Voter Apathy and Disinterest

It was the election tonight in Canada. The Conservatives have won. I gave them a vote. It must be about 20 years since I last voted. I just didn't care enough to bother. Tonight they say only 58% of people across Canada voted. That doesn't count a lot of people who have slipped through the cracks and were not even counted as being eligible to vote. My brother being one. I've been one in the past and didn't care to do anything about it.

They are talking about voter apathy and trying to come up with reasons and fixes for this. I listen and no one is really getting to the real reason, at least for me. I am just not interested in listening to them nit pick and bash at each other like a bunch of spoiled, rude children. How can you take anyone who behaves that way seriously. I sure don't see myself bothering to vote for them. If that is all the political parties have to offer, it's just not enough. I'd vote for someone who could at least try to appear like an adult.

That is partly why I voted this time. My sister had talked about how much she wanted to see Conservatives get in. I listened but still wasn't planning to vote. Then they came around to the house, which isn't that new or unusual. Only the Conservatives actually did so. The others sent out the standard brochures bashing the other parties and sounding like a pack of whiny babies.

Then our candidate for this area showed up at our door one night, himself. That was nice! It was about a week before tonight, the big election. He must have been hugely busy. But, there he was, a personal appearance at our door. He did not talk politics, he just introduced himself and asked me if there were any issues I'd like to ask him about. I didn't have anything in particular. But, geez, what a hard working guy to go door to door himself. I was impressed for the first time in a really long time.

Since then they phoned a few times. Really too many times as it was the holiday for us on Monday and we were busy enough. We had their sign on our front lawn. First time I have ever had an election sign at the house. Across the street the new neighbours had a Liberal sign up. Diagonally across the other neighbours had a Conservative sign up, bigger than our own.

Anyway, listening to the talk about voter apathy is making me think how silly it is to consider mandatory voting, where it is illegal not to vote. If this is a democracy people should be able to choose not to vote. It is sending their own message. It's just a shame that the politicians are not really listening. I think most of them are so self involved they can not hear anything beyond their own nose. I wonder what people do in Australia where they have mandatory voting? I bet there are a ton of spoiled ballots. So, really, what has making voting mandatory done? Can someone from Australia comment about the mandatory voting and voter disinterest?

Happy Election to the USers. At least it is done for awhile again here. I kind of envy the US cause they only have elections every four years. Here they are called randomly. But the elections in the US seem to go on for about a year before they finally vote and shut up about it all. I'd really hate that. Do you just shut off the TV and radio and try to turn a blind eye to all the election stuff on billboards and everywhere? I was only in the US for part of one election. Glad I missed most of it.

What are elections like in other countries? How about in the UK? Do they backbite and bitch at each other too? I remember when they did not do that here. It started a little trickle when I was in my teens and has snowballed since then. I really do think that is the main cause of voter disinterest/ apathy. We just have no respect for someone who can't behave any better than a tired and grumpy two year old.

At least in other countries you don't have two official languages. I'm so sick of hearing everything in French and English. Kind of a joke that the Liberal candidate for Prime Minister (what the US calls President) couldn't really understand English. My brother said it really came down to choosing between French and English. I agree, it was. I voted for English. I'm in Ontario and we just tune out anything in that French babble. (Nothing personal to the French speaking people. But if you are in a room where everyone is speaking a foreign language how long does it take before you get annoyed with it and just tune them all out?)