5 ms·

What If Everyone Voted (in the UK)

rahimnathwani 9y ago
For the group, it's good (for some definition of good) if everyone votes. For the individual, their payoff from voting is extremely likely to be zero: if you voted, and your chosen MP won by a single vote, your trip to the polling station made a difference. Any other outcome, and you could have stayed at home or gone to the pub instead, with no change in outcome. Whilst I'm not generally in favour of the state forcing people to do things, I wouldn't mind if I (and everyone else) were forced to vote at every general election, with some potential penalty to incentivise compliance.
- ShardPhoenix 9y ago
  Voting is mandatory in Australia and our political system doesn't seem particularly better (or worse) then the UK.
  - jayflux 9y ago
    Genuine question, how do you police that?
    - ShardPhoenix 9y ago
      You get your name and address checked off when you vote, if you don't get checked off you get fined (~$100). However I've heard of people sometimes not voting without getting fined, not sure why.
- pjbster 9y ago
  I'm generally not in favour of mandatory voting either but I do think one way of moving forward with Brexit would be to demand a vote from those who didn't turn out for the referendum. When the direction of a nation has been decided by less than a majority (in this case, by 34% of the electorate?) I think special measures can be justified. It shouldn't be hard to identify those voters; I always have to hand my voting card to someone when I go to a polling station so I imagine there are lots of lists somewhere of people who were registered but didn't turn up.
  - beojan 9y ago
    The problem with that is that it isn't fair to those who did vote, because the ones voting now have more information to go on. The only fair way to do this would be a second referendum with mandatory voting.
    - jansho 9y ago
      Which won't be popular, unfortunately.
  - zigzigzag 9y ago
    The direction of the nation is decided by less than a majority in every vote. So why would this one in particular require "special measures"? I think what you're getting at here is you support the EU, so would prefer if attempts to leave it or defy it were harder to implement than normal decisions.
    - gambiting 9y ago
      Even if remain won, I would still like to see at least 2/3 majority requirement for such an important vote. I don't mind simple majority for periodically repeating votes(parliamentary elections) but decisions which are almost irreversible or which have deep and long-lasting consequences(leaving/joining EU, going to war, breaking up the United Kingdom, changing constitution) should have a 2/3 majority requirement.
      - zigzigzag 9y ago
        And how about if the vote had been phrased as "do you wish to remain in the EU", with a 2/3rd requirement to meet the bar, meaning 1/3rd was sufficient to trigger Brexit? Would that have seemed fair? Democracy evolved as a shortcut to avoid fights. Just count and you got a rough idea of which side has the most people and thus, is more likely to win if it came down to it. Once you start tipping the threshold in order to bias things towards your preferred decisions, you increase the risk of the losing side thinking ... wait a minute. We could win this. That's far worse than any other outcome. The EU and its supporters constantly warp the system to try and make it hard for people to leave, hard for the people to reject their policies. It is fundamentally undemocratic.
- DarkKomunalec 9y ago
  Mandatory voting just results in on-average less informed voters, doesn't it? If someone can't be bothered to go to the polls, what makes you think they'll be bothered to inform themselves of the issues and candidates? The way to prevent a small minority from deciding stuff like brexit is by having a minimum of attendance required - if not met, the results are void.
  - pjbster 9y ago
    Yes. Or they could have said that a certain number of votes would be required (equal to 50% of the electorate). So, even if only 51% turned out, the result would stand if 98% of them voted to leave.
    - benchaney 9y ago
      Most people would call that rigging the election.
  - IanCal 9y ago
    > Mandatory voting just results in on-average less informed voters, doesn't it? If someone can't be bothered to go to the polls, what makes you think they'll be bothered to inform themselves of the issues and candidates? Apathy can be driven from a feeling of helplessness as well as simply not really caring or knowing what's happening. Additionally, if people had to vote, would they try and engage more? I guess the key question would be, would the ill-informed that don't vote cause enough of an issue to outweigh the benefits of having higher participation from those who feel simply more left out? I would love to see other propositions as well, currently a candidate/party has two main actions that are beneficial for them: 1. Make more people vote for them 2. Make fewer people vote for the other side So weirdly our politicians are rewarded for lowering participation in groups that don't vote their way. What if we could link the control with the total turnout? Perhaps at least with some things, like to force a bill past the Lords requires enough MPs to represent more than X% of the country itself. Maybe this would be a terrible idea, but I'd love to know what other alternatives we could consider.
  - rahimnathwani 9y ago
- mathw 9y ago
  Actually what we need is an electoral system in which everyone can feel like their vote was counted.
  - hanoz 9y ago
    Agreed. I found voting in the brexit referendum a strangely exhilarating experience, as living in a safe constituency it felt like it was the first time in my life that my vote was making any meaningful contribution to the national result.
rpark2 9y ago
This is for Britain, not the United Kingdom.
- IanCal 9y ago
  Ish, the map is for Britain (at least most of it), but the figures are for the UK as a whole as it covers all the 650 seats. I didn't have a good map I could swap in to cover NI as well.

