I love voting. So should you. If you don’t like the choice on offer to you then you should stand for election yourself or go along to your polling centre and spoil your ballot paper—spoilt papers have to be counted. If you can’t be bothered to do any of these things then the rest of us can’t be bothered to listen to you complain about the outcome.
03May07 — 16
Ah, but you are forgetting that all voting is rigged by the neocon one-world black-helicopter corporations. Why bother? Now, when the revolution comes and the corporate pig-dog lackeys are up against the wall… THEN I will stop posting angry missives on my blog and do stuff instead.
Just come back from voting. There was a queue (almost a long as the one at the post office.)
People died so that we can vote.
I voted.
Thank you for raising the subject Mr Pooter.
The trouble with spoiling the paper is that ‘they’ just make the excuse that you must have been to thick to complete it properly.
What we really need is a none of the above, but they’ll never ever allow that.
So if I spoil my paper, they count it. Great. And then what? In what way, precisely, have I not wasted my time?
In the recent Scottish elections, spoilt ballots outnumbered winning candidates’ votes by a factor of 10 in some constituencies. This had had precisely zero effect on those winning candidates. Spoiling a ballot achieves literally nothing, and I do not understand why some people insist that my having enough basic intelligence not to waste my own time somehow rescinds my right to criticize those in power.
Paul,
People died so that we could have the right to vote, not so that we should have to. People also died so that we could have the right to preach Catholicism, yet people rarely tell me that I therefore must do so.
Squander:
This is because by far the majority of them were spoilt because ordinary voters didn’t understand them. This is another excellent argument against proportional representation—a phrase that, in normal use, bears the same kind of relationship with what it describes as “socialist worker” does.
It doesn’t matter why they were spoilt. In fact, if anything, ballots spoilt by mistake should be even more significant to politicians than those spoilt deliberately, since the mistaken ones, if repaired, would turn out to be actual votes for actual candidates, which the politicians concerned would very much like to have. Yet still (with, I think, one exception), they care too little about the spoilt ballots to do anything about them.
Please explain to me the mechanism, in which you appear to believe, whereby spoilt ballots have an effect on the electoral process.
Squander:
That’s just not true. Firstly, because of the spoiled ballots, there’s going to be a statutory review of the system—what do you want: Alex Salmond in stocks in Princes Street?—and, secondly, the media have been full of politicians agonising about the conduct of the election, not because they want people’s votes—they’ve got them or not got them now—but because they know this farce undermines their own legitimacy, and if there’s one thing most politicians want more than anything else it’s to be taken seriously.
This latter phenomenon, by the way, reminds me of how politicians and pundits publicly agonise every time there’s a low turnout or a rise in votes for racist parties. The correct responses respectively to apathy and (minority) racism by voters—because that’s what they are; they’re not some sophisticated way of objecting to profound shortcomings in our political system—is to tell those who are apathetic and racist to go screw themselves.
Squander:
I have absolutely no doubt if enough people spoiled their ballot papers in a systematic way that, for example, there would be re-run elections and, if it happened nationally, the party with the largest number of seats/votes would not be allowed to form a government. It’s already a significant factor in decisions about whether or not to have recounts or second votes.
People who are dissatisfied with our democracy have this idea that the size of their dissatisfaction is in some way matched by that of their fellow citizens. It isn’t. If it were then they’d get up off their fat arses and do something about it because our system makes it extraordinarily easy for them to do so. They don’t.
I have never in my life walked more than half-a-mile to vote, only ever seen any intimidation near a polling station once—by RESPECT thugs who were immediately moved on by the police (not before I’d given them a piece of my mind)—and know that if I needed it (or even if I didn’t) I would be carried in my wheelchair and taxied to the polling station where I could easily and secretly vote for the party opposing the one that had paid to chauffeur me there.
I have to laugh every time I read some blog piece or op-ed where someone who fancies himself as a bit of a man-of-the-people gets up on his high horse about CCTV cameras or the welfare state or health-and-safety regulation or Europe or John Prescott or indeed the lack of a choice at the ballot box and rants about how we won’t put up with it any more. And the truth is they will and they do so because they’re actually fairly happy with the way things are. When I’m not happy with the way things are then I don’t delude myself that my views are in any way representative of the population at large.
