Teenage Voting

Discussion in 'Politics' started by goofyfish, May 11, 2004.

  1. Lemming3k Insanity Gone Mad Registered Senior Member

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    I'd say thats about right as an average, although most people i hang about with knew a lot about politics from 14 onwards(likewise a lot were completely ignorant), whenever you watch the news you learn something about what a political party want to do or have messed up, it depends on the person i guess, maybe votes at 16 is a good idea, at least for the ones that might want to.
     
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  3. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    This issue is a lot more complicated than statistical mathematics. You've got to know WHO is voting. What if that 5% are the only ones who are really moved by an issue. The rest of the population may be unmoved. . . maybe they don't realize that candidate X supports seal clubbing, but those 5% are members of the seal clubbing industry, so they all go out and vote for him while everyone else sits back and takes little interest in the election despite not wanting baby seals to get clubbed.

    There are much more important group divisions than just "US voters" that you're not taking into account. A good example of this would be if same-sex marriage were put to the vote right now. Who would be the ones heading out to the polls? My understanding is that most of the nation sort of doesn't really have a strong opinion, they could care less, the issue hardly effects them one way or another. So the only ones voting would be the extremists on either side of the issue, which is not particularly representative, is it?
     
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  5. zanket Human Valued Senior Member

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    Lots of studies have been done on this topic. None have found that any large group (e.g. Republicans or Democrats) is significantly more likely to vote than another. If the whole nation is split 60/40 on something then any 5% of the nation who votes is extremely likely to be split 60/40 on it.

    It would still be representative. If voting were mandatory then presumably the don’t-cares would vote randomly on the issue; their vote would be split 50/50. So the outcome would likely be the same as if only the extremists voted.
     
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