in Australia it is illegal to not vote at election time. Should it be illegal in New Zealand for people to not vote.

A friend of mine has suggested that there is a "don't know" box on the ballot form for those who don't wish to vote for any of the political parties.

I personally believe that voting should be compulsory as it is a public duty. All those non votes add up at the end of the day and could be the difference between a party getting into power, or not getting power.

So what are your thoughts?

Democracy means people having a choice.

Voting is a huge part of democracy, hence it should be a choice.

It does not make sense if you force people to vote and they turn up at the poll station and just tick any box because they are forced to vote.

Yes but we have the right of democracy and if people abuse it by not voting then in effect there is no democracy.

Abusing democracy in my opinion is if u have a fake democracy.

Exercising choice is democracy.

Yes but why is it illegal to not register but yets its not illegal to not vote, the laws contradict themselves.

As I said, "no vote" would be an option too.

I think thats a balancing act. How do you encourage people to exercise their right to democracy and yet not contradict the whole aspect of democracy which is giving people the choice.

So in order to instill the duty in people, getting people to register could be a way to psychologically go to them "hey do ur part as a citizen, vote". However by not making it compulsory to vote, its also giving choice to ppl. I mean its also reverse psychology.

I think the current system works fine. NZ has one of the highest turnout rate for elections. Compare that to the U.S where its not illegal to not register, they have one of the lowest turnout rates.

In Australia voting is compulsory, what are their turn out rates?

well they have a high turnout rate cos they are forced to. Hardly a fair statistic to use. It'll bias your argument.

It bothers me that several people do not vote, particularly in the 18-25 age group.

Now I think part of the reason could be a lack of information. When I was at school we were never taught about current politics in our country, it was always politics in other countries and war.

i suggest bringing into the curriculum a subject called politics. It is essential that we know about our own country.

it is all very well to learn about other countries and yes it is a potentially good thing, but what good does this information do if we are not aware of the running of the country.

That involves voting in the election. It is a public duty to do so. You wouldn't stand back and watch someone get abused, or if you did you would check that they would be alright afterwards, voting should be the same.

To not vote is to indirectly abuse several people in the country.

its just a little analygy I thought I would throw in there.

I learnt about the NZ Political system in 3rd Form actually. In my Social Sciences class. We had to form political groups , form policies and even held elections. So i think its just individual schools to decide whether to teach people politics or not.


Again i dont think not voting is abusing someone, directly or indirectly. I mean what they say is true, "If you dont vote, you can't complain if the government does something you dont like". I think everyone who doesn't vote knows that so its hardly abusing anyone.

You can argue its abusing those ppl who vote by sticking them with a govt they may not want but the fact of the matter is, if the political parties cant get their supporters to vote, they obviously cant get the country to do what they want to do. Again not voting is abuse, thats a fine line.

Alright then maybe there need to be campaigns out there promoting voting at every election.

I am sure there would be ht epeople out there who think that if they are on holiday they can't vote but they can vote, they vote with what is known as a special vote.

I learnt debating at school when I was 8 so I must have learnt about the country's political system as well but that is a very hazy year for me. I was a trouble maker to a severe extent.

We learnt about politics in form 5 and 6 but not the current political system.

Thats True

So is that.

Both points cancel out and I call "it if aint broke dont fuck with it"

I see your point but several youngsters are not voting and that is what is important. Wouldn't it be sensible to have campaigns so that youngsters do vote.

I think they definitely do try....but i think the Greens so far has the most success attracting the younger ppl to vote. for them too i mite add!

That's probably because of cannibis laws for a large number of people.

And if you check out the poll about who you are going to vote for, you will see that Labour are winning so that does not coincide with your statement that the greens get the majority votes within young people.

There could be a wide range of reasons why Greens didn't get the majority vote on this forum. One of the main reasons is that the sample size is so small, you can hardly call that an accurate poll at this time. Most statisticians would disregard the poll completely.

Another reason could be, well as u put it, would they rather spend time online voting on online polls for the greens or spend time doing something else, like cannabis? :blink:

Yes I would suppose that they would be out smoking cannibis rather than discussing elections on a forum, they would be too stoned to care. lol :P

*sigh*

I don't get politics...

haha :hilarious:

This is exactly what I am talking about, people avoid politics. WHY?

I think that there needs to be more information out there about political parties and politics. This is why I have suggested that there are more measures out there to inform people about politics.

I think the fact of the matter is

1. People dont trust politicians
2. The information is out there, they spend A LOT of taxpayers money advertising the fact that there is an election on and there is information on tv/radio/internet etc for people to retrieve.
3. If ppl dont care, would they bother reading a political article in front of their faces? Nope. If they dont care, would they actively go out searching for it? Nope. Would massive amounts of bombardment of propaganda get them to care? Nope.

Try changing human behaviour.....its nearly impossible....

NO its not, if you hammer in a message for a while it should get through, unfortunately this is not true of anti speeding campaigns (RE: dead boys father speaks out thread).

I have a rebut to your three claims.

*1. People dont trust politicians
politicians are regular people who are trying to make a difference for the country they live in. They are not aliens as some of you may think they are. I know I am not an alien and like it or lump it I am a future politician.
Enforcing policies is not as simple as having an idea and enforcing it as some people seem to think. There is a whole legislation process to be considered and there are financial aspects to consider.

*2. The information is out there, they spend A LOT of taxpayers money advertising the fact that there is an election on and there is information on tv/radio/internet etc for people to retrieve.
Yes the information is out there but there are not specific campaigns about voting at each election. There is only information out there about the specific parties.

