Don’t vote.

by Daniel on June 10, 2004

On this sacred day of democracy, two old posts of mine putting forward the case for not taking part in this complete farrago. I would add two points in the context of the current UK elections:

1) Given the large-scale use of postal ballots, the “electoral bezzle” (the proportion of the turnout which consists of fictional characters who are the result of electoral fraud) is probably much larger this time than in previous elections.

2) As the FT points out today, the list system used in the European elections means that there are substantial numbers of political hacks and placemen who will get elected no matter what, making it even more pointless to bother voting.

Don’t encourage them.

{ 42 comments }

1

des von bladet 06.10.04 at 11:31 am

The polling station is most likely inconveniently located, poorly appointed, and doesn’t serve drinks. At any time today which might be convenient for you, the queues will be long.

It’s just round the corner, ackchewerly, and at 8 am (when I like to go) there are punters to the number of zero ahead and behind me.

I like voting personally – my Will to Democracy is strong! – but the smaller the pool of rival voteurs the larger the net effect of my vote and that can’t be bad, except for other persons with different views.

My mighty vote bestrides the ballot box like unto a collossus by default!

2

Will 06.10.04 at 11:38 am

On your second point, there is still a considerable choice among competing lists of hacks and placemen.
And if you object to hacks and placemen, then the process by which candidates are selected for Westminster seats produces a very similar result. Neither approaches bottom-up democracy.

Irish PR-STV produces much more competitive elections requiring candidates to have real popularity and local organisation. But in the Dail, TDs are voting fodder for the executive just as in Britain.

3

pepi 06.10.04 at 11:49 am

I always curse the poor choices at any elections and the fact I always have to pick the “lesser evil” by exclusion rather than enthusiastically supporting a party or candidate, but I don’t think that’s a reason not to vote. Whether you think you should encourage or discourage anything, elections will produce results anyway. If you don’t vote, you have zero right to complain about the results… (well of course you can still complain but it wouldn’t be coherent).

And yes, like will says, there’s always hacks and placement getting elected anyway. Sometimes even as Prime Ministers (not speaking of UK here…). Even more reason to try and put forward someone you are more approving of.

Come on. Don’t be a total cynic. You have to keep faith in the electoral system, even when it sucks.

4

chris 06.10.04 at 11:52 am

The bezzle will be trivial in comparison to the snafu.

Last year, voting in a traditional election, I carried out six elementary processes, from walking to the pollling station to placing my ballot paper in the box. This year, in a compulsory postal ballot, there are more than twenty, including walking to the post box which is about the same distance as the polling station. I’d list them all, only I won’t.

I keep the bailiffs at bay by pretending to be a business analyst, and I can assure anyone foolish enough to doubt it that if I tried to offer this nonsense to any client outside of government in the name of simplification, my arse would be on the street before I finished talking.

A mate of mine has been involved in opening the envelopes, an exercise so complicated that it is providing council employees with nearly twice as much overtime as the old system, even though they don’t have to attend polling stations. Every ballot is an accident waiting to happen.

The local ballot paper is white. The European one is described in the instructions as “greyscale”, a term familiar to anoraks and graphic designers, but not many other people. Guess how many local ballot papers have three crosses on them.

The countersignature form is too complicated. Do the assistant returning officers give wrongly completed ones the benefit of the doubt or not? Who knows? Which side of the bed did they get up this morning?

Husbands and wives accidentally put their ballot papers in each other’s envelopes. The ballot is set aside in the hope that they’ll notice the other one. Sometimes they get lucky.

If I had set out to devise a cunning plan to discredit representative government for all time, I would have included something like this in Phase One. Why does the Labour Party hate democracy?

5

Matthew 06.10.04 at 12:58 pm

“there are substantial numbers of political hacks and placemen who will get elected no matter what”

Something of course that never happens under FTPT in UK parliamentary elections.

6

Scott Martens 06.10.04 at 1:15 pm

One day I’ll write that post on sortition I’ve been meaning to get to. I’ve been thinking of calling it “How to abolish elections while guaranteeing that everyone gets the government they deserve.”

7

Matthew2 06.10.04 at 1:47 pm

What of this claim: “All of which makes me even more determined to vote Tory next time. I really want to punish Blair for lying to me[…]”. Sounds very reasonable to me? Have you changed your mind and decided to let the nutsos and raving loonies scare Blair?

8

Jonathan Goldberg 06.10.04 at 2:11 pm

Here in the US of A not voting produced GWB. Hurrah.

