To think this is an immature approach to voting?

[foreverstardust]

I asked my colleague if she’s voting after work and she replied no “because I’m not informed enough to make a decision”, I politely told her to educate herself as this is a lazy view to have. Not as bluntly as that obviously.

She’s an adult with free will OP.
Perhaps you should respect her choice.

I used to do political canvassing - when pushed almost every person with her wording actually meant “I can’t be arsed”. They just know it’s an awful thing to say.

Plenty of people aren’t educated but still have an opinion. Plenty of people who don’t know enough about it will do what someone they know does , or get influenced by somwthing something on tv etc.

”I don’t really know enough about it” = “I don’t give a shit”.

I’m not voting for the same reason that your colleague gave. I’m very highly educated but I’ve had an unbelievably difficult and stressful few months and I haven’t had the time or mental capacity to do the research that I think is warranted to make an informed decision. Yes, I do feel a bit ashamed, especially after people have fought for us to be able to vote, live in a democracy etc. However, that’s just the situation I find myself in this year and I’d rather not vote than vote badly. I guess we don’t know all the details of what’s going on for other people.

I get that, but it doesn’t disprove my point, perhaps in a democracy nobody has the right to complain?

another question, is someone who votes every few years, and posts a bit on MN, really doing more and more invested than (let’s assume they don’t vote) a taxi driver who bores 30 different people a day with their political views or a vicar working in the community and visiting people in hospital or prison?

By reading the manifestos you are already far ahead of most of us. I think expectations are unreasonable. No one expects the individual voter to be a political genius. And I don't think the average voter should be expecting a political party to necessarily deliver a manifesto in its entirely, especially in the short term.

it's about general direction of travel and which party you think is going i the broadly right direction based on your needs, preferences and beliefs.

You are also different to OP's colleague. YOu're not saying you're not voting, you're saying you don't want to discuss it. Fine. OP's colleague on the other hand had announced she's not voting. which, for the record, I consider ridiculous and a cop out.

70% is more than any recent general election though isn't it? It plummeted massively after the '97 election, and though it has slowly increased at the last one (67%) we were still nearly 5 points below the turnout in '97, and 10 below the turnout in '92. So one could say it was the Blair govenment's first term that broke the trus of the electorate ;)

Not a democratic view.

you don't get to comment or complain about anything related to public policies, public services, legal system etc

What absolute nonsense. Of course you can complain without voting yourself. You can write to the council, lobby your MP, sit on a school governor or police board, join a campaigning group, organise public meetings and petitions, join a political party...etc

How passive do you have to be to show up every 5 years and put an X next to candidates whose policies and manifesto you had no influence in shaping? And then smugly congratulate yourself about how you're a much better democratic citizen than everyone else?

Khan was elected mayor on a 40% turnout.

You’re right but I guess it’s not necessarily your place to say it to her as a work colleague

If people don’t like any of the parties on offer they should go along and spoil their paper so at least the fact that x number of people did that is recorded

There was a woman on our local Nextdoor app last week. She had fallen out with her husband and wasn't speaking to him. Usually she would ask him who to vote for, apparently. So she asked 'Nextdoor' instead. Big mistake

The maddest thing is, she had posted a huge rant the previous week on the same app, complaining about The Patriarchy.

Batshit.

Sure - but the kind of person OP is talking about claims not to know and is very unlikely to do any of this. Instead, they're whining about government but refusing to get engaged.

I used to be chair of the PTA. People would ask me if the parents who never helped annoyed me. My answer was always that the ones who came to us and asked us why we'd done x or y and explained why that didn't work for them were fine, even if they didn't actually do any of the work. Ditto the ones who didn't do anything but frankly, had no opinion on what we were doing and jsut let it all happen were fine too.

It was the ones bitching and complaining in the bacground but not engaging at all that pissed me off.

She should have made the effort and actually taken on board the available information. It will have been falling through her letterbox like confetti for the last month ffs.

It enrages me.

When you look at what it has cost for women to be able to vote on par with men then they bloody well SHOULD educate themselves and get to the polls.

I think it's a disgraceful attitude

its absolutely not about expressing your views and telling other people. It absolutely is about using your own head and heart and ethical standards to make a decision about who to vote for and to act on it. And if you haven't acted on it and done your part in expressing your choice through using your vote then I don't think that you (one) has any right to complain if things don't go the way you want.

I agree she should, but I've had about 3 flyers through my door and 2 were from the same candidate!

Very lacklustre performance this time. They knew it was coming soon so I don't get it

Agree with this.

I'm currently Treasuer of our PTA. Can I get parents to engage? Can I fuck. They don't reply to a single email or group chat post. I sometimes get a 'like' but never a reply. No offers of help, raffle prizes, nowt. There's just three of us running round like blue arsed flies doing everything and sometimes funding prizes ourselves.

I'd actually rather someone argued with me on some points, than just not engage at all.

the point of reading the actual manifestos (and they aren't rocket science) is that you get the direct information not filtered through pundits, presenters, the nedia generally, experts, or the gobs of the politicians themselves. i agree that they can't achieve everything in the manifesto by the wave of a wand but there should be some indication of timescale and expectation, also a division between aspirations, general principles, and measurable objectives. It can also be interesting to note what is not mentioned.... Nothing that takes genius although it does take the willing use of one's time......only the same stuff to the same level that anyone would do when making an expensive purchase....say a house or a new car.

why join a political party if you aren't goping to vote for it.....actually the last time I checked, promising to vote for the party you joined was a requirement!

Because you disagree with the candidate chosen? Because you broadly agree with the party's aims but want to work to influence certain policies before voting for them? Because you live in a one-party constituency that won't change and want to shape their approach and campaigns at local level even though you won't vote for them?

I mean have you ever MET any Labour party branch members - they all hate each other!

The ballot is secret for a reason!

I've heard this a lot, mostly under 25's but even a 45 year old today, I told her that even spoiling her ballot was being counted. We need compulsory voting

That is true. However, he is already fairly right leaning so I am hoping he gets less so and mellows a bit as he gets older. In fairness, he engages in a far more measured manner than a very left-wing friend of ours who came to stay - it was v interesting to watch. We had an email later to say how concerned he was about Ds’ “far right” leanings…

DS feels you need to be in the world of work to fully understand things before you should be voting - his words not mine.

It's not democratic to have one thing decided in one way and everything else decided by a different process either.

I've told people I'm not voting before or given a non committal response (but always have done), especially ones who are clearly uncomfortable by me not sharing my own political beliefs as it's fun to watch them froth. It's a secret ballot for a reason and I've found people like to make the assumption that you must be a closet racist or a simpleton, if you're not shouting about who you're going to vote for.

Of course I don't expect any party to deliver a manifesto in it's entirety. I find it amazing so many people voraciously believe a Politician they've never met is going to, sometimes to the extent they don't want to be seen to even casually associate with someone who has different political beliefs to themselves!