A rant

[fleetfootmike]

Tomorrow, for those of us in the UK, is election day.

However cynical you might be about the process, the politicians, the probable result according to the opinion polls, or the state of the country, the government we get, at the end of the day, is determined by one thing, and one thing only.

Our votes.

There are seats out there where a thousand people actually getting off their arses and making a mark on a piece of paper can change the sitting MP. Fewer, in some cases. Even if you don't live in such a seat, it's your right, your privilege, and in my opinion your duty to get out of your chair tomorrow[1] and VOTE. I don't care who you vote for [2]. But every vote, however 'safe' or otherwise the seat, sends a message that you actually care about how this country is run.

If you don't vote, IMO, you give up any right to complain about the state of the country in the next four years. Yes, it's only one vote. But there are 45 million people registered to vote. Last time round, nearly half of them didn't. That, in my book, is a fucking disgrace.

[1] ignoring postal votes for now, OK? :)
[2] Actually, that's not true. I do. But I care far more that you actually vote. :)

---

So, just out of curiosity:

[Poll #487413]

Comments

[muninnhuginn]

I've always bothered to turn up--like you I think it's a duty. I confess to leaving the ballot slip blank on several occasions, tho', and I've absolutely no idea what to do this time.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Having the vote is a privelege as well as a right, and I'm aware of the struggle it took for everyone in the country to have it, espeically us women, so I always vote. Except for last year or so when our area was a sodding postal vote and I was ill that week and didn't get it sent off (um, nor could i understand the complex form they sent out :( ). If I could have dragged myself down to the polling station on the day, I'd have been fine, but that wasn't an option. Grrrr.

[bardling.livejournal.com]

I always voted, unitl I moved country. I confess that I have not yet bothered to find out exactly how to register to vote in Germany from abroad, and I'm not actually keeping track of politics there. From the info I was given, unless something's changed, I'm eligible to vote for general elections in the country I hold citizenship, i.e. Germany, but for locals in the country of residence. I have voted once in locals in Gravesend since I moved.
(Not that I was/am actually any more aware of local politics either there or here than I am of German politics atm... ;)

Like you, while I don't much like politics or care about them and am prone to missing things from forgetting/lazyness/not-realizing-how-much-time-has-passed, I do consider voting a right, a priviledge and a duty. My vote may not make anyone win, but sometimes just strengthening (one of) the minority(ies) may help get a bit more common sense or fairness into politics.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, it's been a long time (about eight years actually) since I believed our votes affected anything other than which of the two collections of fools, scoundrels and maniacs gets to stand up on telly and parrot the orders of the real masters (and no, I don't mean "the people"). But I still vote, and will be voting tomorrow. Just for personal satisfaction, really, and because I still hope to be surprised.

[armb.livejournal.com]

I'm planning on voting, but given last time's results for my consistituency (South East Cambs), I do have a hard time believing any kind of message is going to register. (I'm also a bit pissed off with the Lib-Dems insulting my intelligence by decribing that as a two horse race between them and the Tories, with a Labour vote being wasted. In reality a Lib-Dem vote here would be no less "wasted" than a Labour one, or a Green one, or a Raving Loony one. At least the little graph beside it was honest about the relative positions, rather than trying something like this.)

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

Of course, Labour tells us that a vote for the Lib-Dems lets the Tories in by the back door, and the Tories tell us that a vote for the Lib-Dems is a vote for Labour. So, near as I can tell, a vote for the Lib-Dems cancels out completely on all three of those parties. :-)

[armb.livejournal.com]

You get all those messages nationally, but I don't remember seeing them in the other local brochures, though I may well have missed it.
I think I've heard them all in Cambridge (where the city council elections give a rather different picture from the last national one, and it's plausible that the Lib-Dems have finally got over the "I'd vote for them if they had a chance but they don't" problem - graphs).

[madfilkentist]

Since I live in the US, your comments on the specific election aren't directed at me. But I want to respond that no one ever gives up the right to complain. I do not vote because the electoral process (in both our countries, I think) has turned into a contest to control and loot other people, and by participating I'd be endorsing that as a legitimate means of getting one's way.
You evidently wouldn't agree with me on that. If you believe that voting is the right thing to do, say so as strongly as you want. But don't tell those who do otherwise that they've forfeited any rights.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Bingo. We all know over here that it will be a Conservative government, a "new" Labour Government, or a hung parliament between the two. There is no distinction between the parties: no matter which one gets in, the interests of big business will be served at the expense of the individual. On that basis, there is no reason to suppose that voting will make any difference whatsoever: both parties will cut taxes to their rich friends and spending on essential services for the rest of us, both parties will suck up to Bush in case he wakes up one morning and mistakes us for Syria, and both parties will happily vote in huge wage hikes for MPs and ministers while slashing the budget of the civil service. I think everyone has a right to complain about this state of affairs, whether they vote or not.