Not voting sends a message. The message is “ignore me.” Whoever “they” are, they get the message.

9

Matt 06.10.04 at 2:32 pm

Jonathan is right. Not voting as a protest is stupid, primarily because the candidates WANT undecided folks like you not to vote. They want as many people to stay away from the ballot boxes as possible, so that the actual number of votes they need to win is lowered.

Also, if you’re given the opportunity to vote, and decide not to, then you can’t really expect anyone to take you seriously when you later want to complain about the outcome, or how the winners are running things. (And of course you will want to complain — these ARE politicians, after all, and unless you are very rich and/or powerful they’re bound to fuck you over one way or another.)

Pepi (and the Onion, and Heinlein, iirc) have the right idea: don’t try to pick the candidate you like most, that’s just depressing. Pick the one you dislike least.

10

Ray 06.10.04 at 2:34 pm

“If you don’t vote you have no right to complain”

I think its the other way around. If you _do_ vote you have no right to complain, because you agreed to take part in the process. You would have been happy enough with the election if your favoured candidate won, so complaining when he loses is just sour grapes. Its like betting on a race and then complaining that your horse lost.

If you don’t vote, you have every right to complain. If you refuse to take part in the process, not accepting the advantages of the social contract, you are morally in a better position to refuse to accept the disadvantages. Its like refusing to bet on a race, and then protesting when the bookies try to take money out of your pocket afterwards.

11

Max 06.10.04 at 3:11 pm

I’m 22 and reading posts like this are just depressing. Is it possible to reform the electoral system? Don’t you think you’d be better to vote and work to better the electoral system than just disengage?

The Right are certainly not going to disengage with the voting system. The media paints the picture (right or wrong) that the Left is disengaging with the European elections in the UK thus ceding ground to the Right. So you don’t think there’s any point voting? Well, you might as well vote, whether you think it matters or not, because it’s hardly a major ball-ache to get down the polling station/drop your ballot in the post.

Only Youth Of Today put forward a good argument to disengage.

12

Max 06.10.04 at 3:18 pm

“I think its the other way around. If you do vote you have no right to complain… Its like betting on a race and then complaining that your horse lost.”

I don’t think this is quite so. Even if your candidate wins you should still be vocal about the flaws in the electoral process — jerrymandering, the candidate selection process, failure to engage voters, etc.

Individual votes are unlikely to matter, but whole sectors of society not voting causes big shifts of influence. As I’ve said in several comments the disenfranchisement of the Left (largely by their own doing), their political apathy or misguided attempts to “punish” Tony Blair (who’ll be gone in under 2 years) by voting Liberal Democrat or for a fringe party is just cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Engage! Engage! Engage!

13

Mario 06.10.04 at 3:53 pm

Not voting makes as much sense as a child not eating dinner because she’s mad at her parents. Who is getting hurt?

You can’t think of an election as a singular event. The results of one election directly influence the choices of candidates in the next. If, say, all Hispanic voters decided not to vote in “protest” of one thing or another, no candidate for the next election would vie for the Hispanic vote because it doesn’t exist, or is at least unreliable. The people that are willing to vote time and again are the ones who are sought out year after year. They are the ones that the politcians will seek to please.

14

pepi 06.10.04 at 4:06 pm

ray: voting is not even remotely comparable to betting on a horse race. For one thing, you don’t get to win any money when you go voting. Sadly!

Not voting does not mean “not accepting the advantages of the social contract”. To do that, to refuse those advantages altogether, you’d have to stop paying taxes (which includes taxes on goods you purchase, which means you’d have to stop buying _anything_), stop using any tax-funded services, give up the right to demand any police or army protection, give up the right to use public roads, never call an ambulance from a state or tax-funded hospital even if your kid is having a seizure, etc.. In short, you’d have to move to a hut in the mountains and live on grass.

Not voting simply means not voting – not participating in the decision to pick who gets to manage all the above-named public services, and more. You’re still sharing all the pros and cons. You’re just abdicating your political role, minimal as it is.

I don’t blame anyone for feeling disengaged. But there are things you should do even if you don’t feel like it, and voting is one. Better to vote in a semi-careless manner than not to vote at all.

(Not too careless, though. You don’t want to cut your nose off to spite your face. You really don’t want that. It may look tempting, but you’re so going to regret it!)

