Waking up in election day in a great free country ! You should feel abundant gratitude and a little bit drunken with power: you, my friend, will be part of decision that determine the future of this country! But unfortunately, yet, I still can hear many people on the street, on the office, on the radio, on the internet, talking about that they don’t want to vote because of various reason… Why ?

You are a bad man (or bad woman) if you do not vote…

[Australian House of Representative Ballot Paper]

Australian House of Representative Ballot Paper

In my eyes, the only reason that you will not vote for your country where you live is only (and only):

  • If you are not eligible by law to vote (too young, excluded, not a citizen, etc)
  • Unforeseen circumstances prevent you to go to the poll booth (accident, illness, arrested by police, etc)
  • Conflict of interest (i.e: you for work Liberal but you actually want to vote the other side – in this case do not make conflict of interest in your mind – cast a blank vote to not betray your believe as well as not to betray your loyalty to your employer)

(no, no religious belief should prevent you to cast your vote – if your religion prevent you to vote, consider other religion! Why? religion should govern only the interaction with the almighty, nothing to do with which politician that will lead the country)

That’s it, the rest of us should cast the vote. I give you a few reasons why it is not very good at all to NOT voting:

  1. Have you reflect all those wars and civil wars happened all around the world with thousands people die fighting this very cause: the right to vote to determine the future of own country? Most of all lucky enough to live in well establish country, you do not need to go fight a war to vote. Do not take it for granted, it is a precious gift! Go vote !
  2. If you have a grudge against government, – the government did not treat you well- hey, then this is your chance to take revenge, vote the other party and kick the current government from office ! Go vote !
  3. If you say all the candidates or party is not up to your standard. Well, that’s life. Nothing is perfect. Live with it and decide the best of the worse. Like it or not one of them will take control, you better make sure at least the better did. So, go vote !
  4. If you don’t like the voting or election system. Again, no system in the world is perfect. There will be here and there a gap even to the best system. Just live with it, you have been living it so far anyway, maybe there is something that you don’t really understand why… Find some literature or talk to someone who knows why it being conducted like this. In the meantime, go vote !
  5. If you suspect they fiddle around with the voting paper, then do something , not only vote, maybe sign up yourself as volunteer to watch first hand and report the cheating !
[Australian Senate Ballot Paper]

Australian Senate Ballot Paper

Voting, reflection of your decision making in life !

And, in a way, the way you decide in a vote is a reflection how you make a decision in life. Life is full of decision and you also have to choose the better of bad alternatives – and for some cases you got to choose. Ignorant will not help as your subconscious will not accept it – I  mean if you can do something but you don’t you will be feeling guilty.

Exactly what happening with election, sometime the choices are not that good but with or without your vote they will get elected. Well, so you need to still vote, as if the other win, you can tell that you did your part to prevent it.

What if the want your vote win and then do something you don’t like? Well, then tell him that you will not vote for him/her again in the next vote. Like life,  you can make a wrong decision, but once we know, we acknowledge the mistake and move on.

At the end, it is a free country – you can decide what you want to do – acknowledging that there could be social or personal consequences of course. After all, it’s all about taking personal responsibility to

Use your democratic right, go vote !

p.s: if casting a vote is not enough for you, step up. Nominate yourself for your next election and fight for what you believe. Like life, if you cannot count on somebody to do it for you, sometime you just need to do it yourself!