(In fact, the last time I felt my point-of-view wasn’t getting sufficient airing I sat down in a pub with a bunch of other people who felt the same way and we wrote them down on a piece of paper and put them on a Website, and found them being discussed in half the serious papers in the country and quite a few in the rest of the World.)
In this country, I’m happy to say, you don’t need a majority of the people’s votes to win; you need a majority of the people who voted. The only people stopping those who don’t vote from voting are themselves. Elected representatives and the rest of the population owe exactly nothing to the views of those who fail to take advantage of their right to vote. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. (This is the other reason I am happy to stand in unwinnable seats: people in Henley need Labour candidates too.) Smartarses can complain until they’re blue in the face that only X percent of the population voted for Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher. It means fuck all. Are the same people who couldn’t be arsed to walk 400 yards and put a cross on a piece of paper going to start an armed insurrection against Adolf Thatch or George Bliar? Are they fuck.
It’s funny how the same bloggers who talk about “letting the market decide” and “people voting with their feet” and “the wisdom of crowds” will claim when the marketplace of politics decides or the crowds use their feet to vote a way they don’t like that those who felt the same way as they do simply stayed away from the polling stations because there was no point in trying to express their dissatisfaction because no one would pay attention if they did. Is M&S a failed retailer because more people don’t buy their underwear than do?
It’s utter, utter bollocks. “It doesn’t matter what I say! They never listen to me! ‘Snot fair! They jus’ pick on me all the time. They just don’t understand my special sensitivities and needs! Why isn’t there a Halfwit-with-a-Website-who-once-read-a-bit-of-Hayek Party?
AdultsPoliticians! They’re all the same! They’re just in it for themselves!”It’s the pierced lipped drooling of a emo kid echoing out from under his badger-dyed asymmetric fringe as he squats in a shopping centre off his face on drugs he bought with his excessive pocket money given to him by parents too worried about “damaging his self-esteem” to tell him what a narcissistic, lazy, ill-informed, lucky, lucky bastard he is.
Fuck him and fuck anyone else who thinks walking down the road and scribbling on a bit of paper is too much effort. Even my nephew can do that and he’s got sixteen years to go before he can spoil his vote.
Dear Mr Geek,
I think I love you.
Wow. That’s a bit of a reaction, if I may say so.
> I have absolutely no doubt if enough people spoiled their ballot papers in a systematic way that, for example, there would be re-run elections and, if it happened nationally, the party with the largest number of seats/votes would not be allowed to form a government.
You have a lot of faith. What you seem to be saying here is that it’s down to honour. There’s no defined mechanism, no law or constitutional rule or anything like that, but you personally have no doubt that politicians would choose to do the right thing. In our lifetimes, many things that rely on the honour of politicians have not worked. The tradition that ministers don’t get their jobs back shortly after being forced to resign, for instance, appears to have been abandoned because, while it may have been nice for the electorate, it was inconvenient for sacked ministers. Compare Profumo with Blunkett. You have a lot more faith than me.
> Firstly, because of the spoiled ballots, there’s going to be a statutory review of the system
Sorry, I meant doing something serious. One MSP is challenging the outcome of his unelection in court, and quite right too, under the circumstances. Not one winner has given up their seat or demanded that their constituency have an immediate bye-election. They’re all quite happy to hang on to the power that they know or suspect is illegitimate and wait for an inquiry that might make changes to the system next time round, after they’ve taken five years of salary and wielded five years of power and put “MSP” on their CV so they can earn a fortune through consultancy work for the rest of their lives. Knowing the prevailing Scottish political culture, I can say with certainty that a large number of these MSPs have complained about the “stolen” US election of 2000 and expressed their opinion that there should have been a recount. They don’t believe that Bush should have waited till 2004, but, faced with a far greater level of uncertainty, they’re quite happy to wait for 2012.
