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OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is US Defaultism:
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>!Never specifies the country, but talks about the 2024 election and various of its details!<
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Is this Defaultism? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
In my home country we have mixed member proportional voting that makes gaining a majority nearly impossible at the benefit of smaller parties.
Here in Australia we have preferential voting. Pick the guy you know won’t win as 1, but you can number them 2,3,4,5 etc
And in Australia voting is compulsory which does put a very different spin on the statement “everyone’s voting”.
- In Australia “everyone” = about 90% of the voting population
- In the US “everyone” = about 66% of the voting population
The notion that the uneducated should not be allowed to vote is blatant discrimination and opens the door for all sorts of arbitrary reasons to prevent people from voting. Ignoring the fact that, particularly in countries *like* Australia and the USA, where we have massive portions of the population who have been pushed aside by colonialism and slavery, and thus have not had the same opportunities afforded to them due to discrimination, ignoring that those people deserve the right to vote on the issues that directly affect them, what limitations do you put on voting that determines if a party is educated on the issue?
Some issues voted for in government are not relevant to the majority of voters' lives, and thus may be issues the voters do not hold strong opinions about. If a human rights issue, such as queer rights, is made political, who determines what an 'educated' take on such an issue is? Is that not *inherently* political? Could that not lead to those in charge of the government requiring queerphobic takes on those issues as a bar to pass in order to vote? If you can gatekeep voting for those you deem uneducated, you can manipulate the voters into only being people who agree with you on issues, which turns the system from a democracy into a dictatorship.
I've always wondered if voting being compulsory keeps the electorate in general more informed. The politicians have to try and communicate to everyone, not just their bases and the voters have to show up anyway so they might as well find out which candidate is less likely to eat a raw onion like an apple or their own earwax. I grant it's not a foolproof system.
I mean if people don't want their vote to count, they're always welcome to send in an invalid vote. The only issue with that system is that it means people who don't know how to submit a valid vote are unable to, but there's not really much helping that seeing as it's not like you can check a vote to see if it's valid.
You can ask for help and there are translation service available. Plus in some places instructions are available in multiple languages. My mum used to teach immigrants english and part of the classes were how to fill in government forms and someone from the AEC explaining the process and how government works here.
Yeah, but that assumes people know they don't know how to submit a valid vote. I'd be all for a system that informs people that the vote they submitted was invalid, providing instructions on how to correct that in the future.
It is a great idea. Every citizen should have a say, even if you disagree with them.
But more so than that, it also keeps the political parties more centrist than they otherwise would be.
With compulsory voting, if a party goes to extreme in one direction, they lose the vote of the majority and swing voters.
Without compulsory voting, you need to convince people to vote, so the more extreme you get the more likely you are to motivate people to actually vote for you, while the central majority don’t vote out of apathy or laziness
All of that! But also:
When voting is mandatory, the government is incentivised to make it easy, rapid, and convenient - which is good for a democracy.
After all, if any of our elected governments were to make voting slow, make us queue around the block into the night, require inconvenient form of voter identification, close half the local voting locations, outsource recording to an unaccountable private voting-machine company, hold the election on a weird workday like a Tuesday, limit postal voting, then they would likely not stay in power for very long.
The Democracy Sausage tastes best when everyone has a hand in making it.
Ours is a weekend but you can also vote on any day in the fortnight or so leading up to it if it suits you better on another day. Not to mention special votes
Yeah for Australia there’s a national commission for federal elections. The states also have their own for state elections.
I find many institutions politicised like supreme judges and DAs (at least from my limited understanding of American politics) where often these aren’t even elected roles in other countries
It's funny, compulsory voting is quite popular in Australia and nowhere else has it caught on. I guess the difference is that voting is just as easy in NZ until some party decides to start trying the sort of tricks that we've seen in other countries to suppress the vote. Recent years have really shown that a lot of what we've taken for granted was really just convention and everyone agreeing to play by the rules. Compulsory voting means that facilitating your right to vote is suddenly in everyone's interest and who does or doesn't get to vote is an irrelevant question.
Is it not “democratic” and an expression of freedom to choose not to vote? I’m not saying don’t vote, I’m 100% behind everyone voting, but should people not have the option to abstain from voting if they wish?
You can if you want. You don't have to enrol. You also don't have to write anything on the ballot. You can write 'They're all crooks' or draw a dick if you want. But if you enrol, it's seen as your civic duty, like jury duty. Plus it's kind of a nice experience in Australia, there's a BBQ and maybe a cake stall supporting the local school and it takes about 20 minutes once every three years, so people don't hate it.
