Should Everyone Be Allowed to Vote? OPEN DISCUSSION

With much of the world focused on the USA presidential election vote, I couldn’t help but think about the (in)sanity of voting. I want to know your thoughts.

I was skimming over Facebook the other day and came across a post that I’ve seen repeatedly over the years on social media.

This post makes the case that we should use fruit trees as street trees because the homeless would be able to have access to fresh fruit.

The Popular Vote

Whenever this post is published as it has been numerous times the general public cheer and applaud the wonderful suggestion.

Promoting it with comments that suggest this is the best idea ever and just what the world has been waiting for.

There are some naysayers but the support for the idea is overwhelming and often the naysays are chastised for saying something negative about the idea.

My Perspective

From my perspective, it’s very clear that the people who love this idea and want to support it, don’t give the idea any thought at all. Meanwhile, the few that are against it, do give it some thought. They come to the conclusion that it is not a good idea.

Perhaps at this point, it would be a good idea to tell you something about myself and my background:

I’m a qualified horticulturist, I studied in the Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin in Dublin, Ireland. I did a year of work experience in horticulture in Australia where I worked in Roma Street Parkland in Brisbane, Australia, and the Mackay Regional Botanic Gardens in Queensland, Australia.

On top of this, I’m also a qualified landscape architect who worked on large-scale outdoor public projects in Tel Aviv, Israel. Planning and working out details to implement public projects such as streets, parks, and commercial areas for the private sector.

Does any of this make me an expert on the topic of public fruit trees to be planted as street trees?

No, it does not. However, it does give me some degree of credibility in terms of having an opinion.

Why exactly is planting fruit trees as street trees a bad idea?

1. Street trees are picked specifically because of their tolerance to pollution. Fruit trees are not noted for this tolerance.
   
   
2. Paving materials, such as concrete, stone, and tarmac lead to compacted soil. Again street trees can generally handle this, fruit trees on the other hand will struggle.
   
   
3. If one fruit tree gets infected on a street, most likely the whole row will get infected, leading to a mass chemical treatment to deal with the problem. Most likely if this happened once, they will have to be treated year after year.
   
   
4. If the trees do grow and yield a crop of fruit, most of the fruit will not be accessible to pick by the average passer-by, not unless they happen to be walking by with a ladder.
   
   This means most of the fruit will fall to the ground. This is a health hazard that our streets are not equipped to deal with.
   
   
5. If the trees are destined to be kept small, so that people can access the fresh fruit they require specialist pruning.
   
   Apple trees for instance must be pruned in a specific way to ensure they flower and produce fruit the following year.
   
   This also must be done at a specific time of the year. To do this across 100’s or possibly 1000’s with a degree of quality control would not be feasible for most councils.
   
   
6. If the trees did not get the attention needed due to funding cutbacks or some other unforeseen circumstance the fruit trees will not bear fruit and will just be another street tree defeating the purpose of the project.

There are other reasons I’m sure. But as someone with my experience, these are the main reasons that pop to the forefront for me and they are fundamental obstacles in the way of any such project being successful.

An Ignorant Majority (No offence)

The vast majority of people would not know the above. However, if everyone had the right to vote on this issue, what we would be left with is a fully funded project which will be an inevitable failure.

Hence, why I’m asking the question: Should Everyone Be Allowed to Vote?

Should we be allowing popularity be the main factor of decision making?

Would this mentality not lead to a lot of poor decisions. Such as replacing street trees with fruit trees, or Britain exiting the European Union (Brexit).

Let’s take a closer look at Brexit.

People really got behind it. People voted for it and then many of these same people once confronted with the reality of the consequences of their vote, quickly start back peddling as they became more and more informed about their decision.

I’m not saying Brexit is good or bad, but should Brexit have been a popularity vote?

Trump Vs. Biden Vote

In the United States right now, there is the presidential race between Trump and Biden. Here we have a system that overrides the popularity vote with the electoral college. This ultimately determines who will be president.

In 2016 (Trump V Clinton) Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but Trump won the electoral college. Was that better?

Should I have the right to vote on the abortion referendum in Ireland (I did vote), but did I deserve to? Was my opinion a valid one?

In the world of marketing, we use data to make decisions. Better data leads to effective decisions. Popularity doesn’t come into it. We make decisions with the intention of achieving a goal. The fact is in marketing if you follow what is popular, often you’ll be led down a very unproductive path.

In business popularity is fun, but it’s often irrelevant because of its ineffectiveness.

In science, popularity is meaningless. Most people would probably vote against winter. But facts don’t care about our feelings.

So in business and science, we know popularity is mostly irrelevant. So why then do we let this irrelevant voice govern the world in which we live in?

An Alternative Way

What if there was a minimal test people had to take on any given topic. This would qualify them to be able to vote. Would we then make better decisions?

Maybe everyone should get to vote. But perhaps some people’s votes should count more than one vote because their opinion is more credible.

In a household, is a child’s vote worth the same as a parents vote?

Perhaps letting everyone vote, is the best we can do.

I don’t know the answer all I’m saying is, I want to see more options.

I hope you enjoyed this opinion piece and of course I would love to hear your thoughts on it.

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