Okay it's in April I think? I'm not even sure if I'll go, I don't think anyone is, but we gotta get new guys for that very important parliament in Brussels that decides guidelines that I suppose are very important.

-edit- I just know as added spice, if Theresa May delays Brexit, the British will have to vote for people and field members of parliament despite dropping out.

It's in May. 23-26 May depending on the actual country.

"Probably no one will go" is a wee bit of an exaggeration. Turn-out last time was ridiculously low, yes--42.5% or so--but that's more like "slightly below half the eligible voters", not "no one".

There's not a lot of reason to believe turn-out will be *that* much lower this time: there's a clear pattern of declining voter turn-out, yes, but said decline has been slowing over the past few elections. (Dropped 7% in '99, 4.2% in 2004, 2.4% in 2009 and 0.7% in 2014.) So presumably unless something really strange occurs, voter turnout should be somewhere in the 40-45% range.

Which, yeah, is less than should be considering the impact the EU has (for better or for worse is a different matter of opinion, but it *does* have substantial impact all the same) but hardly "no one".

I don't think it matters which politician win because none of them will accomplish anything so I stopped bothering to vote a couple of years ago.
Life doesn't change a thing whether the left wing or right wing is "leading".

Well, I'm gonna vote, so there's at least one vote!
It takes like 2 minutes and could change everything! (Pretty certain the same bullshitters as usual will get the votes, but well... that's just how it is).

If you don't vote you have no right to complain about anything they decide afterwards.

With all due respect, I was also taught just that, but I don't think its true in any way. There are many reasons why one might not like the voting process and just because one hasn't participated doesn't mean that one can't see what's wrong. Its sort of like saying you can't have any opinions on another country parliament because you haven't been involved in the process to vote them into the power position they have. Of course you can have opinions of it, and if you can - as a non-resident of country-x (assuming that's why you can't vote), then why can't anyone inside the country have opinions regardless?

Now if I'm being nit-picky I don't really like people who complain at all, it is always better to be more constructive. But we can have an influence, and a way more direct one at that, without participating in the voting process. Because it is quite strange to participate in the voting process of a project or a system one doesn't agree with. I tend to have this problem in that I don't feel at home with any political party and in general I don't like the thought of choosing based on the most popular alternative. This is only ingenious in that it makes people feel like they are being part of the process and thus, most often, pacifies them. That most alternatives are very similar to each other and bring very little actual change is something they rather not say.

Its sort of like giving money to charity organizations compared to actually doing charity oneself. Giving money might dampen ones bad conscience but the actual difference is often made outside of the whole organization system where money won't go to salaries and commercials and such.

All that said my main problem is that we vote mainly for political parties and less for specific politicians. I don't want to give my trust to a political party. There is no one to be held accountable for. Worst case scenario for them just involves them replacing member-x and goes on. I much prefer the though of voting for politicians we can actually hold accountable for.

There indeed are many reasons against voting, but where I live most people complain that nothing ever changes. We have the same party in the lead since ~2005 and the voter count is in the mid 70% on average since early 2000 with the major parties receiving ~30-40% each. They're loosing votes lately, just looking at the numbers it seems that it's easy to change things by actually voting "correctly" (in the sense of voting for the party that actually tries to achieve things you're interested in) or voting at all.
If those people who vote for their party because they always did, hoping something's going to change (or not) and those who don't vote at all would actually read through some party manifestos and choose the party that fits their beliefs best (and we got plenty!), I feel like changes would actually happen and our democracy wouldn't be dominated by two parties and an opposition that doesn't have the numbers to contest them. My guts tell me, there would be more parties in our parliament and the parties would have to actually convince the opposition with solid arguments which would be beneficial for the democracy. But only if they could overcome their rivalry and competition for power in order to open a dialogue and decide what's actually best for the country and not just their vote count.

Sure, there's no party that's going to fullfill all your pleasures, but that's in the nature of democracy. I also understand that some people just don't care about politics or are not interested in them, or don't trust politicians in general and..well, that's fine, it's a boring subject, but also an important one. You don't have to be an expert on all things, but reading through some of the stuff might be beneficial...