[jslove.livejournal.com]

While that rhetoric is overstated, I agree with it to this degree:

When you refuse to participate, you have forfeited any "right" you have to my sympathy when you complain. If I agree with you, I may be sympathetic anyway, but if I disagree, forget about it. I am not impressed by boycotting elections. It's stupid. Always stupid. I am sympathetic with individual Iraqi Sunnis who failed to vote because they didn't want to die, but only to a limited degree, in that I do not sympathize with their complaint that they are underrepresented in their government.

This "right" to anyone's sympathy is not guaranteed by the constitution of any government that I know of. It's quite distinct from the rights actually guaranteed, which failure to vote should not diminish in any way.

This is kind of like Mike's remark that he doesn't care how you vote. It's not literally true, but it's true for the purposes of this conversation.

I entered the poll to say that I am not eligible to vote. Perhaps I should not have, but it was the right choice for me about the UK election. I vote in every US election for which I am eligible to vote, if I know anything about the issue or the candidates. Sometimes I leave blank boxes on my ballot when I am ignorant, which (sadly) happens. If I fail to vote for Worcester County Sheriff, I shall not ask for your sympathy should I discover that I do not like the result.

[madfilkentist]

Well, I never thought that I had a right to anyone's sympathy when I complain about anything...

I also voted "not eligible," and the numbers suggest several other non-UK'ers did the same. If nothing else, it lets me view the results.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

You can, BTW, view poll results w/o voting.

[jslove.livejournal.com]

Well, I never thought that I had a right to anyone's sympathy when I complain about anything...

Why bother to complain? You may not have a right to sympathy, but you need it.

If you are venting to an unsympathetic audience, you are just annoying them. This advances your cause how?

If you are looking to change anything by your complaints, you need sympathizers. Really. Otherwise, you are a lone voice in the wilderness. In a democracy, making a change requires group action, if only to cast ballots.

If all you want to do is prepare for the possibility of getting your "I told you so" card punched, does it matter that the people around you might keep score and not be impressed when you get it punched only one time out of ten? (That's not an actual score, but you do tend to actually complain a lot, and so this shouldn't be the reason.) That is, it's not enough to be right, you have to be very right, and the issue has to matter to the audience, or you don't get the credit.

[madfilkentist]

I don't think of personal sympathy as the issue when it comes to political discussions. People should judge what I'm saying on the basis of whether I'm making a valid point, even if they personally think I'm a total jerk. If I am making one, they should be sympathetic to my argument, whether or not they're sympathetic to me.

Granted, personal charisma is perhaps more useful than logic in persuading most people. But even there, I doubt that my voting record, or lack of one, is going to weigh heavily with most people. Ability to flatter and cajole, or to stir up anger at a common enemy, count for more in gaining personal sympathy. These aren't techniques I'm particularly good at, so I probably won't convince a lot of people. So maybe I am just a voice in the wilderness. But I doubt that saying "But I voted!" would improve my score significantly.

I do wish, though, that occasionally the people who rant at non-voters would also rant at voters who know nothing about the issues but vote for the better-looking candidate, or the candidate who's promising them personal favors.

[jslove.livejournal.com]

At the risk of committing necroequiflagellation:

There are ways to help make one sympathetic to your argument. IMO, announcing that you don't vote is not one of them. This is not the same as not saying, "But I voted." Refusing to vote is a statement about the system that makes your whole argument suspect; why should the reader allow you to influence their vote? Richard Stallman hurts his crusade against proprietary software by bundling it with extreme and unpopular other opinions.

Personal charisma is important in persuading people to listen to you in person. It is considerably less important in persuading people using your blog. People who read your blog are either doing so out of initial curiosity, or because they have found something about your blog that they like.

What holds a readership? Friends in real life, maybe. Compelling arguments, even if for a different point of view, will engage some people. Sometimes it's hard to say. The Live Journal way might be to conduct a survey, although that seems tacky. It's something to think about; a way to not be a voice in the wilderness is to write persuasively, and better yet, develop a reputation for doing so.