I might add that experts had already complained about the Scottish system and strongly advised politicians to change it in order to prevent exactly what has just happened. That advice was ignored. You have no doubt that exactly the same advice will not be ignored next time, for some reason. Hmm.
> Elected representatives and the rest of the population owe exactly nothing to the views of those who fail to take advantage of their right to vote. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.
I thought the job of an MP was to represent their constituents. And, to be fair, a lot of MPs agree with me, not you, on this point, for which we may be grateful.
The rest of your comment is simply pushing the old chestnut that every single unused vote can be blamed on apathy. This is not true. I have no doubt that many — perhaps most — can, but there are plenty of us who are far from apathetic but do not wish to vote in a particular election. Your lecture about how easy it is to vote is rather pointless when aimed at people who, like me, have voted plenty of times, thanks very much. But I didn’t vote in the last two elections, as there was no party on the ballot I wished to vote for. Surely the point of the right to vote is being able to choose to support those people you wish to see become our leaders. What if everyone on offer would make a bloody awful leader? Why should the right to exercise a choice suddenly turn into the obligation to support those with whom you profoundly disagree?
You’re a Labour supporter. If, like me, you moved to Northern Ireland — the one place on Planet Earth to whose residents the British Labour Party forbids membership — who would you vote for? Labour say you should vote SDLP, but what if you disagree with the SDLP?
Oh, yeah: you could spoil your ballot, and elected politicians would, you have no doubt, care.
I should have said: “One ex-MSP is challenging the outcome of his unelection in court”. But you knew that.
Squander:
We don’t have a constitution, but I’d rather live under our honour- and trust-based system than in plenty of places that do have written constitutions. Some of those places even have the word “democratic” written into their names. Fat lot of good it does their citizens.
It’s worth comparing the, very recent and very serious, crises caused in a relatively well run country like the US under its legalistic system with what would happen here if a) the Prime Minister was caught telling lies about what he did with his penis b) a general election was tied under suspicious circumstances. I trust the Queen more than I trust warring packs of lawyers and an elected judiciary.
I trust our system. You don’t. But you’re in a minority. As I never tire of pointing out: millions (billions?) of people around the planet make long-term investments here precisely because they trust our system. Hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people have risked and continue to risk horrible deaths in the hope of finding refuge here because they trust our system. Earth’s residents vote for British parliamentary democracy with their livelihoods and with their lives.
Profumo had sex with a woman who was sleeping with the enemy. Blunkett had sex with a woman who published magazines. Ministers are still MPs. We live in a representative democracy. If it’s “convenient” for the electorate to do so then they can sack them themselves. Ask Neil Hamilton.
Good. No one elected the “experts”. I thought it was a joke too. No one took any notice of me either. Nor should they have done.
No. It’s not. It’s saying that we can say absolutely nothing about what an unused vote counts for so we shouldn’t count them.
No, it isn’t. It wasn’t aimed at people who vote. And, as I have stated, if you have given up voting then I don’t owe you a point.
So start one, or try to persuade the one you want to vote for to let you stand as a candidate. There have been surprisingly many parties created in this country over the years and, even if they haven’t gone on to run it, they have often had a significant influence on the way the country has been run.
And if you don’t like the representative chosen for you by the party nearest your views you can sack her too.
No. It isn’t. Next question.
Then campaign for someone else to be selected. Or stand yourself. What party did Martin Bell represent?
It doesn’t. It includes the right to express that profound disagreement in way which must be recognised by the authorities and is accompanied, here at least, by the right to stand for office yourself so that others can express their own profound disagreement more positively.
You’re right about this though. And I have always had similar misgivings about it.
It’s worth comparing the, very recent and very serious, crises caused in a relatively well run country like the US under its legalistic system with what would happen here if a) the Prime Minister was caught telling lies about what he did with his penis b) a general election was tied under suspicious circumstances. I trust the Queen more than I trust warring packs of lawyers and an elected judiciary.
