OV9

ZedLeg wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 12:53 pm You’re just being silly now.

It's a fair point - there are usually enough other independent or non-mainstream candidates in most constituencies. So there should be someone to vote for, whether it's Count Binface himself or the Green candidate.

ZedLeg wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 11:46 am It’s utterly bizarre to me that people think you should just vote for whoever happens to be running tbh.

What do you suggest they do instead? Unless you mandate a level of participation (e.g. 51% voter turnout or something along those lines), abstaining never achieves anything.

That’s not been the argument at any point up til now though. The assertion was that anyone who didn’t vote for Harris in the US is responsible for trump.

That argument would stand if you voted third party too.

DeskJockey wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:20 pm

ZedLeg wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 11:46 am It’s utterly bizarre to me that people think you should just vote for whoever happens to be running tbh.

What do you suggest they do instead? Unless you mandate a level of participation (e.g. 51% voter turnout or something along those lines), abstaining never achieves anything.

Vote for the candidate you want or don’t vote if you don’t want to. That’s literally been my entire point.

ZedLeg wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:21 pm

DeskJockey wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:20 pm

ZedLeg wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 11:46 am It’s utterly bizarre to me that people think you should just vote for whoever happens to be running tbh.

What do you suggest they do instead? Unless you mandate a level of participation (e.g. 51% voter turnout or something along those lines), abstaining never achieves anything.

Vote for the candidate you want or don’t vote if you don’t want to. That’s literally been my entire point.

Okay. Still don't see how abstaining solves or improves anything, but you've made your point.

Shouting at people for not voting for candidates they didn’t like doesn’t seem to be doing anything useful either.

DeskJockey wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:25 pm Okay. Still don't see how abstaining solves or improves anything, but you've made your point.

If the person who chooses not to vote, or to spoil their ballot paper (in Aus) actively wants not to vote for any of the candidates then consider their mindset: it isn't improving anything but nor would voting for people they don't like or agree with. The proportion of the eligible population who don't vote does send a message overall; if it is high, it means there are plenty of unengaged voters to try to engage with for the next election.

Spoiling a vote because you’ve been made to turn up and all the available options are shite doesn’t improve things either.

Politicians should take low turn out as a hint that what they’re doing isn’t working. However they won’t, they’ll just look at the win or why they lost.

I didn’t vote in the last general election because I thought Labour were full of crap, but couldn’t bring myself to vote for the tories, and none of the other parties had any appeal at all.

However if one side had been as moronic as trump I would have done everything I could to make sure he didn’t get in, even if it meant voting for someone I also didn’t like very much.

Jobbo wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:38 pm

DeskJockey wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:25 pm Okay. Still don't see how abstaining solves or improves anything, but you've made your point.

If the person who chooses not to vote, or to spoil their ballot paper (in Aus) actively wants not to vote for any of the candidates then consider their mindset: it isn't improving anything but nor would voting for people they don't like or agree with. The proportion of the eligible population who don't vote does send a message overall; if it is high, it means there are plenty of unengaged voters to try to engage with for the next election.

I get that. Be interesting to understand how wide of the expectation/mark it has to be for people to not vote, even to try to prevent the worse option (whichever way they look at it) from winning.

integrale_evo wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 1:40 pm Spoiling a vote because you’ve been made to turn up and all the available options are shite doesn’t improve things either.

If voting is compulsory, it is your only option. Hence I mentioned Aus.

You chose not to vote last year so you're a great example. If somebody, or a party, could find a way to persuade you to vote then they aren't changing the mind of people already voting against them - it's much more of an open door to push on.

ETA: Alex, if voters consider all of the options are bad they don't tend to seek out the least bad - they probably avoid campaigning entirely. So the time for politicians to engage with them is definitely not in the run-up to an election. Farage is very clever at this.

Yes, sadly he is. They're never not campaigning, they just pretend otherwise. Memories are short.

Sundayjumper wrote: Tue Jan 28, 2025 9:00 pm bafkreibjh2gbp75z5bojibdoefdpfdwlclxwspai2i7qfjotajpraru3zm.jpeg

A news article from 2021?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/us/g ... 20warrants.

No, 2020. Still donold, still funny.

Getting Boeing to rush a project seems like a good way for this situation to resolve itself

ZedLeg wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 7:31 am Getting Boeing to rush a project seems like a good way for this situation to resolve itself

IMG_2513.jpeg

737 Max based?

Not weighing in on the morals of voting/abstaining, but the practical effect of abstaining is exactly the same as casting a vote for the prevailing vote split. You might feel all morally upstanding by sticking to your principles, but what you have effectively done, without giving explicit permission, is cast your vote 53% Trump, 47% Harris (or whatever the final percentage was). If you're happy with that as the result of your non-vote, carry on.

That’s just the same as agreeing with the democratic process though.

Aslong as you go with the outcome then that’s fine.

Dave!

Nefarious wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 9:14 am Not weighing in on the morals of voting/abstaining, but the practical effect of abstaining is exactly the same as casting a vote for the prevailing vote split. You might feel all morally upstanding by sticking to your principles, but what you have effectively done, without giving explicit permission, is cast your vote 53% Trump, 47% Harris (or whatever the final percentage was). If you're happy with that as the result of your non-vote, carry on.

I think dismissing ethical considerations from a personal vote is daft.

The practical effect of voting for candidates regardless of your view on them is to show them that it doesn’t matter what they do, they just have to be marginally less evil than the other guy.