Respecting voters, elections and peace.

Every day there is an election that takes place in the world. In every election there are a number of different tactics and philosophy debated. One such debate that has always been an issue is voter turnout. Should voting be mandatory? So now you have just went off about our charter of rights and freedoms. In all truthfulness, everyone in the world can do whatever they want. Go visit Syria for a week and you will witness the completed range of human freedoms. When you get back from that hell, you will want to control, manage or temper some things. Perhaps, it is understood that we must control some peoples actions and keep a semblance of order. I am with you on that because I have to keep my own mind in check every day. Now we understand there are a great many duties, obligations and responsibilities each of us must engage in for a peaceful society to flourish. Moving from the hell of Syria to a more peaceful setting we can scale back on the severity of life and death. On a less dramatic level of personal freedom try not paying taxes. Try building a water system that is fed by collected rain water to flow into your toilet in an urban neighbourhood. Want some real fun, try getting your personal information deleted from data banks collected and held by political parties or corporations? Furthermore would you trust them if they told you they did delete it? That answer is the crux of where society begins to unravel. Mandatory voting does have its down sides which is people just marking a ballot and have no clue what they voted for. I am sure that happens now anyway. The focus would be on ensuring a persons vote is an informed one not just getting your supporters out. Before, during and after each election we have discussions on voter turnout. Each time we talk about how to increase the turnout, we ask who shares this responsibility? First answer is always the individual. Well that solution is already known to be ineffective. Next we have the political parties and the independent candidates who take up the responsibility running for elected office. Here is where everything gets complicated beyond all sane rational. Every political party will be steadfast in its stance about increasing the voter turnout. However there is a supreme caveat to that stance which really means: Every political party is interested in getting out their own supporters. The overall voter turnout is not really in their interest. Case in point is the federal Conservative party efforts on turning out their core supporters. Let us not forget the many efforts put towards fake robo calls, giving out false information as to election stations and other tactics political parties have used. I understand completely why some people are disgusted with politics and why they do not vote. It comes down to trust. Going back to the issue of voter data banks. These lists and data banks of information on voters are necessary. Before I go on a huge rant all I am going to say is that I am not in support of these lists being given to anyone and never should a political party be allowed to collect and retain any voter information longer than the election time frame. I know how difficult that would make it for those seeking elected office but if you are scared of that then do not bother running. My experience has been that these list are more about convenience for politicians than they are about benefitting the voter. It is time we respect the voter, the electoral process and building a trusting society more than building a society of convenience.