Should renters be denied the vote?

purch

Why not just make all constituencies "Rotten Boroughs" like in the Olden Days ?

Then the richest "property owners" can buy their seat and pass it on to their heirs.

No need for the poor people to vote at all :eek:

kabayiri

Wasn't it places like Detroit where you could buy a house for a hundred dollars or less ?

Problem solved then for those pesky Tea Party types then. Holiday home in Detroit .. it has a ring to it I guess


What does the vote matter here anyway ? People here in the Teaching unions or other public sector workers have more influence over policy via the threat of strike action than the use of a few votes.

abaxas

The problem is complex in the UK.

Since the sovereign owns everything and you rent your property from the Queen. If we implemented this, no-one (either home owners of renters) could ever vote.

MacMickster

I would much rather see all past or present members of any political party banned from standing for election at both local and national levels. Of course you would also then need to ban all celebrities.

Who should be allowed to vote? Everyone of course, but voting should also be possible via the "red button" while watching the Jeremy Kyle show, and then all votes cast in this manner immediately disregarded.

FTBFun

chewmylegoff wrote: »

surprised they didn't just say "only white, ultra right wing christians should be allowed to vote" or something along those lines, it would be just as transparent as this ludicrous policy.

Apparently "standing on the cracks in the pavement" and "possesion of an offensive wife" will also be new criminal offences.

Pimperne1

Wasn't this the reason they invented the Poll Tax (ie council house dwellers vote for the councillor who will spunk the most money on them and private house dwellers pay for it in what used to be, if I remember correctly, "Rates").

Deniseg4

An alternative: if the reason for restricting the franchise is so that better decisions are made about who runs the country, then why not say that only people with an earned PhD should be allowed to vote? Or at least do what they do in Finland, and make it impossible to be an MP unless you have a PhD.

I'm a non academic working in an academic environment...believe me, this is a veeeeerrrryyyy scary thought!

atush

heathcote123 wrote: »

It seems the Tea Party movement in America think so.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-37143350/tea-party-dont-let-renters-vote/?!!!!!mwuser

"The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn't you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you're a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you're not a property owner, you know, I'm sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners."

Is this a good idea or bad? It does seem the average homeowner is a bit more involved with the community than the renter, and hence should have more of a say at local level as to what happens with taxpayers money, but I'm not really sure denying renters the vote altogether is fair. Maybe they should be allowed in for national elections but not local ones?

I think it might be fairer to restrict voting based on tax contributions - anyone with a net positive contribution over the last 4 years should be allowed to vote at a GE, anyone else should not, because they'll only vote themselves more of other peoples money, which is obviously not fair. We already do this with children, so it's not a new idea.

I know, lets just deny women and minorities while we are at it??????

The tea party movement may have started out about taxes and fiscal responsibility but has turned into a maget for racist right wing loonies.

doire_2

The Tea Party are a bunch of crackpots and looks like we have some on here agreeing with them. Why doesn't that surprise me

heathcote123

atush wrote: »

I know, lets just deny women and minorities while we are at it??????

The tea party movement may have started out about taxes and fiscal responsibility but has turned into a maget for racist right wing loonies.

I don't think anyone is suggesting it be done on race or sex, but can you really argue with taking the vote away from unemployed people?