15

Max 06.10.04 at 4:09 pm

Another point — if you’re disengaged from the political system and want that to be noticed (as opposed to people just thinking you’re lazy and couldn’t be bothered to walk to your polling station), spoil your ballot paper (mark all the boxes). That gets it registered as a spoiled ballot and an official protest.

16

E. Naeher 06.10.04 at 4:52 pm

Hear, hear. It never fails to amaze me how much sheer animosity it is possible to provoke among otherwise mild-mannered individuals by mentioning that one doesn’t plan to vote.

I won’t be voting ever again (despite having once penned this screed). The process is a scam, it’s bread and circuses thrown to the proles by the aristocracy to keep them feeling important, but none of it fucking matters; Daniel’s right, it wasn’t better under Clinton nor will it be better under Kerry, in fact it will be worse, not because his policies but because the process is inexorable and the problems are systemic; the machine is right fucked and switching out a few cogs here and there won’t help. The game is rigged from start to finish, the house always wins, and I will not legitimize it by participating in the Potemkin village our leaders have set in place to allow us to remain secure in our denial.

17

Ray 06.10.04 at 4:52 pm

Yes, I know there are differences between elections and horse races. I was just arguing the ‘right to complain’ idea. If you choose to participate in something, and the ‘thing’ proceeds as it is supposed to, then you have less right to complain about the result than someone who chose not to participate, knowing the potential for ‘bad’ results. (people who feel that the horse race/election was fixed, and so the nature of the event was not what they had been told, also have a right to complain)

As to the social contract – yes, I agree that there are elements of the social contract that I would like to maintain, benefits I make use of and costs I pay. I do pay taxes, and I do make use of public services. But elections present a particular contract. You are given the right to vote for your rulers, and in return your rulers have the right to rule over you. I refuse to vote because I don’t want anyone to have the right to rule over me.

This doesn’t mean I abdicate my political role. On the contrary, I’m very politically active. (Okay, less so since I had a kid) But my political activity is based on making arguments _for myself_ and (where possible) making decisions _for myself_, rather than choosing some other guy to go speak and decide _for_ me. Because whoever is elected, they will be making the decisions _they_ want to make, rather than the decisions _I_ want them to make. So I spoil my vote.

18

Max 06.10.04 at 5:10 pm

“… and I will not legitimize it by participating in the Potemkin village our leaders have set in place to allow us to remain secure in our denial.”

Without wanting this to sound like an ad hominem attack, it’s a similar argument to that used by people boycotting certain brands. Nobody in power cares if you vote or not. They’re not bothered that you’re not engaged with the political process. Whether you choose to legitimise their power or not makes no difference. But by being involved in the process you can at least influence the direction of the discourse.

19

pepi 06.10.04 at 5:40 pm

Here in the US of A not voting produced GWB. Hurrah.
Not voting sends a message. The message is “ignore me.” Whoever “they” are, they get the message.

Exactly. Higher voter turnout is not a guarantee of a better system or better politics, but I do think that when less of two thirds vote, not to mention less than _half_!, it’s not really a democratic process anymore.

ray:
I just don’t follow your reasoning about having less of a right to criticise if you do NOT participate, it defeats logic really.

Maybe we’re talking about two different ways to complain – I’m not saying that if your party loses, then you have a right to call the whole thing illegitimate. That’d be stupid. You have a right to criticise any government that gets elected, no matter who you voted for. But you never even bothered to vote, then why should you bother to complain?

Elections are “fixed” insofar as candidates are chosen by parties, but the votes themselves are not fixed. Unless it’s a partial democracy, like Russia. Or Saddam’s Iraq. (or Florida, err… only kidding!)

I refuse to vote because I don’t want anyone to have the right to rule over me.

But you do have someone ruling you anyway! that’s the whole point.

Say, taking the Euro elections, you’re an Euroskeptic, you hate Brussels, you just don’t even want to be in the Union, whatever. But those decisions have been taken already, and it’s totally defeatist to just give up even the margin of influence you and other voters have. If you’re going to have representatives in Brussels _anyway_, and you do, willing or not, then you might as well add your ballot to contribute in picking one.

Same for local and national elections. A government will be there taking decisions anyway. If more than half the country reasoned the way you do, then it’d be taken over by extremists.

I can totally understand the disenchantment and would have signed up to it years ago, but not today, with all the rise in far-right and fundamentalists of all brands, and politics getting more and more populist and dumb, it’s even more dangerous if the turnout continues to decrease. It is understandable at individual level, but becomes irresponsible on a mass level.

