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Derek Young

Thinker and Experimenter,

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What is your argument for or against "Voter Apathy"?

What is "voter apathy"?

People should always vote, right?

If you do vote, can you affect a system of government, or if you don't vote, can that have a greater impact on a system of government?

Ye or Ne?

Topics: voter apathy
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    Sabina Varga

    • +1
    Oct 10 2012: This year, for the first time since I've had the right to vote, I decided not to vote.

    I've always thought that "People should always vote". I'm from Romania. A few month ago, the Opposition parties tried to suspend the president. Though they followed the procedure for doing so, they arguably broke a few rules on the way. I'm not a supporter of the current president, but I did not agree with the way the Opposition did things. After one and a half mandates (7 years), the current president (Traian Basescu) is far from popular. So chances that he would be suspended were high. Unless the turnaround for the referendum was less than 50%+1 of the electorate, situation in which the whole process would be invalidated and the president would be able to finish his mandate.

    Okay, I don't know if you had the patience to follow my story, but, for the first time, I didn't go to vote because I wanted to invalidate a procedure that was, in my opinion, barely legal. Was I right to sabotage the voting process? Arguments can be made either way. (By the way, the referendum was invalidated in the end for lack of quorum)

    But my decision to not vote was not apathy, it was a form of protest.

    I've also invalidated my votes before when I simply did not want to support any of the candidates.

    So should people always vote? I say "Ye" if apathy is the only thing holding them back. Many people died for our freedom to put a stamp on a piece of paper every few years.

    And I feel that somewhere in the future people will regret not taking more advantage of their freedom to vote.
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      Iulian Sociale Ingegnere

      • 0
      Oct 11 2012: I am also from there (or I should write here :) I do not know) but I voted against apathy and selfish thinking of groups of people (politicians :) ) (in America is a lack of diversity in thinking and a two party system is not so good). I chosed to vote against apathy but not mine :) and they respected themself and their apathy that can be solved only with money and no creativity and imagination in solving people needs for adapting to an entire society willing to change.

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