So you basically are saying it is ok that conservative husbands may be preventing their wives from voting because the NDP hubby voters are preventing their Conservative wives from voting in equal numbers to the Conservative hubby voters? Any femanists on babble nowadays? Rhetorical question indeed! So you are ok with potential intimidation of wives by husbands. Interesting.
And voting over the net cannot be done securely and hubby can watch over wife's shoulder when she votes with internet voting, if indeed he does not just take her password himself.
Post # 93 previous thread
ygtbk wrote:
"There may in fact be some cases where hubby farmer is NDP and the missus (who doesn't drive) is Conservative, so I think your point is more rhetorical than anything else. You're trying to switch the topic from compulsory voting to compulsion for somebody (who?) to drive you to the polling station, which is a different subject.
If you think you're not going to be able to take time to vote on election day, you can vote in an advance poll: these are typically on weekends, so many people who can't make time Monday to Friday can vote then.
Having said that, there might be merit in allowing voting over the Internet if it could be done securely, since it would be more convenient than going to a polling station."
AND now to Slumberjack. The none of the above option completely prevents false legitimacy. Indeed I argue that the current system gives MORE false legitimacy.
I wonder if the registered voter figure is not already artificially low? If it is, it is disguising the REAL level of voter turnout (which is even lower than it suggests). Reason I say that is that Ireland has almost the same population as BC, but even though it is a much younger country (average age wise) the number of people who vote in elections is much higher than BC. I don't have the figures for "registered voters for BC and Ireland but here is a comparison of numbers of people who actually voted.
BC 2001 1.582 million in BC election 55.4% of registered voters. (giving 2.85 million people of voting age)
Irish election 2002 1.858 million. 63% turnout (giving 2.93 million people of voting age) So in a younger population you have a QUARTER MILLION more voters! In a population of about 4 million people. So another good thing that compulsory voting might do is increase the number of people on the register. There were a few less people in ireland at that time and at that time a lot more of those people were children UNDER THE LEGAL VOTING AGE, so that means a lot of voters were missing off the BC register. A lot more than the the 80 thousand that the initial result indicates!
Slumberjack
rabble-rouser-supreme
Member: 11108
Joined: Aug 8 2005
May 15, 2011 - 7:58am
#94 (permalink)
"It's about the forcible extraction of as much false legitimacy as possible from that segment of the population which chooses to resist being used as pawns within an illegitimate process. "
and my answers to Norther Shoveler is that Australia has penaltys for not going to the polls and they are significant enough to get compliance. Think symbiosis for the disconnect between politicians and the missing voters. They don't go to the polls because they are ignored. The politicians ignore them because they dont vote. This is one simple chicken and egg problem. And compulsory voting is the way to hatch the egg. If you get an extra 1.5 million people going to the polls in BC alone the politicians can ignore them at their peril.
Northern Shoveler
has the post election blues
rabble-rouser
Member: 22906
Joined: Feb 17 2011
May 15, 2011 - 9:26am
#96 (permalink)
The body politic has a serious problem given that almost 50% of adults think it is irrelevant to their lives. The cure is apparently not to engage them and make politicos more relevant but to prosecute them to prove to them that politics has at least that much relevance in their lives.
Brian you keep ignoring the central issue. What the fuck do you do to the people with no money and no interest in going to the polls. Are you going to arrest them for disobeying?