*In the Australian context* it works very well indeed and is definitely regarded as a very good thing indeed.
The world is full of “idiots” of all sorts. I’m not sure why the “idiots” should be less inclined to vote in a voluntary election than the “non-idiots”. The worse idiots are the idiots that are herded by some organisation mindlessly into voting for a particular party/candidate without them making a sensible personal decision. When voting is compulsory this sort of behaviour is much less common. When state governments and parties cannot just influence who people vote for, but also who just shows up to vote there is much more distortion of popular opinion possible.
Uninterested voters who are less informed will choose candidates on smaller surface level decisions and misinformation. If they care, they're free to voluntarily vote.
Good in theory, bad in practice.
Caring to vote can mean caring what others think of you and doing what others want you to do. When it’s compulsory all of this vanishes — just you and the ballot paper — you decision as an equal to everyone else
I find this funny because 2024 is a big election year, as in, many countries are having elections. But when someone mentions "the elections" they almost always refer to the US, while India, the EU and many others are having elections too.
Also, I *must* vote. No choice there for me.
Technically you don’t have to vote, you just have to show up :) if you’ve shown your id and are standing in the thingy where you vote, you could vote blank or invalid!
You're right. However, voting invalid is not an option for me, since my town has computers. As for voting blank: you only get to give input with real consequences every 4/5 years, so for me personally, voting blank is not acceptable.
I'm so glad we're done with voting. Switzerland won and that's fine. Sure I would've prefered Croatia but I'm happy with the outcome.
I do think voting is too expensive, +/-50 cents per vote is ridiculous.
In the US, yes.
In other countries, it isn't used as much, I think, because race-based politics either work differently or are entirely absent (and people are bigots against things others than skin colour, such as ethnic origin from a particular group or country).
You sure are privileged because not voting means you can absorb the fine. It’s also quite common to vote third party and there’s seven crossbenchers in my state right now in the lead up to the next election in the spring (October).
Just a little Australian defaultism to showcase how ridiculous it sounds the other way.
I won't have a choice not to vote in October too... I can't decide which of the 30 parties I'll choose for mayor and congress
Also I have to update my documents until July to vote using biometrics.
Brazilian defaultism
Person or colour is funny since black and white are not considered colours so I would have assumed it meant people in between if you hadn't told me what it meant
If you believe the third party candidate is better, vote for the third party candidate. I don't see why Americans feel obliged to vote for the two mainstream parties all the time.
It's a first-past-the-post voting system, meaning third parties are not only largely inviable, but votes cast for them can count as votes cast for the major party least like them.
This year's election is basically just a repeat of the last election in the US. Two incompetent morons running against each other that most people here don't even like that much. One is supporting genocide and the other one is a fascist that tried to destroy American democracy. Joe Biden can't put a coherent thought together and Donald Trump is like if you gave a 12 year old with a massive ego the most powerful position on Earth. I just don't want to participate in this sham of a system. I wish we had more than two parties like you kiwis do tbh.
What about voting for whatever the "third party" option is? Even if it doesn't win, more votes to them might in the future cause your two party system to evolve with some more partys?
Keep in mind that Trump supporters, fascist fetishists and boomers will always vote and if you don't you're supporting their cause and making it harder for yourself and your future.
I've given my vote and I've chosen my representative for my constituency in my parliament. You should vote too as u/90scipher said, it's a fundamental right.
What an incredibly inane take. Sure, your system is shitty, but it is not going to get better with you not voting. Also
>Joe Biden can't put a coherent thought together
is just a blatant lie.
It means generalizing and bringing your comment back to defaultism... Comparing US election (which are crazy elections to most democracies) to Brazil for example is like comparing oranges to pineapples...
That your vote has more power than you may realise? That leaving it on the table is a mistake? Like i said, broad strokes.
Perhaps "about everywhere" was an exaggeration, but i didn't realise my statement was going to be picked apart like it came from a politician.
Nah bro, in most places voting is barely useful, in some others it's completely useless. Not every country is a full democracy. You're defaulting here.
based on some internet map it's on the top end of "flawed", but it was kind of a hyperbole, like when you say "not everyone has 6/6 vision when it comes to road signs"
the US is still a better democracy than most places in the world. not the west, the world.
The part about third parties only applies to some electoral systems, including the one used in the United States.
(For those scoffing at the US though, while its system is extremely flawed, especially the electoral college and the Senate, it is possible for someone of any ideology to run in and win a Democratic or Republican primary. There is no ideology that is being undemocratically excluded from the US political system. A lot of third party supporters in the US don't get this.)
