Oh hey, I drafted a reply to this comment and then accidentally ctrl+w'd the tab before I hit the button. Whoops! Damn, it was a long one too and not I have to retype it...

I try not to be hypocrite as much as possible. If I say voting is a bad idea, I hope most people who know me will agree this is a good indication that I don't vote either. Also unlike with voting, I actually think I could perhaps change peoples minds, I view it as sanity training. More sane people is a good thing since they have positive externalities.

I wasn't trying to convince you to keep arguing against voting but vote in secret, I was presenting an argument that voting was actually a good idea and that you should advocate it. I also wasn't trying to antagonise you or anything like that, just trying to inject a little humour into the debate. Which is not to say that I think I DID antagonise you, but until someone invents a keyboard that can convey the emotional content of a sentence I'm going to err on the side of caution.

I'm not saying that democracy is the best way of doing things, but if some countries ARE democracies then we should at least try to do mitigate the negative effects of the system.

Democracies in say Western Europe actually only work as well as they do because of the competent civil service and respect people have for experts, which de facto radically limits how much politicians can do, especially since the process needed for them to fire any of these people is usually not worth the effort if it is possible at all. How would your relationship with your boss change if he couldn't fire you?

I'm not sure if this was a rebuttal? I mean, no matter why democracies in Western Europe are working well, surely this doesn't change the fact that we should mitigate the negative qualities of a democracy? I actually thought I'd be on firm ground with you here, since you're advocating a change away from democracy and I'm arguing that while we still have democracy we should try to make sure it doesn't cause too much havoc. AFAIK most Western European democracies don't have compulsory voting, if that's what you were getting at. Forgive me if I am missing the point here.

It is a ritual that contributes to belief. Why do you think Islam has obligatory praying several times a day?

I would agree with this point if I thought the effect was significant, but I think that having to vote once a year reduces this effect to complete negligibility.

It is a waste of time. A small but obvious one. Like buying lottery tickets is a small but obvious waste of money.

Sure, but that only matters if you weren't going to waste the time anyway. I mean, if you were going to lose that money down the back of the couch anyway you might as well blow it on lottery tickets. I'm not saying it's a good idea to waste resources, definitely not, but even the most organised, motivated person has one hour free a year in which they could vote without sacrificing some other important activity. If you genuinely do not have an hour free then you're the sort of person I want voting, and I respectfully request that you delegate an hour's worth of work to me so that you can go vote. EDIT: And of course I don't actually agree that it's a complete waste of time - I think it produces marginal benefit or I'd be agreeing with you.

Large voter participation legitimize government action that in fact has very little to do with the political process.

I'm not sure which government action you're talking about here, but government action doesn't need legitimising, it's legitimised in almost everyone's eyes. Conversely, not voting in a system where it isn't compulsory to vote doesn't delegitimise the government. If anything, you should want voting to be compulsory so you can flout the rules to draw attention to the fact that democracy is a bad way of doing things. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but non-compulsory voting isn't actually a step away from democracy, it's just a step into a different type of democracy. Swapping to non-compulsory voting doesn't make it any more likely that a country will abandon democracy altogether.

I don't need to argue with friends and family because I wouldn't vote for their candidate.

I think this was probably a bit facetious, since it's relatively small-scale compared to your other arguments, but on the chance it wasn't... Arguing with your friends and family about political allegiances is actually a big point in favour of compulsory voting if you ask me - it forces people to think about politics. If my brother has always voted to support Americans Against Contraception (or whatever), then of his friends who vote, most of them probably share his political views. But if everyone has to vote, he'll start meeting people who vote the other way. The more arguments he starts with sane people, the more likely they are to convert him.