Voting - necessary or useless?

[Bernhard]

I do feel that if you don't vote, you have no right to complain. Comes down to DOING something, anything...

Yeah but if voting is rigged, and if both parties are 2 sides of the same coin, then what? Then voting does nothing. If that's the case, wouldn't those who do not vote be taking the sensible course of action? If you have a choice between 2 psychopaths, then doesn't voting mean you are pro-psychopath rule, and so it is those who do vote that actually have no right to complain, because they bought into the lie that voting can change things and as a result failed to do anything that could really change things?

I'd agree with Cyre on this one, "voting" is done through not just market a ballot, but through everything we do. Refusing to vote is a "vote" as well. Participating in this forum is "voting" also, probably the only real "voting" that can be done. Marking ballots has long ago stopped making any difference, and those who cling to the hope that it can make a difference are wishfully thinking, denying the reality of our predicament, osit. If the idea behind "if you don't vote you can't complain" is that the non-voters did nothing to prevent the psycho in power from gaining power, it is only true with the assumption that voting can do this, and based on my understanding of our predicament, it never could.

I very much agree with that. We "vote" by the way we live ouir lives, the "work" we do and by spreading awareness of the deeper aspects of our reality beyond the superficiality of poly-tics.

 

[Joe]

I think from a psychological POV, it is important not to vote. When we voting, there is likely a subliminal message being registered in our minds that the is an actual point to it, that something truly creative can be achieved by voting. By repeatedly not voting, for the right reasons - constating the true reality of the system that we have here, we help to seat that understanding as real. Voting probably just wears away at such an understanding for the aforementioned reason

OSIT

Joe

 

[Pierre]

I don't know how voting is organized in other countries but in France you vote in the nearer school.

During the last presidential election I got the results of the election a 18:30, I hadn't voted at this time, though I went to vote at 19:30 knowing that it wouldn't change anything and that the Sarkopath was already elected.

I perceived this act as a kind of strategic enclosure. By going to the voting room, I was seen by people of my district, it was a way of maintaining the illusion of being a "good citizen".

 

[JSmith11]

I can't really say I am a voter, I only have experience with one election and I was psyched to be voting in general. In retrospect I would think the only vote that directly affects 'them', you know who im talking about, would be where you spend your money. Its a consumer society, so don't buy their stuff if you know your money is going to be contributing to some messed up stuff. just a thought

 

[peche]

I decided to stop voting a couple of years ago. In Argentina we vote in the nearer school as in France, but even if they bring the voting room into my house I would not go anymore.
As many of you know, we had our presidential voting last weekend in Argentina. It was really a sad experience for me to see how the elected president was picked by hand, and I mean it literally, and we couldn't done anything about it. Our fresh new president is the wife of the former one, Cristina Fernandez of Kirchner (the outgoing president is Nestor Kirchner). Visibly fraternized with Zionists and Neocons interests in South America as we observed several meetings with the top's of Israel and USA and making acts overtly denouncing Iran and so on prior to the voting. A really big big circus around here.

 

[Al Today]

Marking ballots has long ago stopped making any difference, and those who cling to the hope that it can make a difference are wishfully thinking, denying the reality of our predicament, osit.

I tend to agree with this statement. The desire to “DO” something/anything is a strong urge to overcome. Perhaps when enough people awaken, this group consciousness concept that I do not fully understand may have an effect of this world.

“consciousnesses, it would make sense that stronger effects would occur among those people sharing identities,” Extracted from the last paragraph here:
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=7462.msg52996#msg52996

 

[Hildegarda]

I vote in local elections. But to vote in a presidential is IMO to participate in a farce.

 

[vinny]

But to vote in a presidential is IMO to participate in a farce.

And once you know that a national election is a fraud, and then to still participate in it, that is an endorsement of the fraud. You are actively participating in the deception.

 

[Johnno]

In Australia it is compulsory to vote, so it's either that or face a fine. The compulsory vote requires you to turn up to the ballot centre (usually a school). There your name is crossed off the electoral roll.