For the group, it's good (for some definition of good) if everyone votes. For the individual, their payoff from voting is extremely likely to be zero: if you voted, and your chosen MP won by a single vote, your trip to the polling station made a difference. Any other outcome, and you could have stayed at home or gone to the pub instead, with no change in outcome. Whilst I'm not generally in favour of the state forcing people to do things, I wouldn't mind if I (and everyone else) were forced to vote at every general election, with some potential penalty to incentivise compliance.

ShardPhoenix 9y ago
Voting is mandatory in Australia and our political system doesn't seem particularly better (or worse) then the UK.
- jayflux 9y ago
  Genuine question, how do you police that?
  - ShardPhoenix 9y ago
    You get your name and address checked off when you vote, if you don't get checked off you get fined (~$100). However I've heard of people sometimes not voting without getting fined, not sure why.
pjbster 9y ago
I'm generally not in favour of mandatory voting either but I do think one way of moving forward with Brexit would be to demand a vote from those who didn't turn out for the referendum. When the direction of a nation has been decided by less than a majority (in this case, by 34% of the electorate?) I think special measures can be justified. It shouldn't be hard to identify those voters; I always have to hand my voting card to someone when I go to a polling station so I imagine there are lots of lists somewhere of people who were registered but didn't turn up.
- beojan 9y ago
  The problem with that is that it isn't fair to those who did vote, because the ones voting now have more information to go on. The only fair way to do this would be a second referendum with mandatory voting.
  - jansho 9y ago
    Which won't be popular, unfortunately.
- zigzigzag 9y ago
  The direction of the nation is decided by less than a majority in every vote. So why would this one in particular require "special measures"? I think what you're getting at here is you support the EU, so would prefer if attempts to leave it or defy it were harder to implement than normal decisions.
  - gambiting 9y ago
    Even if remain won, I would still like to see at least 2/3 majority requirement for such an important vote. I don't mind simple majority for periodically repeating votes(parliamentary elections) but decisions which are almost irreversible or which have deep and long-lasting consequences(leaving/joining EU, going to war, breaking up the United Kingdom, changing constitution) should have a 2/3 majority requirement.
    - zigzigzag 9y ago
      And how about if the vote had been phrased as "do you wish to remain in the EU", with a 2/3rd requirement to meet the bar, meaning 1/3rd was sufficient to trigger Brexit? Would that have seemed fair? Democracy evolved as a shortcut to avoid fights. Just count and you got a rough idea of which side has the most people and thus, is more likely to win if it came down to it. Once you start tipping the threshold in order to bias things towards your preferred decisions, you increase the risk of the losing side thinking ... wait a minute. We could win this. That's far worse than any other outcome. The EU and its supporters constantly warp the system to try and make it hard for people to leave, hard for the people to reject their policies. It is fundamentally undemocratic.
DarkKomunalec 9y ago
Mandatory voting just results in on-average less informed voters, doesn't it? If someone can't be bothered to go to the polls, what makes you think they'll be bothered to inform themselves of the issues and candidates? The way to prevent a small minority from deciding stuff like brexit is by having a minimum of attendance required - if not met, the results are void.
- pjbster 9y ago
  Yes. Or they could have said that a certain number of votes would be required (equal to 50% of the electorate). So, even if only 51% turned out, the result would stand if 98% of them voted to leave.
  - benchaney 9y ago
    Most people would call that rigging the election.
- IanCal 9y ago
  > Mandatory voting just results in on-average less informed voters, doesn't it? If someone can't be bothered to go to the polls, what makes you think they'll be bothered to inform themselves of the issues and candidates? Apathy can be driven from a feeling of helplessness as well as simply not really caring or knowing what's happening. Additionally, if people had to vote, would they try and engage more? I guess the key question would be, would the ill-informed that don't vote cause enough of an issue to outweigh the benefits of having higher participation from those who feel simply more left out? I would love to see other propositions as well, currently a candidate/party has two main actions that are beneficial for them: 1. Make more people vote for them 2. Make fewer people vote for the other side So weirdly our politicians are rewarded for lowering participation in groups that don't vote their way. What if we could link the control with the total turnout? Perhaps at least with some things, like to force a bill past the Lords requires enough MPs to represent more than X% of the country itself. Maybe this would be a terrible idea, but I'd love to know what other alternatives we could consider.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
mathw 9y ago
Actually what we need is an electoral system in which everyone can feel like their vote was counted.
- hanoz 9y ago
  Agreed. I found voting in the brexit referendum a strangely exhilarating experience, as living in a safe constituency it felt like it was the first time in my life that my vote was making any meaningful contribution to the national result.

rpark2 9y ago

This is for Britain, not the United Kingdom.

IanCal 9y ago
Ish, the map is for Britain (at least most of it), but the figures are for the UK as a whole as it covers all the 650 seats. I didn't have a good map I could swap in to cover NI as well.