Clinton wasn’t impeached because he told lies about what he did with his penis, it was for perjury. If a British prime minister lied in court, and the CPS considered there were grounds, he’d be up on the same charge, and lawyers would be involved.
The US election simply followed the rules, despite all the “BushHitler stole it” nonsense. It was only “controversial” because of the incompetency of those below the US Supreme Court failing to follow the US Constitution, leading to packs of lawyers having to get it sorted. The system was tested and worked.
The problem with relying monarchy is about a question of individual judgement. The US Supreme Court still relies on that, but it has a written set of rules, and there is a system of checks and balances for those who get on it. The monarchy doesn’t.
Whilst I don’t object to the cost of the monarchy on the grounds that it gives harmless pleasure to old ladies and foreign tourists, I’d prefer something more robust in place when it comes to protecting our rights.
Would you want someone of the character of Edward VIII deciding who was prime minister?
> We don’t have a constitution
Yes, we do.
> I trust our system. You don’t. But you’re in a minority.
I didn’t say I was in a majority. I said that I still have a right to criticise the Government even though I didn’t vote in the last election, and that my reason for not voting had nothing to do with apathy. Don’t know where you got anything about majorities from that.
> Profumo had sex with a woman who was sleeping with the enemy. Blunkett had sex with a woman who published magazines.
I was not referring to their reasons for resigning; I was referring to their attitudes towards the permanency of their resignations. You are right that Profumo’s crime was potentially more damaging than Blunkett’s — though Blunkett’s behaviour was far worse. But that’s a reason for Blunkett not to choose not to resign in the first place. That he eventually did resign demonstrated an acknowledgment that the public believed that he’d done something wrong. To then become a minister again demonstrated a belief that the bastard public could sod off.
> Ministers are still MPs. We live in a representative democracy. If it’s “convenient” for the electorate to do so then they can sack them themselves.
Oo, good example, thanks. It used to be the case that an MP, when made a minister, had to immediately stand for reelection in their own constituency, allowing the voters the opportunity to decide not only who was in Parliament but who was in Government. This rule was removed, not by the electorate, but by Parliament. Yet another case of our politicians’ removing a democratic obstacle to their own power when it was convenient for them to do so.
I might add that if it’s “convenient” for the electorate to do so then they can sack ministers themselves, as long as they’re willing to accept the highly specialised use of the word “sack” that implies “promote to a very powerful new job such as Governor of Hong Kong”.
> So start one, or try to persuade the one you want to vote for to let you stand as a candidate.
As you well know, I have a six-month-old daughter and an extremely ill wife who requires a lot of care and support. I just got a new job a couple of weeks ago; prior to that, I was doing extra work in my spare time in order to make ends meet. I could not afford to start a political party. I do not have the time.
Furthermore, I have better things to do with the time I do have. One of your main points appears to be how easy it is to vote. No argument from me there, but I don’t see how that extends to standing for Parliament. I am interested in politics enough to want to follow what’s going on and to vote if I see someone worth voting for. I do not want to dedicate my life to it. I’d rather do some gardening and play with my daughter and walk the dogs, and I don’t think that makes me some sort of hypocrite.
As you may not know, my mother was a politician. One of my earliest memories is a fucking Labour Party Conference. I had spent more than enough time on that sort of crap by the time I was twelve, thanks. You may think standing for an unwinnable seat is just a bit of fun. I think it destroys families, and I think there’s a lot of evidence on my side. I choose not to.
> if you have given up voting …
Again, a total misrepresentation. I have, on occasion, chosen not to vote. I haven’t given up voting, any more than the fact that I didn’t eat any Chinese food today means that I’ve given that up.
> It’s saying that we can say absolutely nothing about what an unused vote counts for so we shouldn’t count them.
Well, that applies to people who don’t vote and don’t talk about it. But when a person who doesn’t vote tells everyone why they don’t vote, it is easy to say something about what that unused vote counts for. I absolutely agree with you that unused votes shouldn’t be counted — obviously. But you’re extending that to say that people who do not vote have no right to criticise the Government. This rather contradicts the principle of freedom of speech.