Before and during war in Iraq, with all the big protests in London and other cities in Europe, people were complaining that Blair/Aznar/Berlusconi were not listening to the people, complaining that democracy wasn’t working. But you don’t get to vote directly on a war – you do get to vote on who is going to take that decision next time.

I don’t think it’s a good thing if the main basis of democracy is shifted from elections to street protests and organisations outside of Parliament. Or lobbies. Or media, or anything else. Those things are part of the whole public debate but without enough people turning out to vote it’s no good.

20

pepi 06.10.04 at 5:44 pm

sorry, that should have been:

I just don’t follow your reasoning about having MORE (not less!) of a right to criticise if you do NOT participate, it defeats logic really.

Got confused by all the double negatives, eh…

21

pepi 06.10.04 at 5:55 pm

(and of course Saddam’s Iraq was not a ‘partial democracy’! what I meant was more like ‘mock democracy’, elections are held, but in a non-democratic system… obviously… erm, sorry.)

It’s no sheer coincidence that most countries that had dictatorships and military regimes usually tend to maintain a rather high voter turnout. (Spain, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Germany, Austria).

22

nick 06.10.04 at 7:38 pm

But if you’re in East Anglia, do vote for Martin Bell, who has apparently spent the grand totall of £800 on his campaign, and is campaigning against the ridiculous party list system.

I’m not convinced about the benefits of the single-person constituency, but I do believe that list-based proportional representation is just a way for hacks, toadies and cronies to schmooze their way into nice expense-tab-filled lives in Europe.

23

Jason 06.10.04 at 7:45 pm

You don’t like the system, but why not just be a single issue voter, your single issue being “change the freakin’ system!” You might be able to manage something in some local elections if you can get a few friends (or weirdo’s) to agree with you.

24

one 06.10.04 at 8:17 pm

The whole “right to complain” thing is bizzare. How is the non-act of abstaining from an election due process enough to deny one of this supposed “right,” (the origins of which are entirely unclear)?

25

e. naeher 06.10.04 at 8:28 pm

Whether you choose to legitimise their power or not makes no difference. But by being involved in the process you can at least influence the direction of the discourse.

You miss the point. I can’t influence the direction of the discourse. Not one whit, because the people we ‘elect,’ even assuming non-rigged elections (which I don’t), have zero authority over anything I have any interest in changing.

Three or so years ago in either New Hampshire or Vermont a man was elected to the state legislature who held stunningly unconventional views. (Neither ardent Googling nor my failing memory can provide me with a name — if anyone can provide more details I’d be grateful). He introduced legislation to, among other things, legalize drugs, eliminate the drinking age, and eliminate mandatory schooling. As soon as the legislature realized what had happened and who they now had in their midst he was threatened with impeachment, his personal life was completely smeared (one years-old domestic dispute call to the police was blown into a wife-beating scandal with no evidence), and in the end he was pressured into resigning. This is what happens to anyone who tries to change the system by working within it. The revolution won’t be televised, and it won’t be elected.

26

Dave 06.10.04 at 9:14 pm

I don’t understand why you still use the list system. There are perfectly good and quite simple methods of proportional representation that don’t use lists.

The one we used for our student government at the University of Illinois worked like this: You are presented with a list of candidates along with their party affiliation. If there are ten seats to fill, you vote for ten. The seats are divided up among the parties, and then the top individual vote-getters in each party are selected until that party’s seats are filled.

The downside was that voting took a few seconds longer. The upside was that you actually had a hand in electing individual candidates.

The list system seems fundamentally un-democratic to me – even moreso than the winner-take-all method we use in the U.S. – because you don’t get to choose the people you’re voting for.

27

Neosoc 06.10.04 at 9:40 pm

You’re right Dave it is undemocratic but how would Tony have managed to send his cronies to Brussels withoutit?

28

Dave 06.11.04 at 12:23 am

I had a big, long reply, but I decided to post on my own site instead of commenting.

this is the link

29

henryd 06.11.04 at 2:58 am

One of the problems at the moment is the lack of mainstream anti-Euro left wing parties. The left is dominated by Euro-idiots.

30

Matt 06.11.04 at 6:36 am

OK, OK, you have the “right” to complain no matter what. I don’t mean that people who don’t vote should be legally barred from public debate until the next time they do. What I mean is, if you DO complain, it’s very difficult for me to take you seriously on the matter.