*3. If ppl dont care, would they bother reading a political article in front of their faces? Nope. If they dont care, would they actively go out searching for it? Nope. Would massive amounts of bombardment of propaganda get them to care? Nope.
And this is why we need several more campaigns and more lectures about the benefits to at least voting.

1.Yea politicians are regular people. And that makes people trust them more? If you ask 10 random people on the street, i reakon 7-8 out of 10 of them will say they dont trust politicians.

2. If there isn't specific campaigns about voting in each election, how would ppl know when to vote, where to vote and how to vote?

3. You cram more stuff down ppls throats. It'll turn them off more. May not for some people but i mean i know when some ppl have too much of something they tune off instinctively.

I don't avoid it, I can't really as my mother is heavily involved with the National Party in West Auckland.

I just don't understand it. I find the whole process incredibly confusing and trying to learn about it bores me to tears.

NO the fact that politicians are regular people does not make people trust them more. It just bugs me that people refer to politicians as though they are not regular people, which they are. It is like famous people, they are regular people who choose something different as a profession.

Cramming stuff down people's throats can put people off but it worked with seat belts, its worked with speeding and drink driving to a certain extent.

Think about someone you know that aren't famous, aren't politicians. Just part of the crowd, regular. Do you know someone you can't trust? I'm sure you do. So does that mean that the fact that you dont trust them that you are inferring that they are not regular? Nope.

I tend to trust most people unless they do something to lose that trust.

I just think people need to have more faith in politicians and not put them into a box.

having said that i don't trust Helen Clark in the slightest but she has done things to lose that trust.

sigh, where to begin.

Well Liz I think the poor turnout for young voters is due to the fact that maybe there are no parties that represent their views. I dont support the Greens at all, nor Labour. I think Act are way too extreme and only cater to the corporate side of things. National are the only reasonable choice but I cant stand Don Brash, dont quote me on it but it seems like he's a one policy person (we all know what that policy is :P ) I do however like some national party members. I still don't know who I am going to vote for, but my electoral vote is going to National.

No Act are not just a corporate party, they want NCEA abolished and also will implement harsher criminal punishments. www.act.org.nz

No National haver several policies regarding the sea bed, camping grounds, harsher criminal punishments, benefits reduced, treaty of waitangi dealth with. www.national.org.nz

NZ First, they have faded away. www.nzfirst.org.nz
united future has too but www.unitedfuture.org.nz

I don't need to say labour policies, I went to their website yesturday and it is absolutely hideous.

Both my votes are going to National, apparently I am in the Mount Albert electorate and I don't like the candidate. There is a chance that I am in the Epsom electorate in which case I do like the member.

I like Don Brash, he's got a good personality, good policies and in my opinon he is excellent and giving speeches.

Whats so hideous about this?

http://www.labour.org.nz/

You obviously havnt been to Tubgirl.com

If I am ever forced to vote I will vote for the 'New Zealand Nazi Party' (or the closest equivalent) out of spite. The only way I would vote in a national election of my own free will is if they established a statistical voting system, ie. every election one out of every 100 NZers is randomly picked to vote, everyone else misses out. That's the only way it would actually be worth my time, since there would be a much greater chance of my vote making a difference.

So why make policies that are likely to fail, parties should know that these aspects could make it difficult to implement policies.

Last I heard we had some ungodly surplus or something. Where the hell is that money being spent? I don't see our student debt getting lowered, I don't see the health sector being improved and I certainly don't see our roading problems being addressed.

Where the fuck is my goddamn tax money?

it certainly isn't being used where it needs.

Wait, this is the same government that says they can't afford ti increase the police force, they do have the funds in the surplus.

This is the same government that can't afford better healthcare.

And this is the same government that won't invest more money in education.

All because they don't have it which they do.

The oob, that is not very democratic what you have suggested.

Also don't refer to the National party as the Nazi party, pansy wong and an indian running for the mount albert electorate are members of the National party. This does not give evidence to your claim.

I don't think oob said the National Party were the NZ Nazi Party in his post there, Flick. Sarcasm, you see.

Then it could only be nz first and they aren't the nazi party either.

I'm pretty sure its just oobs cynical way/point of view.

Thanks to the 'magic of statistics' it's practically as good as the system we have now, plus it saves thousands of worker hours since not everyone has to go to the voting booths. Besides, we're never going to get a true democracy anyway thanks to factors such as voter apathy (see my earlier post).

I've never been too keen on democracy anyway, it replaces the decisions of an informed few with the delusions of an idiotic many. "Democracy is the worst system of government, except for all the others."

I didn't refer to the National party as the Nazi party, or infer this in any way, but I find it amusing that this is what you thought I was saying in my post. I consider this a 'Freudian slip of interpretation'.

The closest party I could find to being the 'New Zealand Nazi Party' was 'One Party New Zealand', after a half-arsed read of their site they seem to be anti-maori, pro military, pro harsh sentences for criminals, and lots of other stuff that Hitler mentioned in Mein Kampf (which I have read, as well as Albert Speers memoirs, so I have a pretty good idea about the kind of shit the Nazis liked).

which brings me to an earlier point that there should be more measures in place to inform people about politics.

The fact is that most people, and this is just based om some of the people I've spoken to, most people don't even have opinions and don't really care who runs the government.

And why should they? The average working person gets jack shit from the government.