I also get the reasoning behind voting for the big players because "the smaller ones won't make it anyway". It's not a lost vote, it's not a wasted vote. If the people voting in that manner actually voted according to their beliefs, those smaller parties would receive more votes + the bigger parties would get less which reduces the gap between them and might lead to surprising outcomes (which might overwhelm those guys, because they're not prepared for ruling a country...)

And I actually prefer voting for a party instead of a single person, because they have a set list of rules and goals they aim for regardless of who's in charge of the party. They might change a bit over time, but all in all they're set while a single person can randomly change their mind and there's nothing keeping him from doing that. A party has their members which form the party to their beliefs as a whole, so it's more likely to represent what's good for a country and not what's good for an individual...I guess.

As for the elections, I'm all in for those guys:
https://diehumanisten.de/politik/leitbild/

I dunno, seems you're comparing it to national elections and it just doesn't work for me. People in Bremen, Düsseldorf, Magdeburg, Freiburg, Frankfurt, Dresden and Munich voting for the same parliament still makes a lot more sense to me than people in Bremen, Dublin, Bucharest, Kattowice, Athens and Porto voting for the same parliament, because the former still has more common causes than unrelated ones, while the latter, well, people obviously vote for completely different things for completely different reasons because they're in completely different situations. It just doesn't make sense how that is supposed to form into a cohorent whole at the parliamentary level.

Even worse that there are different political parties behind the entities in the European parliament, some of which don't really seem compatible despite being part of the same unifying thing. Like if I vote social democrat in Germany, I'm at the same time voting for goons like Francois Hollande? If I vote conservative in Germany I basically vote for fuck-ups like Silvio Berlusconi?

Well the whole system of EU is broken at the moment which is why I'm an favor of a Europe that has strong, self-regulatory regions with the EU only setting the general guidelines like ethics, human rights as well as giving guidance on things that affect multiple/all countries with the overall goal being the wellbeing of the individual human that lives in the EU rather than the companies that don't even pay their taxes anyway. That is easier done in smaller regions that can react to the needs of their inhabitants rather than a continent that has various influences and deficits all over the places.
It should also aim at bringing the countries closer together and help getting all of them to similar standards in regards of health care, payments and general infrastructure etc.
Basically moving away from the money driven marketplace that's enforcing way too many regulations on everything to a union that's worth the slogan "United in diversity".

Good post!

Well, that is another problem. Most voters haven't seen a whole debate, much less read party manifestos. They hear slogans, see commercials and vote according to tradition or whatever might seem hip in the circles where they socialize. It's not like humans all of the sudden will change and actually make sure they are well read or that they somehow become more independent rather than herd animals.

I'm quite surprised that some parties, generally on the far right and the far left, are depicted as populists (in a negative sense) when the whole system basically promotes populism. I think that's my main problem. The populist nature of democracy. It is not about merit it is about appeal to the masses. And also that no one is really held accountable. As I said, if politician x in party x does something then he/she might be removed but is only replaced by another person within the same structure continuing the same type of work.

And to me with the EU I'm not sure participating in its rules and its forms is a good way to show ones dislike for the project. The longer we get into this project the more laws and regulations are taken on top EU level (without regard for the best of the single nation states). They claim it is a democratic project but we do not choose its leader etc. For me participating is, in some regard, accepting and playing by their rules. I prefer to be anarchic in the way of being free from participating and instead try to bring change to where I am and in situations that I can truly affect. Usually very small scale but why would I participate in a system I don't agree with?

Edit: the EU is marketed as a "peace project" but I actually think its one of the major risks to new conflicts between member states. We saw some of that during the economic crisis. I think we will see it in regard to the UK where I think the EU will be out to punish them for leaving. I don't worry about a world war 3 or anything of that nature but I think conflict will arise in regards to the "euro zone" and perhaps in regards to states that want to change the EU to much (or go against their ruling like Greece, Hungary and Poland) or countries that might want to leave (right now just the UK countries but there has been some talk of France as well).