That is to say, if Frank Q. Nihilist can’t even bother to take an hour to walk down to the polling station and choose the least repellent candidate — and there is always a hierarchy, unless you genuinely believe that Blair is on the same level as an expel-the-Jews-and-kill-the-Asians hypernationalist — then his actual commitment to social improvement via politics is vanishingly small. His central belief about politics is “Which party is in power matters so little that watching a Seinfeld rerun is a better use of my time”. Taking someone like him seriously in political arguments would be as pointless as asking an atheist whether she thinks Catholicism or Protestantism is a better way to get into heaven.

Or take another example — the unspeakable incompetence/evil that got Diebold all those contracts. If you honestly believe that people shouldn’t vote, then logically you must believe that the actual election results don’t matter, and it follows from that that you don’t care if they’re rigged. If you DO care if they’re rigged, and I suspect that you do, then ask yourself why. Could it be because you genuinely believe in democracy, and this “don’t vote, it only encourages them” thing is just a frustrated reaction to a particular point in time when none of the candidates appeals to you?

Choosing the least bad candidate can result in political change eventually — but only if enough people do it. It’s precisely the moderates, who find all the major parties unappealing, who need to be out there making the hard decisions. Just close your eyes, think of England, and choose the lesser of the evils. Please.

31

Ray 06.11.04 at 9:03 am

_Taking someone like him seriously in political arguments would be as pointless as asking an atheist whether she thinks Catholicism or Protestantism is a better way to get into heaven_

Actually, an atheist will give you a good answer to that question – neither Catholicism or protestantism is a great way of getting into heaven, because heaven doesn’t exist. Believing in either is a waste of your time.

Similarly, the anarchist is a good person to ask if you want to know whether candidate A or candidate B is most likely to represent your wishes in parliament. Neither of them will. Once a candidate is elected you have _zero_ control over what they do*. The winner will do what they think is best, and that may have absolutely nothing to do with what they promised in their election campaign. I’m sure everyone can think of examples themselves.

If your concern is not simply about “getting into heaven”, but more generally living a good life, then the atheist is at least as well qualified to answer you as the Catholic or Protestant. Unless you think that the good is that which God says is good.

Simlarly, the anarchist is as well qualified as the candidate-a-voter or candidate-b-voter to tell you how to achieve certain political goals. Unless you think that politics is something that only happens in parliament.

Governments, whatever their professed beliefs, are limited in their actions by the prevailing political moods, and by the balance of social forces. Tony Blair is not trying to expel the jews and kill all the Asians, true, but even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. (He has no problem making life impossible for asylum seekers.) George Bush was able to start a war in Iraq, not because he had the power to overrule the american people, but because the war was popular in the US.

I’m not particularly worked uyp about Diebold machines. I’ve pointed to the problems with electronic voting as a symptom of how little politicians respect democracy, but there are other issues which illustrate that problem much more clearly.

Choosing the least bad candidate doesn’t make much difference, in the end. Changing the political context in which all candidates have to operate, that makes a difference.

* to be precise, what control you may have over their actions does not spring from your actions on election day. (Unless you gave them a big bribe on election day)

32

pepi 06.11.04 at 9:39 am

ray – I’m totally with matt on this so I won’t add anything more but just a couple of questions:

If you think the whole system is wrong, what do you suggest? what political goals does your well-qualified anarchist have, and how does he put forward his suggestions on how to achieve them? and to whom?

You say “Once a candidate is elected you have zero control over what they do”, because politicians often break electoral promises. Now, even ignoring how politicians still receive pressures from the public in-between elections, especially at local level, don’t you think that having enough people to vote them out at the following elections is a way of making your statement of approval/disapproval?

Don’t think just of Prime Ministers and Presidents, but also lower down the hierarchy. All representatives at all levels.

33

pepi 06.11.04 at 10:00 am

dave – I agree with what you wrote on your website, even if I strongly prefer proportional representation to any other system.

I get the feeling maybe the ‘anarchists’ here are having a problem with the very idea that if there’s no significant amount of people (in a proportional system) or majority (in a system like the US) that supports the very same things you do, then your vote won’t have such an impact. The idea that we have to accept the results no matter what (bar any irregularities and screwups).

For instance, I can’t see how it’s bad thing that the guy e. naeher quoted was sacked, if he was taking decisions that went against his own citizens choices. No matter what my ideas on those issues may be, even if I supported total drug legalisation and abolition of mandatory schooling (and I don’t), I’d have to be rational enough to understand there’s no majority supporting those things.

