Will RoUK really give up some of its financial freedom to the independant Scots?

IveSeenTheLight

chewmylegoff wrote: »

some people like to preach that you must turn up and vote "none of the above" or spoil your ballot paper, but i don't see why i should waste an hour of my day to do so when it will have absolutely no impact.

Surely if sufficient people spoiled their ballot paper, it would provide a clear message to the politicians that the electorate are not happy with the candidates / parties.

Your assumption is that it will have no impact, well to coin a phrase, "The only way to guarantee failure is to not even try"

By not taking the time to register your vote / protest vote, you are guaranteeing failure of democratic change.

chewmylegoff

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Surely if sufficient people spoiled their ballot paper, it would provide a clear message to the politicians that the electorate are not happy with the candidates / parties.

Your assumption is that it will have no impact, well to coin a phrase, "The only way to guarantee failure is to not even try"

By not taking the time to register your vote / protest vote, you are guaranteeing failure of democratic change.

Why does a load of spoiled ballot papers have more impact that people not turning up in the first place (or indeed protest voting)? The outcome of the election would be same and the response from politicians would be the same old rubbish ("we must take further steps to engage with the electorate blah blah blah"). By going to the polls to spoil a ballot paper you are simply wasting your own time; not turning up at all is just as valid an action and is just as likely to result in democratic change (I.e. not at all). This whole "if you don't vote you have no right to complain" meme is a load of old tripe (and indeed your right to protest against the govt, with certain limitations, is enshrined in law and doesn't require you to vote first).

John_Pierpoint

Yes the politicians are in the business of harvesting votes grown with other people's money.
By not bothering to turn up those politicians can then kid themselves that you were too busy and all they need to do is resort to some sort of "vote early vote often" simplification like postal pre-voting.

If you scribble on the voting paper, even the most self important members of their mutual admiration society realise that they are not justifying their actions.

IveSeenTheLight

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Why does a load of spoiled ballot papers have more impact that people not turning up in the first place (or indeed protest voting)? The outcome of the election would be same and the response from politicians would be the same old rubbish ("we must take further steps to engage with the electorate blah blah blah"). By going to the polls to spoil a ballot paper you are simply wasting your own time; not turning up at all is just as valid an action and is just as likely to result in democratic change (I.e. not at all). This whole "if you don't vote you have no right to complain" meme is a load of old tripe (and indeed your right to protest against the govt, with certain limitations, is enshrined in law and doesn't require you to vote first).

There is no right or wrong in this instance.

My own thought however are that spoiled votes send a clear message as opposed to simple apathy

e.g.: -

If 36% of the electorate vote and the votes are distributed amongst the parties, the message is the the politicians need to engage with the public more to increase the voting turn out

Compare that with the following: -

36% still turn out and register their votes as before, however 50% turn up and spoil their vote.

Still there are 14% apathy to voting, but with 50% spoiling their vote, it sends a message as it increases the time to check the votes and the politicians cannot use the "we need to engage more with the public" as they have achieved an 86% turn out.

I trust you can see the benefits for increasing public turnout at the voting booth to register the general publics viewpoint

zagubov

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

There is no right or wrong in this instance.

My own thought however are that spoiled votes send a clear message as opposed to simple apathy

e.g.: -

If 36% of the electorate vote and the votes are distributed amongst the parties, the message is the the politicians need to engage with the public more to increase the voting turn out

Compare that with the following: -

36% still turn out and register their votes as before, however 50% turn up and spoil their vote.

Still there are 14% apathy to voting, but with 50% spoiling their vote, it sends a message as it increases the time to check the votes and the politicians cannot use the "we need to engage more with the public" as they have achieved an 86% turn out.

I trust you can see the benefits for increasing public turnout at the voting booth to register the general publics viewpoint

If you don't vote the politicians can lump together all the disaffected together with the ill, recently died, travelling, housebound, apathetic all in one big ignorable lump.

If the disaffected do turn up they won't swell the apparent numbers of the apathetic who the politicians will dismiss as those who don't care and who should expect to not be cared about in turn. Notg ideal and needs a bit of effort but its a more genuine way of taking part in democracy.

chewmylegoff

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

There is no right or wrong in this instance.

My own thought however are that spoiled votes send a clear message as opposed to simple apathy

e.g.: -

If 36% of the electorate vote and the votes are distributed amongst the parties, the message is the the politicians need to engage with the public more to increase the voting turn out

Compare that with the following: -

36% still turn out and register their votes as before, however 50% turn up and spoil their vote.

Still there are 14% apathy to voting, but with 50% spoiling their vote, it sends a message as it increases the time to check the votes and the politicians cannot use the "we need to engage more with the public" as they have achieved an 86% turn out.

I trust you can see the benefits for increasing public turnout at the voting booth to register the general publics viewpoint

No, because the politician with the highest vote still wins and whilst he may say something about the spoiled ballots he will still get to do the job for the next 5 years so the spoiled ballots have achieved precisely nothing. If they had to hold another election if the spoiled ballots won then it would be a different matter.

This is all getting away from my original point though which is that I wouldn't vote on this matter even if I lived in Scotland on the basis that I think it's an ideological issue and the outcome will, either way, make no tangible difference to the population of Scotland (other than to make people with ideological positions happy or unhappy in accordance with their position). I wouldn't vote because I don't think the outcome matters.

Loughton_Monkey

chewmylegoff wrote: »

...... If they had to hold another election if the spoiled ballots won then it would be a different matter...

That could become interesting if that were the case.

Voting at a General Election is one thing. Voting for a major constitutional change (from the status Quo) rather lends itself to a system that says the change goes ahead only if >50% of the electorate (not the small proportion who turn up to vote) approve the change. Only then can you really say "the majority voted for it".

Generali

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

That could become interesting if that were the case.

Voting at a General Election is one thing. Voting for a major constitutional change (from the status Quo) rather lends itself to a system that says the change goes ahead only if >50% of the electorate (not the small proportion who turn up to vote) approve the change. Only then can you really say "the majority voted for it".

AIUI, the rule under the last referendum was that 50% of the electorate had to vote for independence, not just half of those voting.

I also believe that they got over the latter hurdle but not the former.

Loughton_Monkey

Generali wrote: »

AIUI, the rule under the last referendum was that 50% of the electorate had to vote for independence, not just half of those voting.

I also believe that they got over the latter hurdle but not the former.

I think the rot set in when they allowed women the vote. They can't make their minds up can they?

That Pankhurst woman has a lot to answer for......

zagubov

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

That could become interesting if that were the case.

Voting at a General Election is one thing. Voting for a major constitutional change (from the status Quo) rather lends itself to a system that says the change goes ahead only if >50% of the electorate (not the small proportion who turn up to vote) approve the change. Only then can you really say "the majority voted for it".

This is precisely what was wrong with the last home rule referendum. By putting a threshold in, even dead voters counted as No. Disgraceful.

Non-voters in a yes-no referendum should count as nothing. Not yes not no. The world belongs to the people who turn up and take part in it. Everybody else has registered their indifference and stepped aside from the decision. So be it- if they don't speak up during the decision, they'll put up with what they get.