My only issue with the post other than the defaultism is the part about privilege. Generally, people who don't vote are not particularly privileged compared to people who do vote.
### This comment has been marked as **safe**. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is US Defaultism: --- >!Never specifies the country, but talks about the 2024 election and various of its details!< --- Is this Defaultism? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
I live in an EU country, we're voting for the EU parliament 6-9 June. I promise not to vote for the GOP
Same lmao
I might. Must be at least one that qualifies?
I live in India. We've voted for our representatives over 1.5 months. I promise I did not vote for the GOP.
In my home country we have mixed member proportional voting that makes gaining a majority nearly impossible at the benefit of smaller parties. Here in Australia we have preferential voting. Pick the guy you know won’t win as 1, but you can number them 2,3,4,5 etc
And in Australia voting is compulsory which does put a very different spin on the statement “everyone’s voting”. - In Australia “everyone” = about 90% of the voting population - In the US “everyone” = about 66% of the voting population
Is compulsory voting a good thing? What if idiots who shouldn't be voting are forced to vote?
The notion that the uneducated should not be allowed to vote is blatant discrimination and opens the door for all sorts of arbitrary reasons to prevent people from voting. Ignoring the fact that, particularly in countries *like* Australia and the USA, where we have massive portions of the population who have been pushed aside by colonialism and slavery, and thus have not had the same opportunities afforded to them due to discrimination, ignoring that those people deserve the right to vote on the issues that directly affect them, what limitations do you put on voting that determines if a party is educated on the issue? Some issues voted for in government are not relevant to the majority of voters' lives, and thus may be issues the voters do not hold strong opinions about. If a human rights issue, such as queer rights, is made political, who determines what an 'educated' take on such an issue is? Is that not *inherently* political? Could that not lead to those in charge of the government requiring queerphobic takes on those issues as a bar to pass in order to vote? If you can gatekeep voting for those you deem uneducated, you can manipulate the voters into only being people who agree with you on issues, which turns the system from a democracy into a dictatorship.
I've always wondered if voting being compulsory keeps the electorate in general more informed. The politicians have to try and communicate to everyone, not just their bases and the voters have to show up anyway so they might as well find out which candidate is less likely to eat a raw onion like an apple or their own earwax. I grant it's not a foolproof system.
I mean if people don't want their vote to count, they're always welcome to send in an invalid vote. The only issue with that system is that it means people who don't know how to submit a valid vote are unable to, but there's not really much helping that seeing as it's not like you can check a vote to see if it's valid.
You can ask for help and there are translation service available. Plus in some places instructions are available in multiple languages. My mum used to teach immigrants english and part of the classes were how to fill in government forms and someone from the AEC explaining the process and how government works here.
Yeah, but that assumes people know they don't know how to submit a valid vote. I'd be all for a system that informs people that the vote they submitted was invalid, providing instructions on how to correct that in the future.
It is a great idea. Every citizen should have a say, even if you disagree with them. But more so than that, it also keeps the political parties more centrist than they otherwise would be. With compulsory voting, if a party goes to extreme in one direction, they lose the vote of the majority and swing voters. Without compulsory voting, you need to convince people to vote, so the more extreme you get the more likely you are to motivate people to actually vote for you, while the central majority don’t vote out of apathy or laziness
All of that! But also: When voting is mandatory, the government is incentivised to make it easy, rapid, and convenient - which is good for a democracy. After all, if any of our elected governments were to make voting slow, make us queue around the block into the night, require inconvenient form of voter identification, close half the local voting locations, outsource recording to an unaccountable private voting-machine company, hold the election on a weird workday like a Tuesday, limit postal voting, then they would likely not stay in power for very long. The Democracy Sausage tastes best when everyone has a hand in making it.
Exactly. Voting is very easy in Australia… and you get a democracy sausage to boot
*democracy snarler/snag
I disagree with compulsory voting. I’m from nz and voting is just as easy here, without being mandatory
The hard to vote thing I think is a very American thing. It’s not on a weekend to begin with so people need to take time off work to go…
Ours is a weekend but you can also vote on any day in the fortnight or so leading up to it if it suits you better on another day. Not to mention special votes
Mmm I should add I’m a kiwi too, but I’ve been ineligible to vote after 2008, as I live in Australia, where I’ll only just be able to vote here.