However once one has a voting ballot paper, one can draw pictures, write slogans etc etc.

The highlight of voting day for me, is the sausage sizzle (barbeque) held at the school by the parents..... to raise funds for the underfunded school....... underfunded by the politicians we are voting for. Not only for the sausages and onions on a bread roll but for the irony.

The smell of burning sausages and fried onions are all a part of the Australian election!

 

[Rabelais]

Count your blessings, Johnno, at least you still have paper ballots AND a barbeque. The corruption surrounding the electronic vote machines in the states is so obvious... yet no one storms their local registrar of voters offices and city council meetings demanding a return to paper ballots.

It is said that all politics are local, and I tend to agree. If everyone demanded that their local officials return to paper ballots in their neighborhood precincts, the electronic vote scam could be easily done away with, it seems to me.

Here is a method that some of the Ron Paul supporters have come up with to insure an honest vote. They are circulating a vote statement/ballot that must have two copies signed and notarized on the day of the election, preferably by a notary at the polling site. They will vote for all of the other candidates running for other offices on the ballot with the black box, but their votes in the Presidential Primary will be made by way of handing the notarized paper vote for Ron Paul to the precinct officials... and then wait outside the precinct until the polls close, with their second notarized copies. They can then determine, out of the total ballots cast that day, at that precinct, how many were for Ron Paul... and those numbers better jive with the official talley.

I have no idea if it will be considered legal in many places, but ya gotta love them for at least pushing back from Fox News and doing something creative to solve an untenable situation.

 

[Johnno]

Even paper ballots are open to abuse. Here's an excerpt from "Evidence of Revision." regarding LBJ's theft of the 1948 Senatorial election in Texas and the infamous Box 13.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onZ76_i93IY

Other ways to abuse the sytem is to vote for those who are the electoral roll who have died, as well as registering phantom voters whose address is (usually) on vacant building lots.

http://www.crikey.com.au/Election-2007/20071008-Electoral-fraud.html?CurrentDate=29+%2F+10+%2F+2007

Mention fraud as a possible factor in elections and you’re said to be in need of psychiatric assistance. Well, tell that to retired judge Frank McGrath, who as a young articled clerk provided crucial evidence of long denied but massive ballot rigging which freed the first of many unions from communist control.

While measures against fraud at general elections have never been as rigorous in Australia as in some other democracies, they were significantly eased in the 80s, ostensibly to make voting easier. (Few voters at the time were aware that voting was difficult.) But the AEC has found no evidence of resulting widespread fraud.

Bob Bottom, the leading investigative reporter, used to agree. But while reporting the Shepherdson inquiry, he was contacted by a manager of a well respected firm which had been contracted to deliver electoral mail on Bribie Island. They tried to deliver the mail to houses on both sides of the Pumicestone Passage, which goes on for several kilometres. The problem was that one side is a public waterfront reserve.

Bob Bottom says that when the Queensland election was held on 2 December, 1989, there were 28,380 more electors than those on the then separate Federal roll the day before - enough to swing the election. And while the Shepherdson inquiry was not established to inquire about fraud at general elections, it made adverse findings against some 22 political figures. This led to the resignation of the deputy premier, as well as Mike Kaiser MP, subsequently made Chief-of Staff to NSW Premier Iemma.

Did this degree of fraud end with Shepherdson? After the last Federal election the H.S.Chapman Society did a spot sample in Parramatta. Curiously, they found it extremely difficult to obtain a copy of the electoral roll. Why? The government legislation requiring enhanced proof of identity on registration only passed the Senate by their agreement to an amendment to deny access to the roll ostensibly to commercial interests. Not wishing to be sent to a psychiatrist, I am led to the conclusion that it was only through an unintended drafting error that this exclusion extended to independent non aligned bodies such as the Society, as well as investigative journalists.

