Ignorance regarding voting is rife

[DistinguishedSocialCommentator]

With the GE around the corner, I read too many times some people banging on about: "You must vote..... women died for the right to vote. etc etc" - then at times you get, "My great grandfather/etc/etc for your freedom so you should vote,etc,etc!"!

People around the world fought for their freedom from the Nazis. It was freedom we retained with millions of armed personnel and civilians losing their lives.
Freedom is the right to choose!!

AIBU to feel that ignorance is rife regarding voting, IE many lack the basic understandings of a 'right to vote' Vs mandatory voting??

FYI, I'm posting from London/England. At times I feel that a lot of these posters may be posting from Russia, China, Australia, North Korea etc as voting there is mandatory I believe and you are not given the freedom to decide.

Scenario!! Come the GE and I have a choice to vote for Labour, Conservatives, Greens, Libs, Refrom, Independent, Etc, ETC. Why should I vote for any of them as I do not just trust my local candidates and nor do I trust at all any political party they represent as things stand!!

I guess, if they had a Jackass as a candidate with the above, I'd vote for that animal.

Finally, everyone that is a citizen of England must have the right to vote when aged 18 and over. Importantly, the right/freedom to refrain from voting must be upheld as this is what my great-grandparents nd their parents fought for!!!

Thank you.

It's not an English General Election, it's a United Kingdom one. There's a big difference there and you need to educate yourself on that.

Your language sounds much more like American English than UK English (the word Jackass for instance). So are you really posting from London, England? My gut feeling is no.

You also can't spell "nonsense" properly. It certainly isn't "nonesense."

So don’t vote 🤷‍♀️

Haven't RTFT. But honestly, mansplaining voting rights to women? No thanks. Women did die so I can vote. If I'm 'none of the above' I spoil my ballot, I don't fail to turn up.

i.e does not require uppercase

Op trying to be witty

Oh Christ, it's you again!

It's interesting that you talk about the ignorance of others, then talk about voting for a Jackass.

Perhaps it is you that is the Jackass.

That only applies though if you think that our current electoral system is even vaguely democratic and representative, which it clearly isn’t. Otherwise people are more than entitled to not vote and then moan about it.

Oh for fucks sake!

Maybe the vote should only be granted to those of good character and a certain level of intelligence.
The rest could be like the Proles in 1984.

Your OP is incoherent.

@DistinguishedSocialCommentator

obviously they're talking about a moral obligation to vote not a legal one

i do, pretty much, agree with there being a moral obligation to vote (even if you show your disgust/indifference to ALL the candidates) by spoiling your vote.

I would never support a legal obligation to vote.Apart from rebelling against that kind of thing, it's better if people who have no knowledge or actual well formed opinion don't just vote for the name or rosette colour they like the most

1/3 of the population didn't vote I the last election you can choose to vote none by writing it across the paper. This then registers as a protest vote as opposed to not being heard at all.

Interestingly I realised few yeara ago how many many people say "i don't vote because my vote won't change anything"...
30% and more don't vote. These votes can absolute make difference. If not at final results immediately, in showing others that there are more people voting for who they would and swinging their votes and eventually bringing change.

As so many have said, voting isn’t mandatory in the UK. Nor is it in Russia. The OP is badly informed and the rest of us will encourage adults in the UK to vote because our votes were hard won and our democracy is important.

Me too.
Don't feed the troll 🧌

Having crossed paths with the OP on previous threads, perhaps doing one of those 'BS degrees' they decry would help with their comprehension skills.
Clearly no-one actually thinks voting here is mandatory, but a great number of people think it's pretty shameful to not even turn in a spoiled paper when people died to give you the right to vote.
They aren't all the same, they aren't all as bad as each other. They all stand for fundamentally different things and there seems, to me, little as stupid as not having your say when we have the chance to.

Eh? Cannot follow this at all.

I have this issue. The only 2 viable options in my area are labour and Conservative. I had the misfortune of getting to know the labour candidate at regular meet ups due to pur children, and she us a really 2 faced, hypocritical, judgemental snob of a person who pretends to be working class when she has 4 houses, a nanny, a full time housekeeper etc. I dont want the Tories back in, but I just cannot vote for this labour candidate.

Only a non-British person would qualify "London" with "England".

Well I'll be voting for Clement Attlee as usual.

I see that they have dropped his name from recent ballot papers - but 'sod it, I say' and I write it back on again.

I know all about the 'Suez Crisis', thank you very much, but let's not forget Clem had a dog and a GOAT and that's good enough for me.

My thoughts too.

"You must vote..... women died for the right to vote. etc etc" - then at times you get, "My great grandfather/etc/etc for your freedom so you should vote,etc,etc!"!

None of those things mean voting is compulsory and I doubt 99% of people would think it did.

I do think there needs to be a lot of education about our system. When the Lib Dems were popular I remember someone telling me she was "going to vote for that nice Nick Clegg". We lived in London. His seat was in Sheffield.

Who in Britland says "You don't think??" in the American sense.

AIBU to feel that ignorance is rife regarding voting, IE many lack the basic understandings of a 'right to vote' Vs mandatory voting??

Oh the irony.

You aren't unreasonable about ingnorance, the General Election or even British politics. In fact, I find you often demonstrate it beautifully.

OP has run the gamut of ' I don't know who to vote for- Who should I vote for? Labour are terrible but oh dear, I just don't know...' to 'Labour are terrible, why would anyone vote for them?' to 'I'm not going to vote at all, and I retain my right not to vote for anyone AT ALL especially not Labour and no one else should feel obliged to vote either'