Mvmarcz wrote:Mercury Hat wrote:Dr Legostar wrote:I'm with Mv, i can't bring myself to vote for either candidate (anyone telling me there's more than two is fooling themselves). and I'm allowed (as is she) to complain no matter who is elected, seeing as I'm planning on complaining either way, and it is a free country, that in itself gives us the right to complain, not whether we vote or not. And for the record, it's not that I'm in Canada that has kept me from voting, because Amanda voted.
It's silly to say you can't complain about who gets elected. Not only because of what lego says, but because by choosing not to vote you are saying "I don't approve/choose either of the two candidates and their policies."
If someone you don't agree with is elected, you have a right to publicly disagree with them. Whether you voted for or against them or even at all isn't and shouldn't be a factor.
Not voting out of apathy is one thing but choosing not to vote is a valid choice, it's representative of your opinion and it's an opinion that isn't wiped out the minute the guy's sworn in.
THANK YOU
I am 100% with Rkolter on this one.
If you try to do something, you may be destined to fail. But if you don't try, you fail for sure. You may not like any candidate, but undoubtly you think that one of them is a little less bad - and then you can't know for sure how they'll govern until you see it.
Not voting because you don't like any candidate is pure and simple defetism. Of course, noone can stop you from complaining about who won afterwards, but if you didn't vote, that only makes your complains a lot of hot air, like a person who complains about failing at something he didn't even try to do.
But I'm not speaking only in theory. Do you think that we believed that we had any chance of bringing Milosevic down in 2000, after several unsuccessful attempts prior to that? But we had to try anyway and we somehow succeeded.
But you can look at it this way too: if you don't actually vote, you are still implicitely voting. A candidate needs 51% of people who voted, not of entire popularion. It is assumed that non-voters would vote in same percentages if they voted. So implicitely you are voting, only this time you aren't deciding for whom you vote.
If you had something to achieve by not voting, that would be a different issue. If, say, 51% of people didn't vote, and as a result, your country run without president/parliament/whatever. But you don't achieve anything.
Furthermore, if you went out and filled invalid vote form, that might add up to something. A mass of invalid votes may be interpreted as dissatisfaction. A mass of people who never got out to vote, will be more likely interpreted as lack of interest in politics, or even laziness.
However, I'm all for people who don't know much about politics not voting. It is better not to vote, than to go out and vote for someone because you liked how he dresses or because someone told you to. However, we all know that people who don't understand politics or have blatantly simplified view at it, are much more likely to vote.
Sure, not voting is your personal choice, but that doesn't mean it's a good choice. As much as you hate to hear it, people who nag you to vote are right as long as they don't nag you to vote for their candidate.