> I trust the Queen more than I trust warring packs of lawyers and an elected judiciary.
Not having voted either for or against any of that judiciary, why do you feel you have the right to criticise them?
> You’re right about this though. And I have always had similar misgivings about it.
Thanks, but you didn’t answer the question. What would you do in a Northern Irish election? Would you start a new political party or stand for the UUP? Or would you, perhaps, not vote?
Squander:
I’ve never questioned that right, but I have said that I am not obliged to listen to you, and that any claim you might make that you are disenfranchised is null.
Blunkett’s resignation, like most Ministers’ resignations, was about the views of the media and and of his colleagues, not the public. If the actual public had voted for someone else and he had remained in power then it would indeed have demonstrated the belief that the public can sod off, but they didn’t and he didn’t.
If anything, this demonstrates that our democracy has begun to move too far in the opposite direction: that governments now tend to do things because of the perception of what the electorate wants rather than what it has actually voted for.
Yours is a difficult situation and you have my sympathy. This, and the question of the damage political careers do to families that you also raise, are separate from the argument about the system. I do think, and have argued for a long time, it’s extremely important that, not just in parliament but in every workplace, the idiot blight of presenteeism and other anti-productive, macho expectations employers have of “professionals” are stamped out. I suppose that it’s a credit to our system that Blunkett made it to one of the highest offices from desperate poverty and physical disadvantage and that the (somewhat better off financially) Leader of the Opposition has a seriously disabled child.
Well, it is if you choose to read the word “if” that I typed as the word “because” that you imagined.
Fair point, but I’m perfectly happy with the way things are.
No I’m not. For the nth time: people who don’t vote are still perfectly free to say what they like. The purpose of my original post—read it—was to say that I and others are right to attach as much value to the complaints of non-voters as the non-voters attached to their right to vote.
You’ve lost me now. I’m not criticising the members of the US judiciary as elected representatives; I’m criticising, in the abstract, the idea of us replacing our set-up with one like the USA’s—though I am perfectly happy to concede that this is a straw man; you didn’t give me a positive alternative to attack, so I chose the least negative (but still faulty) one I could think of.
I would do exactly what I recommended at the start of this discussion: spoil my ballot paper. Then I would do what I recommended in the middle (and have done repeatedly in my life): press for change. I was a Labour supporter when Labour was “led” by Michael Foot. I know what political frustration is about.
> I’ve never questioned that right …
Ah, fair enough.
> … but I have said that I am not obliged to listen to you …
You’re not obliged to listen to people who have voted, either.
> … and that any claim you might make that you are disenfranchised is null.
I think you’re being a bit literal about “disenfranchised”. In, say, Scotland, where the Tories have turned into an increase-taxes-and-spend-more-on-state-run-stuff party, there is no longer a conservative party. Anyone who wants lower taxes and less state spending has no party they could vote for. Sure, technically, they could start their own party and vote for it and have a couple of hundred other people vote for it too, so they’re not literally disenfranchised. But they are, to all extents and purposes, disenfrachised, and most of us know what they mean when they say so.
> This, and the question of the damage political careers do to families that you also raise, are separate from the argument about the system.
No, I don’t think you were advising that people should stand for Parliament in Utopia; I think you were advising thet they should do it here, in the UK, now, under the current system.
> I do think, and have argued for a long time, it’s extremely important that, not just in parliament but in every workplace, the idiot blight of presenteeism and other anti-productive, macho expectations employers have of “professionals” are stamped out.
Well, yes (and I’d like to take a second to crow that my new employers appear to be rather brilliant in this respect — I don’t have to be in till eleven), but I should add that my mother was never an MP, so the employment conditions of the Commons had nothing to do with anything. Just being a candidate was bad enough.
> I would do exactly what I recommended at the start of this discussion: spoil my ballot paper.
Well, fine. We can just disagree about the usefulness of thgis. I find it rather entertaining, actually, that you think that a politician who has no qualms about shooting people in the head for having the wrong ancestry might care about a spoilt ballot paper. But hey.