Young people should be forced to vote, says IPPR.

[Monic1511]

My comment is if you don't vote then you have no right to complain about anything the elected person does.
If you voted then you were at least interested but to complain that the government doesn't do what you want when you never even voted seems contrary.

I do share the views held by others than none of the main parties are trustworthy but if we don't vote and extremists on any side of an argument become the major power then more of us suffer.   If we don't vote and an extremely radical party gets in they could start removing some of our rights just because they are the elected government.

I think this happened a bit in the USA after 9/11 when a panicked senate? voted through the patriot act, this meant the authorities had the right to monitor your reading material and could then arrest you under suspicion of acting against the state - just for reading things that could be considered anti authority >yikes<

Everyone says it wouldn't happen in the UK but wasn't Hitler the elected leader of his country.
night everyone away for a kip ;-)
Monic

[ditchdwellers]

There was a turnout of 29.8% in my area for the elections.  Pathetic really.  I'm not sure how we can encourage more people to vote, but I despair that so few people are bothered about what happens, both locally and nationally.

[oldtone27]

In my view few people vote because they don't believe their representatives can actually DO anything significant.

Local councils are restricted by central government dictats so their activities are severely limited, and they have little control over what they spend their funding on.

Central government is restricted by the dictats of the EU and the obsessive way they are interpreted by our bureaucrats.

The EU itself is restricted by international agreements and multinational corporations.

The basic problem is these organisations are getting progressively larger, more remote and less concerned about their effect on the individual. They are not sensitive to his/her needs and are too large to respond quickly enough for the citizen to appreciate any result.

It is a fundamental law of physics that the larger the mass, the greater the inertia.

So if your vote is not going to produce a result, why vote?

[bulekingfisher]

Hello Access Officer

I think politions from all parties should be referred to as Drama Queen's + Parliment refferred to as the Wet Soap Drama

[james-1989]

I don't believe people should be forced to vote, if you don't trust any party, you shouldn't made vote for one of them. There will also be people who don't vote because they can't be bothered, but theres also people who either don't know who to vote for or don't feel theres any party they can identify with.

The first time I voted I really didn't have a clue who to vote for. If politics was taught at school I could've at least made an informed choice. It wasn't until the last couple of years I had any understanding of politics. Even now I don't know who to vote for because none of the parties are very appealing just now. I feel like the main parties are the same - the leaders equally out of touch.

[ATurtle]

If, and I think it's a bad idea to Force people to vote, the youth of this country are made to vote, there must be a "None of the Above" option on the ballot paper and this should be taken into account.

This option would also allow those disenchanted with the political system to make their voice heard.

At present, unless one of the parties make a total change in direction, I will be writing "None of the Above" on my next General Election Ballot, encouraging my friends and neighbours to do the same and then making known to the Returning Officer that I will be asking for the number of similar ballot papers to be made known.