two candidates. BUT, he didn’t win by much, and he’ll be aware that he needs to adjust his policies to get more votes next time because it’s a close-run thing.

Some systems would claim that NOTA won, with 39% of the votes. And they would force the two candidates to reassess and recampaign until a clear majority was found. This would make the candidates stand for polices that the people believe in, because the people have the option of choosing neither, if they want to.

All very well and good, a NOTA option would be great, but there are very few countries that run them as standard. So what can we do?

At the moment, the best option is to submit a “spoiled vote”.
This means that you somehow ruin your ballot paper so that the vote ‘doesn’t count’. The easiest way to do this is to just vote for EVERYONE. Of you can’t choose just one, pick them all!

What good will this do? How is that any better than not voting?

You will be expressing a NON-VOTE.

There’s a subtle but significant difference between not-voting and non-voting.

If you don’t turn up at all, you’re essentially saying “I don’t care.”
But by turning up, and using your ballot paper you are using up a vote. Even if you’re not voting for a candidate, you are dragging their percentage down. Percentages MATTER.

See above, how allowing people to non-vote drags the winning percentage down from 60 to just 36. That’s a BIG difference. Yes, okay, so the end result is the same, but the unhappiness with the options is much clearer with a ‘majority’ of 36 than with a majority of 60.

Every vote that is spoiled is a NONVOTE for the poor candidates. It drags their percentages down. It’s your way of saying “I am taking the time to come out and vote for no one because no one represents my views”. If enough people do that, the candidates will have to change to suit the voters’ views. That’s REAL democracy.

One final thing.

In the UK, there are two big political parties and one smaller one [and a whole bunch of even smaller ones as well].

Many people see it as a two-horse race, and regard voting for party C as a ‘wasted vote’ because ‘they won’t get in anyway’. So, if they don’t like A or B, they often won’t vote at all.

This is a stupid way to think and should be stamped out.

Yes, party C has a very small chance of winning because they have such a small section of the vote. BUT, every vote for party C is NOT a vote for party A or party B.

We’re back to dragging down the percentages. If you don’t agree with A or B, it’s worth ‘wasting’ a vote on party C because it will pull the percentage votes for A and B down.

It’s likely that A or B will still win BUT they won’t have won by as MUCH. And next time, maybe they’ll win by even less, until finally they start to realise that the people don’t like what they’re doing and they’ll start to change.

Essentially, what I wanted to say is that you should ALWAYS vote. Whether you want to represent the average person against the extremist; whether you want to register your dissatisfaction in the candidates by spoiling a ballot; whether you just want to make the winners win by a smaller margin; you should ALWAYS turn out.

If you don’t vote, you immediately forfeit your right to object to how things are done. And everyone likes whining about the government, so why give that up?