Hold Your Nose

well that's how i see things from my experience.

people who vote down partisan lines usually do it simply because they think they're supposed to no matter what. it's not as bad here as the US but if you ask the majority of people why they vote it'll be because of partisan lines.

no one reads the party manifesto's to the point where they're really clued up on who is saying what so they just take the easy option.

it really is as simple as that. ask x amount of people here why and how they vote and if they answer truthfully it'll be a case of i vote X because i'm in this demographic so i'm supposed to and if they vote different parties it's dependant on the media and not really the person or parties themselves.

as far as i'm concerned i won't be voting next time round for several reasons.

1. studying politics has disenfranchised me to the whole system. this isn't the same as being apathetic i just really feel there is no real point in coting.

2. as mentioned before 60% of the seats are decided before a ballot is crossed and there's no way in the near future labour will lose any ground in glasgow so my vote would be wasted anyway. i might as well save myself the time and effort

3. i'm not particularly of the opinion that just because we can vote, we should under any circumstances. surely true democracy means you can choose not to vote if you're so inclined. voting for someone i don't support just because i feel obliged to is pretty undemocratic imo.

That's why I support the counting of what we call "blanc votes" in France. People go to vote and put a blanc piece of paper in the envelop. Meaning they wanted to apply their right to vote but no candidate satisfied them.
The % of such votes should be made public and if it went over say 25% then the election should be run again with other candidates. This is the simplistic view but I'm sure something of that order could be easily implemented and work.
Then we'd see new faces and competent people working their ass off to keep their seat instead of living on the confidence that the wheel turns and that even if they lose their seat it will come back eventually.



Ponrauil

yeah that makes sense.

i'm sure voter apathy isn't totally confined to the domain of people who are too lazy to walk down the road to their polling station. if i could post a vote to say i want to exercise my right to vote but you're all as ****ing useless as each other i'm kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place i would.