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The Forum > General Discussion > Choice between good and bad? Choice between bad and worse?

Choice between good and bad? Choice between bad and worse?

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That’s crackers freediver. Of course we should not be obligated to vote for someone we don’t like. It should be the voter’s free choice to vote for the lesser of two or more reviled candidates or to abstain, just as it should be their choice to declare preferences or not.

Real democracy is about being able to vote as you see fit. If you are going to be forced to vote for someone you don’t like or to declare preferences that you don’t want to declare and hence risk having your vote count where you don’t want it to count, then democracy has been gutted.

You can no longer call it democracy.

It is your democratic civic duty to vote as you see fit
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 20 November 2007 8:22:38 PM
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Hi all
My understanding from most of the posts here is the choice between bad and worse, not other options: choice between good and bad , choice between good and better.
Am I right?
Posted by Angela84, Tuesday, 20 November 2007 10:30:55 PM
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If there were a practical way to differentiate between informed abstention and plain laziness I would be all for it, but there isn't.
Posted by freediver, Wednesday, 21 November 2007 9:40:35 AM
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Hold on freediver, you are contradicting yourself.

First you say that we should be obligated to vote for the least awful candidate rather than abstain. And now you are saying that abstinence would be ok.... if we could separate it from apathy (:>/

Apathy or plain old laziness is a huge problem. It leads a large portion of the populace to cast ill-informed votes. It leads people to choose between candidates which they don’t really support. It leads to a highly false indication of support for the winner.

One thing is for sure, if the apathy factor was properly addressed, there would be a whole lot more people out there calling for optional preferential voting to replace compulsory preferential voting and for the option to vote for no candidate to be formally included in every election.

In other words; for us all to be able exercise our free will, which should be our basic democratic right, when voting.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 21 November 2007 10:47:01 AM
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I chose my words carefully. If you are informed about the people running for election and how preferential voting works, you would be able to tell the difference between the two major candidates and would have no reason to abstain from ranking them.
Posted by freediver, Wednesday, 21 November 2007 12:14:04 PM
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Angela I’m sure all of those views exist. But yes the predominating view on OLO seems to be bad and ever so slightly badder!
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 21 November 2007 6:58:22 PM
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