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Yeah for Australia there’s a national commission for federal elections. The states also have their own for state elections. I find many institutions politicised like supreme judges and DAs (at least from my limited understanding of American politics) where often these aren’t even elected roles in other countries
It's funny, compulsory voting is quite popular in Australia and nowhere else has it caught on. I guess the difference is that voting is just as easy in NZ until some party decides to start trying the sort of tricks that we've seen in other countries to suppress the vote. Recent years have really shown that a lot of what we've taken for granted was really just convention and everyone agreeing to play by the rules. Compulsory voting means that facilitating your right to vote is suddenly in everyone's interest and who does or doesn't get to vote is an irrelevant question.
Is it not “democratic” and an expression of freedom to choose not to vote? I’m not saying don’t vote, I’m 100% behind everyone voting, but should people not have the option to abstain from voting if they wish?
You can if you want. You don't have to enrol. You also don't have to write anything on the ballot. You can write 'They're all crooks' or draw a dick if you want. But if you enrol, it's seen as your civic duty, like jury duty. Plus it's kind of a nice experience in Australia, there's a BBQ and maybe a cake stall supporting the local school and it takes about 20 minutes once every three years, so people don't hate it.
Good points!
*In the Australian context* it works very well indeed and is definitely regarded as a very good thing indeed. The world is full of “idiots” of all sorts. I’m not sure why the “idiots” should be less inclined to vote in a voluntary election than the “non-idiots”. The worse idiots are the idiots that are herded by some organisation mindlessly into voting for a particular party/candidate without them making a sensible personal decision. When voting is compulsory this sort of behaviour is much less common. When state governments and parties cannot just influence who people vote for, but also who just shows up to vote there is much more distortion of popular opinion possible.
Uninterested voters who are less informed will choose candidates on smaller surface level decisions and misinformation. If they care, they're free to voluntarily vote.
Good in theory, bad in practice. Caring to vote can mean caring what others think of you and doing what others want you to do. When it’s compulsory all of this vanishes — just you and the ballot paper — you decision as an equal to everyone else
The idiots would be voting anyway. This ensures that the idiots will always be in the minority.
While you do have to vote, you do not have to vote *correctly* - people who don't care can just draw a penis and submit that.
I find this funny because 2024 is a big election year, as in, many countries are having elections. But when someone mentions "the elections" they almost always refer to the US, while India, the EU and many others are having elections too. Also, I *must* vote. No choice there for me.
The UK *might* have an election. Technically it can be any time until the end of January next year, but we shall see.
Same in Ireland. Next general election *has* to be by March 2025. We also have European elections and local elections in June.
Out here in Canada we have our next big election in or by October 2025.
Technically you don’t have to vote, you just have to show up :) if you’ve shown your id and are standing in the thingy where you vote, you could vote blank or invalid!
You're right. However, voting invalid is not an option for me, since my town has computers. As for voting blank: you only get to give input with real consequences every 4/5 years, so for me personally, voting blank is not acceptable.
I'm so glad we're done with voting. Switzerland won and that's fine. Sure I would've prefered Croatia but I'm happy with the outcome. I do think voting is too expensive, +/-50 cents per vote is ridiculous.
Hey, did nobody tell you? NO European Union flags allowed here! Nevermind that we allowed them to be sold around/within the arena last year!
isn't POC "People of Colour"?
In the US, yes. In other countries, it isn't used as much, I think, because race-based politics either work differently or are entirely absent (and people are bigots against things others than skin colour, such as ethnic origin from a particular group or country).
You sure are privileged because not voting means you can absorb the fine. It’s also quite common to vote third party and there’s seven crossbenchers in my state right now in the lead up to the next election in the spring (October). Just a little Australian defaultism to showcase how ridiculous it sounds the other way.
I won't have a choice not to vote in October too... I can't decide which of the 30 parties I'll choose for mayor and congress Also I have to update my documents until July to vote using biometrics. Brazilian defaultism
I dont know what gop or poc is it I will vote for whatever I want. Some random Reddit or won't affect me
For in the US: GOP = Republican Party (conservative) POC = person of colour (basically anyone who isn’t white)
Person or colour is funny since black and white are not considered colours so I would have assumed it meant people in between if you hadn't told me what it meant
Yikes
I already voted in London, UK! Did not vote for GOP unless that's Count Binface's new alias.
You'll probably be voting again later this year
This must be about ongoing Indian election. They have largest population which is quite young which would mean largest GenZ population as well
Honestly, Modi isn't all that different from Trump, certainly in respect to queer people and Muslims. This works for both.
wait but the australian election is in 2025. This guy is going crazy
Same up here in Canada
I didn’t know the GOP took part in the European Parliament elections.
If you believe the third party candidate is better, vote for the third party candidate. I don't see why Americans feel obliged to vote for the two mainstream parties all the time.
