[SnazzyUncle]

> Absolutely not my experience coming from a country with compulsory voting, and having lived in a country without. People in the country without were generally more ignorant of their own politics, and the few people I met who understood what was going on were hesitant to vote.

All of this is an anecdote. It isn't proof of anything.

I also think that the people that you think are more informed actually weren't more informed and were probably just happened to have the same brand of politics that you happened to subscribe to, and vice versa for the people that you thought were ignorant / uninformed. I see this pattern in almost all mainstream political discussion.

BTW being actually informed means having a deep understanding of the topics at hand and the majority of people simply won't have this because they may not have the time/motivation to delve into such topics. The vast majority of people aren't willing to do this seriously and end up just parroting what they've been told by people on the TV/Youtube/Twitch/Tiktok etc.

> Compulsory voting, and in particular compulsory preferential voting also has a highly centralising effect, which adds to long term stability.

I doubt there is any proof to this assertion at all.

Also why would be a centralising effect be considered a good thing?

Many people (including myself) are disenfranchised with the current political class/system because they don't offer anything different, so you are telling me (someone that is disenfranchised) that I should support this because it will guarantee more of the same. You aren't selling me this idea.

I don't want to participate in the circus that is politics. I see it nothing other than a popularity contest, where my choice is largely irrelevant (as the voters always get shafted) and the candidates are all almost always scumbags that I wouldn't want representing my interests anyway.

So you are suggesting not only that I have to vote (something I think is absolute waste of time), that I also have to put a preference of how I would rank these people I want nothing to do with, so I propagate a status quo that I want to see demolished.

You aren't selling me on this idea.

[ViscountPenguin]

You're very wrong about the people that I consider more informed just having aligned political interests. The vast majority of them were significantly to the right of myself.

Centralisation is a useful property since the median opinion is closer to the centre. First past the post adds variance that isn't reflective of the average voters opinion, since votes go to the mode party. Under preferential voting, votes flow to the median party.

Because of this effect, you also get a broader range of parties representing the views of a wider cohort of voters. In my local electorate, for example, there are over 7 parties vying for our seat, ranging from an agrarian socialist party, to far right sovereign citizens. I'm not aware of any country without preferential voting with this type of range.

The fact that people like you are disengaged with politics is kind of why I prefer compulsory voting. In countries without compulsory voting, opinions like yours don't get reflected in party policy. Here (apart from the stance against compulsory voting, which is wildly unpopular, and only held by very fringe parties), the opinions of people less likely to vote in other countries are broadly reflected in parliament.

[SnazzyUncle]

> You're very wrong about the people that I consider more informed just having aligned political interests. The vast majority of them were significantly to the right of myself.

If you say so (I have no way to verify this). Generally however it is the case that people behave the way I describe. This is because most people analyse things through a them/us filter, not based on the facts.

> Centralisation is a useful property since the median opinion is closer to the centre. First past the post adds variance that isn't reflective of the average voters opinion, since votes go to the mode party. Under preferential voting, votes flow to the median party.

There is no "median" opinion, like the concept of the "average person" they don't exist, so how can they be represented?

Also the concept of "centre" is assuming that "right" vs "left" politics is valid model. Since the right and left have literally changed important policy positions (when convenient) in the last 20-30 years, I realised the descriptors don't actually really mean anything. The right vs left is just a way of labelling people as part of the alternative faction, so people can easily dismiss their opinion.

Most people think I am part of the right. I realised I wasn't when I noticed I shared a number of views with a Revolutionary Black communist in the USA than the Conservative party of the UK (I am English).

> Because of this effect, you also get a broader range of parties representing the views of a wider cohort of voters. In my local electorate, for example, there are over 7 parties vying for our seat, ranging from an agrarian socialist party, to far right sovereign citizens. I'm not aware of any country without preferential voting with this type of range.

This assumes that this is all a good thing. It also assumes that those elected represent the interests of their voters (they don't BTW, that is another rabbit hole).

Have you asked yourself why should everyone be represented? I do not ask my mechanic their opinion about medicine, I do not ask my doctor his opinion about car repair.

So why is it a good thing that someone's views are represented when they will have at best a very surface level understanding of a particular speciality / issue / topic? It isn't a good idea.

> The fact that people like you are disengaged with politics is kind of why I prefer compulsory voting.

So you want to force me to participate when I don't want to? I don't want to participate at all. Why do you think that is okay at all? Because you think it gives better representation. Whether something is "better" is very subjective. That is bullshit as far as I am concerned.

> In countries without compulsory voting, opinions like yours don't get reflected in party policy. Here (apart from the stance against compulsory voting, which is wildly unpopular, and only held by very fringe parties), the opinions of people less likely to vote in other countries are broadly reflected in parliament.

You don't understand my political opinions at all. No party policy would/could or would I want them to reflected in party policy. I told you I don't want to participate in it at all. I don't want it to exist. So how it could it represent me? It can't.