I've said this before (but relating to my own government) but any member of a parliament (or equivalent) that abstains from a vote should be instantly removed from their position.
Tired of these people with government paid positions that do nothing and get paid nice amounts and receive extreme benefits yet don't even do the simple task of voting yes or no
In most cases I would agree but not when it comes to people who are in positions where discussing and voting is their job.
In such cases I believe you should be forced to vote. Either yes if you agree with the document or no of you object to it (of it requires further discussion or you are outright against it wouldn't matter in the voting stage they would both be No votes)
Though I'm curious of you have an example, closest I can come up with is lack of knowledge on the subject matter to vote. But at the same time these things tend to be quite lengthy processes so they should have the time to seek out expert opinions and read up on subjects.
Just speaking for myself, sometimes I lack information, as you say. Sometimes I don't have a strong opinion on a matter either way. But thinking of legislators, there are a lot of maneuvers that the ruling parties can come up with to force you to vote on something, where you don't really oppose it, but the ruling party wants you to put yourself on the record as supporting them.
Voting for or against says something about you, and so does abstaining.
Hopefully if we forced legislators to vote in a similar way to guilty/not guilty where the No is a lot more broad we could blur the lines enough that it would be harder to pressure people into a yes vote.
If a No vote can mean anything from "I don't agree with the policy" to "I have misgivings about how x paragraph is written" it would become far more unclear what a person voting No is actually saying.
This is probably too much into wishful thinking territory but I would like to see how it would play out in that kind of system. And if we lose some politicians along the way even better, at least around here (seriously 230 leeches for a country the size of Portugal is insane)
I've said this before (but relating to my own government) but any member of a parliament (or equivalent) that abstains from a vote should be instantly removed from their position.
Tired of these people with government paid positions that do nothing and get paid nice amounts and receive extreme benefits yet don't even do the simple task of voting yes or no
There are cases where abstaining is appropriate.
In most cases I would agree but not when it comes to people who are in positions where discussing and voting is their job.
In such cases I believe you should be forced to vote. Either yes if you agree with the document or no of you object to it (of it requires further discussion or you are outright against it wouldn't matter in the voting stage they would both be No votes)
Though I'm curious of you have an example, closest I can come up with is lack of knowledge on the subject matter to vote. But at the same time these things tend to be quite lengthy processes so they should have the time to seek out expert opinions and read up on subjects.
Just speaking for myself, sometimes I lack information, as you say. Sometimes I don't have a strong opinion on a matter either way. But thinking of legislators, there are a lot of maneuvers that the ruling parties can come up with to force you to vote on something, where you don't really oppose it, but the ruling party wants you to put yourself on the record as supporting them.
Voting for or against says something about you, and so does abstaining.
Hopefully if we forced legislators to vote in a similar way to guilty/not guilty where the No is a lot more broad we could blur the lines enough that it would be harder to pressure people into a yes vote.
If a No vote can mean anything from "I don't agree with the policy" to "I have misgivings about how x paragraph is written" it would become far more unclear what a person voting No is actually saying.
This is probably too much into wishful thinking territory but I would like to see how it would play out in that kind of system. And if we lose some politicians along the way even better, at least around here (seriously 230 leeches for a country the size of Portugal is insane)
Whoever openly voted no would be a target for both the US and EU.