Well.. One argument for not voting my uncle takes the stance of, I agree with. He told me "I'm not voting because I don't want to contribute to their screwed-up system." and he's right, some of this political shit can be absolutely ridiculous. Like.. We have a candidate, Hillary Clinton, running for president of the United States, someone who uses static noise machines to block out the public's ears from her speeches, someone who should honestly be in prison for crimes she's committed? If that doesn't scream "rigged" to someone, I believe they've got their heads in the sand.. so yeah, the whole system is ridiculous and I wouldn't participate in it.

I am 28 and only voted once. A shithead was about to take the power so i voted for the other shithead (right wing ). But there actually is no such thing as right and left here. They all greedy bastards that want to profit.
So only vote if u feel motivated. Don't vote if your mom tells u to do it. Or tv or school says so.

Doesn't match up very well to modern America.

What they call "right" is what most people would call "center", and what they call "left" has gone so far left that they advocate censorship and fascism, they've gone all the way around the circle and have somehow landed on the right.

Just look at what they call the "right" candidate, Trump. He advocates to stop criminals, which is by any measure a center policy. However the "left" have decided that's no good, how dare he enforce the law on poor unsuspecting illegals! On the other hand we have the "left" which commonly advocate censorship and construct safe spaces, certainly a right mentality. And then there's Hillary who's ostensibly "left" but will happily do a 180 on a dime to grab a few more voters, and Sanders who is left and just might actually be leftist!

You won't get far voting left as working class or right as upper class, because the meaning of left and right is ephemeral at best, and from there the US have twisted it into a pretzel.

I'm pretty sure American politics is way out of centre on both sides (at least compared to England). Admittedly a few European countries have communist parties, but at least they have relatively central candidates as well. American voters seem to only respond to quite extreme stances, so positions are polarised.

Also, if this becomes a debate about Fonald Trump's policies I will close this thread without hesitation (as the creator of the thread, not as an over enthusiastic Lmod). If you want to talk about him in detail the either PM each other or make a thread for that.
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Nevertheless, you are correct that the associated demographics, and target audiences of each party are often not helped by that parties policies.

If you don't feel informed enough to pick a candidate, pick someone you know you DON'T want and vote for their opposition.

If you don't think there is anyone worth voting against or don't care (not suitably informed, whatever) which candidate wins, then sure, not voting can be an option.
So long as you've at least given it some thought and not "didn't vote because /effort"

It does sorta void your right to complain about shit though. Being informed is a responsibility.
If, after informing yourself, you still don't care who wins, feel free to abstain, if that is your informed decision.


you do realise that some of the voting at some of the voting stations from the Iowa Caucus was so close, they had to decide a winner with a coin toss?

I hadn't heard about that, my bad. thanks for the info.

To answer the thread's question of whether or not should everyone who can vote, vote?

In my opinion the answer is a definite no.

From my perspective elections are more like a popularity contest, which completely undermines the whole ordeal. People will vote without doing any research, or will vote depending on who they think is a nicer person, better looking, etc. Qualities that have nothing to do with politics at all.

A lot of the time people cannot tell you the main ideas of their candidate much less the other candidates running. Many people go into the voting booth uninformed, with some not even knowing why they are voting for them. People in general are lazy and aren't willing to inform themselves and think watching biased news networks gives us the prerequisites to vote. From my experiences a lot of people treat politics like their favourite sports team and will vote one side no matter what, and will complain once they learn the candidate had opinions they didn't agree with.

Many of us do not have backgrounds in economics or other sustainable ideas and thus will not comprehend many of the good ideas put forth and will immediately denounce them. Many of the politicians have no backgrounds in economics either, and yet people still vote for them. Pretty silly if you ask me.

tl;dr: Elections have degraded into who can shout freedom the loudest, or simply biased uninformed voters outweighing the people who actually read up on the candidates.

Should everyone...?

No, not really.

Every individual has given the right to vote and not to vote.
It's just that the majority has to vote if they want changes for better or for the worse.

I don't think it should be mandatory, however I think it should be mandatory for people who don't vote to shut the fuck up about politics and how terrible everything is. Want to change it? Go vote for a candidate you think can change it. Want to bitch about how awful everything is? Go vote and then bitch all you want.

I feel that you have to know the person before you vote for them
Aka do your research