I quite agree about voting for dumb reasons, but what I like even less is the idea of voting randomly if you are not sufficiently acquainted with the issues or the race in question. That's why I abstain out of ignorance. By the way, for me, basing my vote on party affiliation would be voting randomly. I had plenty of other reasons for voting against Republicans in the last three elections. Your mileage may vary.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

If you mean my rhetoric, I'm not overstating. In his first year as Prime Minister, Tony Blair voted himself a forty-one per cent wage rise, while civil servants were held to two per cent or less. All the other examples are things that our governments have done, and/or have promised to do in the coming session if they win. And while I'm sure Bush has people who would tell him we aren't Syria, I'm also sure that his friendship with Britain is conditional on us continuing to behave, and a loss of that friendship could be disastrous for the sitting government, if not the rest of us.

I'm still going to vote.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

You protest against the fact that that voting changes nothing by changing nothing? Strange.

I was brought up to believe that people starved, were tortured and died for me to be able to vote. Some of them within living memory. Even if I go to the ballot station and write "Mickey Mouse for Prime Minister" on the ballot paper, I honour the memory of those who fought for the right to vote.

Look at it this way - if every person who couldn't be bothered to vote last election voted, say... Green Party (traditionally viewed as a kooky, fringe kind of option with no hope of getting in and saving the environment) then we could be looking at a realistic public transport system and CO2 emissions dropping by 50% in a week's time.

However, if *everyone* chose not to vote or have a say in their government, what stops the tyrants and madmen from taking control? Whatever one thinks about the current governments of both the UK and the US, they are at least answerable to the people, unlike hundreds of other countries in the world.

I am truly grateful that tomorrow I can go to the poll and vote freely, unlike people in the Congolese Republic, Somalia, Tibet etc. etc. etc. By exercising our right to vote we ensure that we keep the right to complain and the right to free speech.

Political apathy is a privilege which has been bought dearly by those before us.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I've found the attitude of "not voting, but going to complain" to be really, really...odd. I think if you choose not to vote, you really don't have a leg to stand on when someone you don't like gets in. Even if the only vote is a protest vote for a candidate who doesn't stand a chance in hell of winning; it's the closest we get to "None of the above"

I wouldn't say that madfilkentist is politically apathetic, BTW. I happen to disagree with his beliefs, but they are VERY strong ones.

[aunty_marion]

I'll be registering a 'protest' vote for the Greens, since I hate to vote for the big three parties. As you say, a 'None of the above' box would suit me nicely! We don't, alas, have a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate in my constituency.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I'm glad I said right upfront that I was going to be voting anyway.

I don't think these governments are "answerable to the people": if they were, Bush would not still be there, and at least one of the twin parties over here would have had to modify its agenda so as to represent a credible opposition. The fact is that once we've gone through this hoopla we're stuck for another four years with no recourse during that time.

I don't think the "right to vote" we have now is the right to vote that people fought and died for. I think that's been taken away and replaced with a hollow sham. (I'm not even touching on the possibility that our lot have learned from the events of 2000 in Florida: I'm assuming they're just honest enough to actually count the votes fairly and abide by the result, although given recent disclosures about Labour activities in Birmingham that's by no means likely.)

Nevertheless, as I said above and just in case anyone missed it, I will be voting, according to my conscience, and if tomorrow does make a difference to the state of our nation I will be the first to cheer.

I just don't think it's very likely.

[madfilkentist]

Publicly analyzing issues, calling offices of elected officials, and making donations to organizations constitutes "changing nothing"?

Sometimes I think so myself. But if that's true, then voting certainly falls into the same category.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

People starved, were tortured and died for me to be allowed to be Christian, as well, that doesn't mean that I have to be Christian. They did it for freedom, and if you take away the freedom to not vote then that's also a tyranny. It's also counter-productive, if everyone were forced to vote ther would just be that many more uninformed votes, because you can't force people to study the issues. Being uninformed -- and worse, apathetic -- they would be ripe for being 'bought' (not necessarily with money, hence the quotes). I think that would be worse.

Actually, if everyone who didn't vote last time voted Green in my constituency it would make no difference at all, and the same is true in other seats with large majorities. The only party who stand any chance in my area are the LibDems, and even then they'd need to get something like 90% of those who didn't vote before to vote LibDem.

Yes, I'll be voting, but I haven't decided yet whether I'll be writing "NONE ACCEPTABLE" or actually voting for a party (the irony is that if I voted for the person rather than the party I'd be voting for the incumbant, who's Tory, but in my view the Tories are only marginally less bad than Labour; of the other parties I seem to be about equally balanced between things I like and dislike)...

