[crote]

Yeah, and those figures are horrible. In other Western countries the turnout is closer to 80%, with some even hitting over 90%.

The fact that ~20% of the population either wants to vote but is unable to do so or is disillusioned about the democratic process to the point of not voting at all is extremely worrying. This is not what a healthy democracy should look like.

[SoftTalker]

If you want people to vote at over 90% you need to make it compulsory as Australia does. IMO the problem with doing this is that the people who don't care or don't believe it matters are now going to be annoyed that they have to do it. They will vote randomly, or just pick the first candidate listed, etc. just to be done with it. I saw the same behavior in school by kids who didn't care about the standardized tests they had to take. They just filled in bubbles on the answer sheet at random.

If you don't care enough to inform yourself about the candidates or at least have a party affiliation, it's probably best that you don't vote.

[mrguyorama]

If you think the people who CURRENTLY vote "Care enough to inform themselves" then you are very silly.

Stupid people already vote. Wrong people already vote. Your system has to accept that interference no matter what.

[kevin_thibedeau]

This is nulled by randomizing the candidates position on the ballots.

[mikkupikku]

The point of letting people vote is to make people feel as though they're involved in the process so they're less likely to cause social unrest. If somebody is too apathetic to vote, they're also too apathetic to cause trouble and therefore it's not a real problem that they didn't vote.