Is voting a moral duty?

Two parties scrapping to get every last voter are going to be more and more alike, as they mold themselves to fight for the same voters. Consequently, you end up with the Republicans and Democrats who are barely different. Again, does it really matter who I vote for?
 
Two parties scrapping to get every last voter are going to be more and more alike, as they mold themselves to fight for the same voters. Consequently, you end up with the Republicans and Democrats who are barely different. Again, does it really matter who I vote for?

In that particular scheme - probably no. The above isn't a situation reflecting a democratic political system anyway.

But if you would be the citizen of a country where there is about a dozen political parties competing, then the importance of voting would be far more obvious.
 
Voting is mandatory in some countries, Brazil is one off the top of my head.

Australia has nominal compulsory voting.

But think about what this means for a moment. It's not actually compulsory voting, but compulsory turning up to a polling booth on election day. Once you're in the booth you can write "I hate politics" on your ballot paper if you like, and your "vote" won't count.

What compulsory voting does is that it means citizens can't just ignore the political process. And I'd argue that this is actually a good thing for a democracy.
 
True, but not in the U.S. where I live. So, my vote is still meaningless.

In that case, this is a problem concerning the state of the country, not a problem of voting as such.

In a non-democratic political system, voting is a farce.
 
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