Do you bother to vote?

Heineken Helen

Braighni wrote:

Well, free country. I don't mind what you do with it.
Just throwing in a suggestion or two.

Heres another one.

If you don't want to use your vote (this time around) and someone you like/respect does, why not offer it to them and let them choose?

Because my choice is not to use my vote... THAT's my vote. It's not that I just don't care. I always have voted since I turned 18... even went to Cavan and back just to vote. Actually one time my sister and I DIDN'T go to Cavan, I think it was the Nice Treaty thing... one of us was voting yes, the other no, so we finally agreed that it would be stupid for both of us to travel for 3 and half hours when we cancel eachother out .

So if I give my vote to someone I like/respect they would eliminate the reason for me not voting in the first place

Kann

Heineken Helen wrote:

I'm sorry, I just really don't see the big deal in choosing not to vote. Even if you educate yourself on who's promising what (which I have, I've actually gone to the election website and checked each candidate individually in my locality - some I've been aware of before anyway), why should we believe any of them?

During the presidential elections of 2002 in France, we were plenty to think that way (30% of all voters) and just didn't go. Because they all sucked and didn't exactly seem right. Of these 30% a vast majority would have voted left. As a result the candidate representing the left didn't have enough votes to qualify for the second part of the election and lost his place to our far right extremist dick.
This year, the choices were even worse (particularly to the left) but more than 85% voted and we didn't have to face that lame result we had in 2002.
So not only voting to avoid the worse avoided us the worst, but we also won back some credibility towards our neighbours (sorry by the way).

Heineken Helen

Kann wrote:

During the presidential elections of 2002 in France, we were plenty to think that way (30% of all voters) and just didn't go. Because they all sucked and didn't exactly seem right. Of these 30% a vast majority would have voted left. As a result the candidate representing the left didn't have enough votes to qualify for the second part of the election and lost his place to our far right extremist dick.
This year, the choices were even worse (particularly to the left) but more than 85% voted and we didn't have to face that lame result we had in 2002.
So not only voting to avoid the worse avoided us the worst, but we also won back some credibility towards our neighbours (sorry by the way).

Well I see what you mean... and I remember that election. If our candidates were as extreme as that though, I would have absolutely no hesitation in voting. I've explained my reasons here for not voting and I always do vote otherwise. Our main party basically made most of us rich but we've a crap infrastructure... the oppositions would probably improve the infrastructure but I'm not sure they could handle such a strong economy and we'd all end up struggling. As far as I can see, each party has one or two good things going for them and a million bad things going for them and I think each will be a bad idea to be honest... I'm not sure which is the worst of them though, hence my delay in a decision.

I've said though that I probably WILL vote (in this thread or another I'm not sure) but if I decide not to vote because I think don't care about any of them, well that's my prerogative don't ya think?

Kann

Heineken Helen wrote:

but if I decide not to vote because I think don't care about any of them, well that's my prerogative don't ya think?

Absolutely, after all we vote to stay free to choose not to vote! Sometimes it can be dangerous not to vote, but I understand your choices don't suck as much as they do here.

Heineken Helen

Kann wrote:

Absolutely, after all we vote to stay free to choose not to vote! Sometimes it can be dangerous not to vote, but I understand your choices don't suck as much as they do here.

Well absolutely, I do feel my vote makes a difference but in this case I don't think that difference really matters