Norway holds local elections today, and Aftenposten repeats the truism that voter turnout indicates the health and vitality of a democracy, and encourages all its readers to perform their duty. Not only is it important that everyone votes, it is, Aftenposten seems to believe, more important than the actual result:

When the Norwegian people today elects representavies for city councils and county parliaments, the largest worry is that voter turnout will be low. Recent elections have shown a sinking tendency, and frighteningly few took part in the election experiment in Nittedal this summer. We hope the voters will put pessimistic prophecies to shame, but we dare not fully believe it. Therefore it's timely to remind that democracy carries responsibilities, and that a vital people's rule requires involvement. [..]

The murder of Sweden's Foreign Minister puts also the Norwegian election in a strange light. This weekend, Swedes showed their support for democracy. Behind this lies fury against an attack on the open, democratic society Anna Lindh represents. There is no better way to show support for democracy than to show up and vote in todays election. Let this also be the reply of the Norwegian people to the destructive forces that seeks to destroy our open societies.

Even if you believe that a high voter turnout is important, is this really a larger concern than that people vote well? Shouldn't we be more concerned that voters may turn the country over to bad politicians? And even the universally accepted importance of a high voter turnout is questionable. Dean Esmay wrote something a year ago that I fully agree with. If you want to vote, great! If you don't want to vote, if you don't know what to vote, or if you just don't care about politics, that's great too. Don't let yourself be pressured to use your vote - it's a right, not a duty. In fact, your foremost duty as a citizen is to vote well. If you don't believe you can vote well, if you don't want that responsibility, don't. You're not doing anything wrong, and you're not contributing to the decay of democracy.

On the contrary, I believe that a low voter turnout can be a good symptom as well as a bad one. It depends on why people choose not to vote. If people stay at home because they are frustrated with the choices they have been given, if they believe there are serious problems in society that need be addressed, just noone around to address them, then democracy is in trouble. There are always people who believe this, of course, out on ideological fringes that can't sustain a party or party wing, (a consequence of the ideological gauss curve), but when there are many people like this, and this massive resentment is not channelled through a party, democracy has failed.

But there are other reasons not to vote, and the best of them is apathy. Apathic voters may have some basic political preferences, but they don't care enough to learn about the issues concerned and decide on a party. This is a sign not only that our political system works, but that our society works. Political involvement depends on resentment, and we who care deeply about politics often assume that it is natural to resent politicians whose only faults are having made the country slightly worse than it was, or missed opportunities to make it slightly better. It's not. It's natural to feel resentment when things are going wrong, and to feel content when things are going well - not necessarily content as in happy, but as in having other, more personal worries that take priority over political ones. The better the political system, the less people think about it.

Voter apathy reflects the high standard of living in our societies, it reflects a basic and growing satisfaction with our way of life, and it reflects the higher complexity of the issues that remain to be solved, issues that require more dedication to feel informed about. This is a good thing, and should be a point of pride. It puts the resentment of those of us who are interested in politics in perspective. Politics is important, but it's not that important, and voter apathy proves it. Apathy is not in itself a good thing, of course, - it's better to be politically interested and knowledgeable than not to be - but rather a symptom of a good thing.

On the national level, I believe apathy is the main reason why people don't vote. There are basic faults in our political system, which I believe gives too much power to parties, but I can't think of many major sources of frustration that are currently ignored by all the available parties. And when frustrated voters find a party that takes them seriously, they vote for it. On the local level conditions vary, and frustration may play a larger part in low voter turnout, (ca 60%, 15 percentage points lower than in national elections). But even so, encouraging people to "do their duty" misses the point, and can only do more harm, through random, uninterested voting, than good. Apathic voters are not qualified to vote. Frustrated voters have no qualified parties to vote for. None of these problems are solved by voting.

So do whatever you like. Vote or don't, but if you vote, vote well.

Hi.

In my opinion, voting is a serious duty.

In a democracy, the people should elect the government, and then the government should govern.

If you elected a parliament, and then all the politicians, instead of governing, simply went on a holiday till their terms ran out, this would be a serious dereliction of duty. It's their job to get in that chamber and debate and vote, and if they don't like it, that's tough. And even if nobody can call them to account legally, it's still wrong.

Just so, if it's a rainy day and it's a hassle to get to a polling both, it's still your duty to play your part for democracy. Of course, you can get out of it: just give any good excuse why you didn't vote and you will never get fined. But even though you can easily get out of doing your duty, you shouldn't.

You can say that what matters is not to vote, but if you do vote, to vote well, but my opinion is the opposite. A thing worth doing is worth doing badly. For examples: legal justice is important, so you have courts, even though they are bound sometimes to reach wrong decisions. Love is important, so you take a chance on someone even though life teaches us that it will often prove to be the wrong someone. War is important, and a military officer has to make decisions, even though he may be wrong. And so on. Things you can skip if they're not going to be perfect are generally not that important in the first place. And I think democracy is important.

David Blue

While I agree with you that voting for the wrong reasons may lead to many undesirable effects, such as the loss of long-term continuity, I cannot bring myself to fully embrace such a pragmatic view. Your posting misses an important point, which is the spirit of democracy.

The point of having an election is that everyone gets an equal say. When some people choose not to vote, they effectively surrender their power to those who choose to vote. Thus, society will tend toward an oligarchy.

Now, I don't think making voting compulsory is the right way to go. But I fully agree with Aftenposten in their encouraging people to spend their ballots. Apathy is not a good reason not to vote - on the contrary, it's a good reason to vote on whomever is currently in charge. This way, extreme views, whether on the right wing or the left, gets less say.

ARJ: A spirit of democracy is very important, but voting is a symptom of that spirit, not the spirit itself. Encouraging people who don't care about politics to vote, (through the idea that voting is a duty), does not increase anyone's democratic spirit, at least not by much, it just boosts our democratic self esteem.

"Thus, society will tend toward an oligarchy." You're forgetting the self-correcting ability of democracy. People who don't care about politics today may care about it if politicians do something really stupid, especially if it violates people's basic sense of justice and fairness.

"This way, extreme views, whether on the right wing or the left, gets less say." Political involvement is fueled by resentment, but not necessarily resentment of the status quo. Some people, for instance, vote for Labor because they deeply fear the politics of the Progress Party. This prevents a "hijacking" of politics by extremists because the more likely an extremist party is to gain power, the more people who don't like that party will vote for moderate ones. The more extreme it is, the more it will turn apathic citizens into voters who care.

Your alternative, that all apathic voters should just vote for status quo is far worse. Apathy is not the informed belief that status quo is perfect, but the _feeling_ that the way things are is _good enough_, and that society is not in immediate danger. But there may still be important improvements to make, (I should say there is!), which may not be obvious if you don't care at all about politics.

So this isn't really about status quo vs change, but about being apathic and uninformed vs being engaged and informed. An uninformed, uncaring vote is not a good thing under any circumstance.

I believe we should all get involved and vote. I believe we should check the records of the politicians (if one is available). In doing this we know what to expect from this person. We also need to make sure our politician is mindful of world politics and knows what to do in a crisis. We also have an obligation, not to just ourselves, but to other countries to make the very best choice we have because the person we put in office will decide the fate of us all. I believe in war as a very last result,extremely last. I also believe we need strong leaders in the United Nations. We have a VOICE and we need to use it by VOTING all the citizens of the world.

My concern about voter apathy is that people are being snowjobbed, lead to believe the exact opposite of what was truly going on. If they knew, they would rage.

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