Is this poll frightening?

[blythburgh]

OK so it is just a 1pt daily poll from Rewards1. A site which has members in many different countries but most will be in North America and Europe, especially the Britain and Ireland. But I still find the results pretty bad.

Daily from May 09
Is democracy important?
Yes. (82% )
No. (8% )
Unsure. (10% )

Nearly one in five do not think democracy is important to them.

OK you could argue that the voting system is biased against democracy with our first past the post results. Not making voting mandatory could also be argued goes against democracy. And you can certainly argue that the media in any country can work against it by pushing one side of the news and twisting things around. I would say that the right wing media especially in this country poisoned the minds of too many people against the EU and immigrants. But that is nothing compared to how the media is controlled in other countries by the Govt.

But surely for all its faults democracy is the "best of the worst". And by not voting you are saying democracy does not work. I once had a local election with two candidates neither of whom I could support so went and put none of the above on my ballot paper.

[Sarah]

Well, just because 18% of respondents didn't select the pro-democracy option, that doesn't necessarily indicate they don't want democracy. Some could have protest-voted against because they don't feel their system really offers as much democracy as they believe it should (or for other reasons) and in any poll a fair percentage of people won't have responded in alignment with their real views, because of privacy concerns, they didn't read the question properly, misunderstood the question, accidentally selected the wrong option, or responded randomly to get onto the next question as quickly as possible, etc.

[BeautifulSunshine]

Well, just because 18% of respondents didn't select the pro-democracy option, that doesn't necessarily indicate they don't want democracy. Some could have protest-voted against because they don't feel their system really offers as much democracy as they believe it should (or for other reasons) and in any poll a fair percentage of people won't have responded in alignment with their real views, because of privacy concerns, they didn't read the question properly, misunderstood the question, accidentally selected the wrong option, or responded randomly to get onto the next question as quickly as possible, etc.

+1

[kevinchess1]

Well, just because 18% of respondents didn't select the pro-democracy option, that doesn't necessarily indicate they don't want democracy. Some could have protest-voted against because they don't feel their system really offers as much democracy as they believe it should (or for other reasons)

... any poll a fair percentage of people won't have responded in alignment with their real views, because of privacy concerns, they didn't read the question properly, misunderstood the question, accidentally selected the wrong option, or responded randomly to get onto the next question as quickly as possible, etc.

Yes but that could applied to the 'Pro' voters as well

[Sarah]

I agree, inaccuracies are likely to affect all options.

[pabenny]

Given that there are relatively few elections with voluntary participation where turnout reaches 82%, I think that's a pretty good result.

[BeautifulSunshine]

Given that there are relatively few elections with voluntary participation where turnout reaches 82%, I think that's a pretty good result.

There was an incentive to vote.