A British General Election

[jumpy]

Hehe, I think it's a dangerous thing for everyone between the ages of 18 & whatever, to be compelled to vote. How can you be sure that they will vote the right way?!
Seriously though, given the collective ignorance showed by many citizens of this country an ignorant voter is worse than no vote at all imo.

On the other hand, were compulsory voting to be, it would at least prevent people like tony 'things can only get better' blair from announcing a 'landslide victory' in the last general election when the figures clearly show that less than half of the electorate turned out to vote. It's exactly that kind of rhetoric that fools the ignorant section of the people that I was talking about before...

Another thing that occurs to me is this: If the election result is based on the number of votes having to be a high enough percentage to unquestionably show that one party or candidate was a clear winner, the situation of having the majority marking the ballot paper with 'none of the above' would lead to no-one being elected and so the whole situation would perpetuate itself with a series of failed votes, resulting in election after election and no government would be chosen to run the country.
Whilst this may seem to be the most even means of choosing a government in terms of what the people actually want, in reality I think it would stall any choice for leadership before the race had even begun.

Plato had it right insisting on only those who were educated enough to make logical and informed decisions could vote, having served their time for the state. Leaving aside some of Plato's other ideas regarding the 'perfect society' as ridiculous, I believe true democracy to be a failure when looking at the numbers of people in today's society when compared with the original Greek city state model of two or three thousand years or so ago, for which it was designed.