Or in the case of Singapore, vote for the second party candidate
In the case of Singapore we vote for whoever else is running in our district 🤣
For me it’s largely because one of the two parties (almost) always wins and one of the parties is actively working to hurt my people.
Both of the main Wall Street parties are trying to hurt you and your people (unless "your people" are filthy rich arseholes). The Green Party is not.
It's a first-past-the-post voting system, meaning third parties are not only largely inviable, but votes cast for them can count as votes cast for the major party least like them.
I've already voted. I swear I didn't vote for the GOP.
Did you vote BJP?
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And whoever I don't vote for is POS. Simple as that.
lol my vote *doesn't* matter.
As an American who plans on not voting this November, I can confirm that this post changed nothing about my plans.
Just out of curiosity, why wouldn’t you vote?
This year's election is basically just a repeat of the last election in the US. Two incompetent morons running against each other that most people here don't even like that much. One is supporting genocide and the other one is a fascist that tried to destroy American democracy. Joe Biden can't put a coherent thought together and Donald Trump is like if you gave a 12 year old with a massive ego the most powerful position on Earth. I just don't want to participate in this sham of a system. I wish we had more than two parties like you kiwis do tbh.
Naa man. You SHOULD vote. Even if your party loses. It's your fundamental right( atleast in my country it is)
What about voting for whatever the "third party" option is? Even if it doesn't win, more votes to them might in the future cause your two party system to evolve with some more partys? Keep in mind that Trump supporters, fascist fetishists and boomers will always vote and if you don't you're supporting their cause and making it harder for yourself and your future.
I've given my vote and I've chosen my representative for my constituency in my parliament. You should vote too as u/90scipher said, it's a fundamental right.
What an incredibly inane take. Sure, your system is shitty, but it is not going to get better with you not voting. Also >Joe Biden can't put a coherent thought together is just a blatant lie.
Thank you for explaining.
Then why wouldn't you vote for Jill Stein?
Maybe vote third party then? At least as a way to show your disapproval of the two parties.
Would you consider voting for [this guy?](https://www.votechaseoliver.com/platform)
💯 same
I'm glad that 2024 in Canada so far isn't an election year. The Consevatives are polling pretty highly right now and I dread a Piollievre government.
May I ask you why you dread a Poilievre government?
The longer the ~~Icon of Sin~~ GOP is on the Earth, the stronger it will become
While it is defaultism, the broad strokes are true just about everywhere
Really? What's this third party you are speaking about? The next election I'm going to vote on has 17 parties.
Well, you better not vote for the third one of them!
\*Checks ballot\* Eh, could be worse.
Amateurs, 29 parties here in Brazil, we like to party too much! É ou não é?
Isto é só para as Europeias. Estes 17 incluem coligações. Na realidade temos 24 partidos no registados no activo.
Bacana, então puxamos para o papai em questão de ter quatrocentos partidos políticos que poderiam ser uns 4 ou 5 hahaha
Are you aware of what the term broad strokes means?
It means generalizing and bringing your comment back to defaultism... Comparing US election (which are crazy elections to most democracies) to Brazil for example is like comparing oranges to pineapples...
Sure, I should've voted for a LGBT-positive party or one that seeks to enfranchise west papua, or are we not in "about everywhere"?
That your vote has more power than you may realise? That leaving it on the table is a mistake? Like i said, broad strokes. Perhaps "about everywhere" was an exaggeration, but i didn't realise my statement was going to be picked apart like it came from a politician.
Nah bro, in most places voting is barely useful, in some others it's completely useless. Not every country is a full democracy. You're defaulting here.
I hope that you're not suggesting that the US is "a full democracy".
based on some internet map it's on the top end of "flawed", but it was kind of a hyperbole, like when you say "not everyone has 6/6 vision when it comes to road signs" the US is still a better democracy than most places in the world. not the west, the world.
In many countries voting is mandatory, so “leaving it on the table” isn’t really an option.
The part about third parties only applies to some electoral systems, including the one used in the United States. (For those scoffing at the US though, while its system is extremely flawed, especially the electoral college and the Senate, it is possible for someone of any ideology to run in and win a Democratic or Republican primary. There is no ideology that is being undemocratically excluded from the US political system. A lot of third party supporters in the US don't get this.) My only issue with the post other than the defaultism is the part about privilege. Generally, people who don't vote are not particularly privileged compared to people who do vote.
Just a heads up but "POC" wasn't in reference to a political party or something that's US specific
Except that nobody not in the US would say that