Monday 15 April 2019

IEC should consider binary voting #Elections2019

With the national elections just a month away, a great variety of opinions have been expressed in the media by numerous experts on many aspects relating to the elections.

One of the topics was the fact that many people don't register to vote or turn out to vote on election day, particularly among the youth.

We also know of many examples where a political party has found itself in power not necessarily because most of the people voted for it, but because voters did not know who to vote for or simply did not vote at all.

This happens when voters do not like any of the political parties on the ballot paper, or none of the parties meet their requirements and criteria, or the voters feel that the political system has let them down, or that their vote won't make a difference.

Well, one way of changing this lack of support from the electorate is to introduce binary voting.

Binary voting gives each voter an option of either voting for a particular party in the form of a "yes" or positive vote, or voting against a party in the form of a "no" or negative vote.

This way, voters have the option of demonstrating clearly who they do want to govern or who they do not want to govern.