In any event, the Society found a number of those enrolled were either unknown or had moved long ago. If these figures were extrapolated to the whole electorate, 5700 names should not have been on the roll. Paramatta, it may be noted, was won by only 1157 votes.

But let us assume that this was an aberration. Tony Smith MP points out that if the banks were to adopt a similar approach, they’d leave their safes and their front doors open at night. We could equally dispense with the need to recall passwords at ATMs, or to prove our identity when we rent a car. The point surely is that in a democracy voting is so important it ought to be as secure as banking or renting a car, or come to think of it, a second hand DVD worth say, $10?

The scope for fraudulent enrolment has been reduced at the coming Federal election by a still weak requirement of proof of identity together with closing of the rolls when the election is called. This will remove that avalanche of enrolments, sometimes more than 700,000, which typically followed the calling of an election and which just could not be verified. With all the advertisements from the AEC and the facility to register at 17, no one can seriously complain about this, yet they do.

The potential for multiple voting remains, made so much easier by allowing electors to vote anywhere in their electorate, and the proliferation of other forms of voting the conditions on which some say are not being policed. Julia Patrick explained in the Daily Telegraph (26/9) just how easy it is to cast several votes.

The answer is of course simple. Link the polling places by computer and provide registered voters with a bar coded encrypted card with their photograph on it. (If lost, a provisional vote could be made.) Once you vote, your name will be struck off on the roll not only at every polling place in your electorate but on every copy of the roll across the Commonwealth.

So if the next government, whoever that may be, makes voting “easier,” and doesn’t tighten the potential for fraud, be very suspicious. And be ready for them to be in office - for a very long time.

 

[dant]

The answer is of course simple. Link the polling places by computer and provide registered voters with a bar coded encrypted card with their photograph on it. (If lost, a provisional vote could be made.) Once you vote, your name will be struck off on the roll not only at every polling place in your electorate but on every copy of the roll across the Commonwealth.

Unfortunately, this does *nothing* to verify the counters. Perhaps the 'bar-code' numbers itself can be used,
and even if the card-holder had a chance to 'verify their votes' via secure website database line item entry
matching the said 'bar code' number, but then again, how to verify that each and every line item entry was
entered into the same database (and not another for purpose of deception (the two-sets of accounting books
theory)) and how are the counting of the votes are verified as a whole. The whole security-verification-auditor
system has 'holes' larger than swiss-cheese.

Voting in a very large system is a joke because there is no possible way to check the counters who counts
the votes either manually or especially automatically. This also includes 'polling' and 'statistics' which can
be easily faked.

 

[Ryan]

In Australia it is compulsory to vote, so it's either that or face a fine. The compulsory vote requires you to turn up to the ballot centre (usually a school). There your name is crossed off the electoral roll.

However once one has a voting ballot paper, one can draw pictures, write slogans etc etc.

Or URLs of websites... ;)

The highlight of voting day for me, is the sausage sizzle (barbeque) held at the school by the parents..... to raise funds for the underfunded school....... underfunded by the politicians we are voting for. Not only for the sausages and onions on a bread roll but for the irony.

The smell of burning sausages and fried onions are all a part of the Australian election!

Hmm... sounds like a good reason to move south!

 

[Johnno]

BTW we should mention that it is illegal to deface ballot papers downunder.

Thus, we are not suggesting that people do this, we are merely pointing out there are a few "bad apples" that take part in this highly unpatriotic and treasonable act. FWIW I usually vote for minor parties in the Senate.

On the BBQ front, since I've moved I have to find a school which has an active PTA with a good 4-burner barbie!

 

[rrraven]

I have read somewhere ,can't remember where atm,that here in Australia the govenment changed the rules so that the ballot papers that had been defaced and used to be conciderd "bycatch"and not counted are now counted as if the vote was for the existing goverment .IMO that is the way they "won" the last election and I wont be surprized if they" win" this one too. Even with paper ballots at some stage the numbers are put into a computer and sent on ,leaving it open to all kinds of hacking
RRR