[gingicat]

The thing is, if everyone in the US who believed as you do voted Libertarian, and everyone who believed as I do voted Green, we'd have a viable four-party system in the US. This would be akin to the sweeping political changes that happened at the turn of the twentieth century in both the US and the UK due to viable third parties bringing up issues that had to be dealt with.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

"It always beats me why you people who want gun controls don't just join the NRA. They've got two million members. You bring three million to the next meeting. Vote to toss guns. Boom." (Or words to that effect anyway: The West Wing, of course)

If everyone who hates what Labour has become joined the party, sent delegates to conference, voted to restore Chapter 4 or whichever bit it was that had the word "socialism" in it...or simply joined the Lib Dems...things might be a lot more hopeful.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"If everyone who hates what Labour has become joined the party..."

... then Labour would say "Oh, look how popular we are!" And then as fast as they made their views known they'd be thrown out again and Labour would say "Oh look, we must be popular because the wreckers tried to infiltrate us, but we are clever and threw them out before they could do any damage". And they'd be right to throw them out and call tem 'wreckers', because joining a political party (or any club or other group of people) because you don't like it and want to force your views on it is fraud and deception as well as force. If I joined the LibDems just because I dislike (New) Labour it would be almost as much fraud (not quite, because I do agree with the LibDems on some things). Which is why I'm considering 'spoiling' the ballot (that still has to be counted and anounced), because whoever I vote for that is saying "I prefer this person (or party) over the others" and that is not true for me. The only way I can vote honestly is for "None of them", and that isn't an option which would ever get in (even if 90% of the population turned up and wrote "NONE OF THE ABOVE" the 10% of votes would be the only ones significant in electing anyone)...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Okay. So what we're saying here is that the current unacceptable situation, in which half the population see no point in voting and the only honest choice for some people of conscience is to register a non-vote, cannot be changed even by a (hypothetical) democratic majority acting in concert?

In that case, I would respectfully submit that democracy in Britain has lost whatever meaning it may once have possessed, that we live in a monolithic plutocracy which changes cosmetically every four years, and that the vote which our ancestors suffered and died to gain has become a game to distract the populace from what's really going on so they don't rise up in anger and bring the whole system crashing down about the ears of the powerful. Not that they would, of course, because, you know, British. Which is kind of what I was saying.

I'm still voting. Who knows, I may even buy a lottery ticket. :)

[madfilkentist]

Put as a general thought, I agree with you; but I don't find "if everyone" arguments persuasive. Besides, sadly, the US Libertarian Party has a poor reputation even among libertarians. Its candidate last year didn't even seem to know what powers the President has.

Just one last thought before moving on to other threads: I seem to have struck a nerve by saying that I refuse on principle to participate in the sublimated gang warfare which the electoral process has become. Perhaps as a result some people will think more carefully about whether the act of voting, regardless of how one decides to vote and what one hopes to achieve, is an automatic virtue.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Like armb, there is no chance of anyone except the Tory candidate in my constituency getting in unless the incumbent drops dead (or in some other was is not a candidate). If he wasn't there, the LibDems would stand a pretty good chance, since in the council elections (we've got those tomorrow as well) it's almost 50-50 split. Labour stand no chance at all (they put up only one candidate for the council elections last time!).

The good things are that (a) he isn't Labour and (b) he's not a bad MP, he actually answers letters (two from me so far). The bad side is that the way I vote won't indicate anything to Labour.

"Whoever you vote for, you lose. The government always gets in..."

[rickbooth.livejournal.com]

As you may recall, I went to considerable lengths to right a clerical error (not mine) that had kept me off the register, and assuming the nice man at the council was telling me the truth I'll be voting tomorrow. Of course, like almost everybody in the country, my vote will not affect the result, since I'm in a completely safe seat. It's a strange system that hands the entire result of an election to a few thousand people in specific areas who can't quite make their minds up.

[qb-fox.livejournal.com]

Actually I'm handing in my postal vote in at a polling station today (which it says you can do).

The Election

[fcrawford.livejournal.com]

I'm joining in this discussion rather late in the day. Last week was 'orrible, and I didn't even look at my journal. But, I did vote - I always do. Being female I have always felt very strongly that, as someone else said, people starved and were imprisoned and died for me to have a vote, so it would be bloody ungrateful of me not to use it. I voted Labour with reservations, the reservations being the war in Iraq and Blair's relationship with Bush, and, more selfishly, tuition fees. I don't think it would be tyranny to say people must vote, if you put a box on the form saying "No candidate acceptable" or words to that effect. Obviously if you don't have that option, then it is tyranny. I always watch the results as well - this year I stuck it out to 3.30am. Charnwood hadn't declared then, but the result wasn't a surprise - as it's a rural constituency, the Tories got in again!