To ask why some people don't vote

[LyraTheDaemon]

I'm naive to the whole thing! I completely understand it's their democratic right to not vote just as it is to vote but I'm baffled as to why you wouldn't.

I work with someone who is overall a nice person but is extremely naive & lives in a bit of a bubble. For context, we work in the NHS & she has 2 children, so imo the policies being discussed by all parties will have an impact on her, but she just doesn't care! We've all mentioned to her how important it is but she says she doesn't know or care enough to go. It also transpired she's not even registered to vote so we all gave up trying to convince her.

Without a slanging match, if you don't vote, why? Why not spoil the ballot instead? Obviously this isn't aimed at people that can't vote, it's for those who can but choose not to.

Spoiling a ballot is a legitimate statement. It says I took the time to come down here and record the fact that I cannot vote for any of the parties on offer. Not voting at all is just stupid, lazy and reckless.

Sorry makeour - I've just seen so much of it (admittedly mainly online, although I've practically been accused of being a class traitor irl by one of my more extreme Corbynista friends). I'm tetchy about it!

Don't forget parties need 5% of the votes to get their deposits back. So your vote could save them £500. Also the number of party political broadcasts they get at the next election is determined by their votes at this one.

This time, it's really btw Labour and Conservative - or more a "Yes I agree with what you are doing TM" (Conservative) or "NO - Stop right now!" (Labour)

or "NO - Stop right now!" (Labour) - or Lib Dem, or SNP etc etc, depending on your constituency. In my constituency in 2015, Labour came a very poor fourth behind the LDs and UKIP, and about 2k votes ahead of the Greens.

Because I live in a safe conservative seat and would vote conservative anyway with the second party being labour.

But more to the point, if I go and vote conservative, my husband will go and vote labour and we'll cancel each other out.

Therefore we pair up just like the MP's do and neither of us vote.

I'm not voting, nor have I voted before. I just can't find it in me to care.

Wooly, we did that for Brexit. I would have voted remain. Dh leave so neither of us voted.

babykite can I ask why you don't care?

I feel so strongly that I want no part in it.
They are all liars, they all spout shite that none of them deliver on. They all Rob Peter to pay Paul and finally they are all out to feather their own nests.
I believe that they all have underhand agenda.

I once saw a politician on the news who used to be a builder (for over 20 years), plain, simple speaking northerner. He donated his pay rise to charity because he said to him it was "obscene" to accept it when nhs staff had pay caps. He is the only one who made me stop and listen. I didn't get his name, now him I would vote for, Politicians like him are just not around and bloody should be. Morals and good old fashioned human decency.

It was the claims scandal that disgusted me so profoundly that I chose to have nothing to do with any of it, as an nhs employee, not being allowed a pen, bringing in bars of soap from home as due to cuts the hospital were no longer providing it for patients, it fucking infuriated me.

I want no part in consenting to these criminals running this country. There isn't a decent one amongst them.

Apart from a council election when DW was rushed to hospital and I had other things on my mind I have never missed and unless I fall prey to dementia I never will. I cannot understand just not bothering.

I don't vote, the reason I don't vote is because I believe that the less ill-informed votes the better.

VelvetSpoon can I ask why you don't think there should be more money put in the NHS? Just out of genuine curiosity.

Some people just aren't that bothered. They'll vote for BGT but manifestos and independent reading are all just a bit hard work and don't have anything to do with their "real" lives. I know so many people like this, I really think they must walk around with their eyes closed. I don't think they even read newspapers and if they did, they'd go straight to the celebrity pages.

Indeed. The best you can say of universal suffrage is that it is better than the alternatives.

If I was badgered by my colleagues re voting I would be putting in a grievance faster than a speeding bullet.

I worked in the NHS at the last election. A girl in my office had an entire family who worked for the NHS and the mother ordered them all postal votes and filled them in for Labour herself and posted them off herself. The girl concerned was so dim she actually thought Labour were still in government. It would have been better for everyone if her vote hadn't gone in because her mother got 5 votes on account of having a spectacularly dim family.

I'm abstaining this time because there is not a single party who doesn't have at least one policy I'm not violently opposed to, and I don't want my vote being taken as approval for policies I don't like.

The only people I know who have openly told me they don't vote are some school mums. They said it in a kind of "I'm too busy with my dc to even think about it" way.

Ridiculous really. The kids have a day off school for God's sake. What else is there to do!

I've also seen a few people on fb saying politics doesn't effect them which is so stupid it's laughable really.

My DH works away a lot and applied for a postal vote. It turned up the day after he left . So that's why he's not voting in the general election.

People don't vote because of the stupid, naive opinion that whoever is in power won't affect their lives. They usually state that "all politicians are the same" or "all lie" etc without getting the fact different parties have different policies and some could have a very negative impact on their lives. I wonder how many of those who don't vote then complain about tax rises, benefit cuts, nhs cuts, education cuts etc.

@roses2 apparently if you didn't receive your postal vote in time you could have (or rather your DH could have) applied for an emergency proxy vote by 1700 today. Obvs too late now though. I only know this because a couple of friends of mine working overseas had this happen to them.

If they haven't taken the time to research and so don't know the differences, then should they vote, just picking whoever or who they're told? I don't think so. There's been a couple of times I didn't vote on a particular issue because I hadn't done my homework in time and that's my fault. Generally, if you don't know anything about the issue/candidates then in good conscience you shouldn't vote.

We have a duty to research and resist our own biases when it comes to voting. I too am amazed at the people who don't care, who are totally incurious, who automatically votes a certain way without examining both sides objectively.

I don't think a whole load of research is needed tbh. I'm in my 40s, politically aware, have always voted and have a degree in a politics-related discipline (not their target audience, basically!), but because my car radio is so shit I've ended up listening to R1 a lot - I think their Newsbeat pieces on the election have been pretty good.

Obviously my vote hasn't been informed by them, but I think a youngster basing their choice on that information wouldn't be entirely unreasonable at all.

My parents are mid 50s and have never voted. My mum works in education. Says that they are all the same, all liars, never noticed any differences that have affected her in 50 years etc. She never complains or moans about taxes, the NHS, immigration etc. The only thing she's ever bothered about is the pound vs the dollar exchange rate

She also lives in a Labour stronghold (about 70-80% probably!) so to be fair it is a bit pointless. Some people just genuinely aren't interested or educated about it.

This made me LOL very much...

Why this woman didn't vote - an open letter to Bath

For the avoidance of doubt it's a satirical page btw :)