Originally Posted by
TeapoT
You pretty much answered your own question there. Look at it this way, by not voting who are you helping? No-one really. As opposed to if you vote, while there may be no candidates that meet your specific desires in a politician, you are at least having an input in steering the country towards what you percieve to be the best future for it and showing that you care about it.
What if you really don't know which candidate while give "the best future", if there is such a thing? And don't make it sound like you need to care about a country's politics to care about the country.
Hey, there's also no harm to anyone if you just stay home for all your life. It still is a really stupid thing to do though.
Originally Posted by
TeapoT
No it would not. The quality of the vote is defined by the result and would only be decreased when the result is different to what it should have been given the tally of votes (i.e. a fixed vote.). If everyone votes for the shiniest politician and he gets appointed then it is no better or worse than any other non-fixed vote in the history of Australia.
Then the politicians who get into office are the ones who spend more on advertisement - rather than meaningful debate and support for their respective ideologies, as I'm pretty sure people will vote for the "shiniest politician". I'd rather not let the democratic voting process be something you just throw money at to win. If you don't require people to vote, the percentage of people that actually vote depending on the policies the candidates propose will increase - since more of them will care about politics.
Perhaps a better idea would be to convince the people of the importance of voting - not forcefully, but via education?