Patrick Davey
ClareBear 💚 
Ames@ClareBear I always vote. I always encourage people to vote if asked. But I can totally understand people not bothering when they see repeatedly how irrelevant 'the will of the people' (or their collective well-being) is to our political class. Our 'democracy' is broken.
@runoutgroover But if the 1m people do vote….
Jon Sullivan@ClareBear 1.19 million is a lot of New Zealanders not to vote. Even if they've lost hope in the mainstream parties, they could just vote for TOP for fun to get them over the 5% threshold. (Not that I expect to be voting for The Opportunity Party but they've got some interesting ideas and I'd rather see some of their MPs in parliament than certain other minor parties.)
@joncounts Fair call but imagine if those 1m voted for Greens!!!!!! A Green government 💚
@joncounts @ClareBear I don't think it's just the mainstream parties people are disillusioned with. It's the whole political system. All parties who participate are tainted by that.
Stephen@runoutgroover @joncounts @ClareBear my pet theory is that for lots of reasons, parties nowadays prefer to campaign around turning out existing voters from their base and focusing on the small pool who change their minds. No one wants to cater to that 1.9m because they are hard to turn out, and doing so reduces the resources available for the easier pool of people who actually do vote. Consequence, why would you vote as one of that 1.9m? No one is offering anything you want.
There's also the fact that people don't vote if they don't think their vote makes a difference, and if your perception of what's on offer is that your life won't change no matter which of them wins, then why vote?
There's also the fact that people don't vote if they don't think their vote makes a difference, and if your perception of what's on offer is that your life won't change no matter which of them wins, then why vote?
Vassil Nikolov | Васил НиколовThat, but there's probably more to it.
Did you see the news about last Sunday's (2026-06-14) vote in Switzerland?
Only 60 % turnout.
Note that:
Switzerland has direct democracy (all citizens vote on proposed legislation).
It was a rather important matter: whether to cap the population at 10 million (currently 9.1 million), 55 % of the votes were against.