Compulsory voting

Some quick thoughts based on Elee's entry regarding compulsory voting.

First we have the interesting situation of making choice compulsory, the only way out of that is to have the choice of not choosing. As it stands at the moment that means intentionally spoiling your ballot, the difficulty with that is you can't distinguish between those doing so with that purpose in mind and those doing so by accident. We already hold investigations when there appears to be an abnormal number of spooled papers so either the numbers would be ignored, leading to potential 'fixing' of elections; or you investigate it every time, which would be a waste of everyone's time and money.

This leads to creating a specific option to 'not' vote the "None of the above" option, unfortunately as diogenes commented it requires the politicians to ask "Shall we give the public the chance to tell us that we are all rubbish?" this can be imagined clearly in any election where the majority voted for NOTA. What authority would any elected body hope to expect?

The phrase "duty and obligation" cropped up to in the comments section, and I agree the vote was fought for and should be used, but don't the politicians also have a duty and an obligation to make us want to vote? If you have to force people to do so (even if a NOTA is included) doesn't that indicate a failing in the politicians we're supposed to be voting for?

Perhaps the difficulty lies in that, despite all our grumbling, we're too comfortable; the policy decisions made by the various parties are either too complex for the lay-person to understand, or simply knee-jerk reactions that we're all getting a bit fed-up of. What overall difference has a Labour government made over a Conservative one, what difference would a new Conservative government make, what would a Liberal Democrat one do? To my mind only superficial shifts, the bedrock policies of this nation will remain unchanged and therein perhaps lies the problem - what's the point of voting it never seems to make any real difference who gets in.

The parties could try to differentiate themselves more, but could end up polarised along extremes; they could try to explain the complex issues in an easier way, but could make themselves look condescending; they could avoid the prevailing wind policies, but could make it look like they're not in touch with the 'people'.

So what's the answer? Is there one? <sigh> expect to see adverts featuring celebrities telling 'da youth' how cool it is to vote.