Comment 46351

By mystoneycreek (registered) - website | Posted August 26, 2010 at 17:57:38

Just make muncicipal voting mandatory, like paying property taxes. Use negative billing to get the point across. Do your civic duty and vote, pay your taxes, get a pass. Problem fixed.

Nope.

All that does it get everyone to vote.

Which means, according to what I see here, there and everywhere on a daily basis, that you've got more people voting with 'unqualified opinions'.

Would that make you happy? Getting more people out, but still having votes cast that are uninformed? (I am in no way suggesting that lower voter turnout is 'better'. I am saying that you've accomplished nothing if you haven't increased the general capabilities of voters to make discriminating decisions...and actually be able to DISCUSS issues with some degree of alacrity. Which should not be some 'pie-in-the-sky' dream.)

What's that Sy Syms motto? 'An educated consumer is our best customer.'

As I've been maintaining on my blog...as a direct result of a stellar exchange courtesy of Editor Ryan some time ago now...is the need to create a 'relationship of engagement' on the part of the voting populace with our elected officials. Call it 'two-way accountability' if you will...but as I expressed in the series I recently published, it has to be the result of a broad change in perception of our roles in society, not a goal unto itself.

Comment edited by mystoneycreek on 2010-08-26 16:58:26

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