That’s one instance that proves the principle of representation is applied, not screwed up. Whereas the last US elections are proof that any electoral system, no matter how it’s devised, does need a lot more than half of voters to turn out if representation is to work as effectively as possible.

34

Ray 06.11.04 at 12:24 pm

What do I suggest? A very different system, of direct democracy rather than representative democracy. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/

Or are you talking about how to achieve short-term goals, preventing a war, stopping a law from being passed, etc? As you said (and I said earlier) politicians still receive pressure from the public in between elections. Demonstrations, civil disobedience, strikes… I could go on, but you get the idea.

The alternative you suggest isn’t really an alternative. Wait four or five years until the next election, when you will have one vote that has to contain your opinions on every subject decided by government, and elect another bunch of people who you _still_ have no control over?

If you’re a citizen of the UK, for example, you can choose to vote against Blair because of the Iraq war. Fine. But that’s a little late to stop the war, isn’t it? When it came down to it, when the choice to go to war was made, voters, as voters, had no power. And what do you do if you agree with the Labour party on everything except Iraq? How will the incoming government interpret your vote? And what if another government is elected, but when a similar crisis occurs they make the same decision? What do you do then?

Voting in elections is not a means of deciding issues. It is, at best, a means of sending a message to the people that will decide the issues. If you want to send a message, don’t use a method that sends one bit of information every five years.

35

Matt 06.11.04 at 1:36 pm

“If your concern is not simply about “getting into heaven”, but more generally living a good life, then the atheist is at least as well qualified to answer you as the Catholic or Protestant. Unless you think that the good is that which God says is good.”

I don’t think that, no. It was an analogy. There’s no point in asking someone for his or her opinion on the details of Phenomenon X if he or she does not believe that Phenomenon X even exists — whether it be “heaven” or “effective representative democracy”.

36

Ray 06.11.04 at 2:43 pm

Is there a point in asking for someone’s opinion on the details of Saddam’s ongoing nuclear weapons program if he or she doesn’t believe it exists? Surely that’s a useful response?
If you have decided in advance that only those who vote have political positions that are worth discussing… well, that’s up to you. Just don’t try to draw any analogies, because the results won’t be pretty.

37

Adrian 06.11.04 at 3:44 pm

I see John Prescott has come out and said Labour has been punished for the Iraq War. You wish! No, we’re not finished punishing you yet, mate. Roll on General Election 2005, and you’ll see how long the memories of the electorate can be. You don’t lie to the population and get away with it.

38

e. naeher 06.11.04 at 4:14 pm

For instance, I can’t see how it’s bad thing that the guy e. naeher quoted was sacked, if he was taking decisions that went against his own citizens choices. No matter what my ideas on those issues may be, even if I supported total drug legalisation and abolition of mandatory schooling (and I don’t), I’d have to be rational enough to understand there’s no majority supporting those things.

You’re making my point for me. As a rational person, I know that my political ideals are wildly divergent from the norm and even from most of the better-known alternatives to the norm. This isn’t my country; it belongs to people whose idea of how a country ought to be run are completely foreign to me and which I fail to comprehend. Therefore, it’s pretty freaking useless for me to waste my time voting when the entire political system, from the politicians to the legal and judicial frameworks in which they operate down to the voters is at odds with anything I’d ever want out of the government, isn’t it?

39

Dave 06.11.04 at 5:29 pm

I strongly prefer proportional representation to any other system

I do too – for certain applications. If it were implemented in the U.S., there would be far fewer representatives from small states and rural areas. Also, most countries with proportional representation seem to still have two-party systems (the U.K. being an exceptional case with three).

I get the feeling maybe the “anarchists” here are having a problem with the very idea that if there’s no significant amount of people (in a proportional system) or majority (in a system like the US) that supports the very same things you do, then your vote won’t have such an impact.

Yes. If you only make up a small percentage of the population, no matter what your beliefs are, you will not have much of an impact. That is the essence of democracy, which relies on majority rule. Consider that most third-parties are far-left or far-right, and so in a majority vote in a legislature, end up nearly always siding with the same major party. In other words (in U.S. terms), Libertarians vote with Republicans and Greens with Democrats, because neither party is able to get legislation passed on its own. There is not much difference between that situation and what actually happens: ideological Libs and Greens just vote for and run as Republicans and Democrats.

What do I suggest? A very different system, of direct democracy rather than representative democracy.

The problem with this is that you force each person to either become an educated economist, diplomat, and political scientist (who has time to take off from work to go vote every other day), or become disenfranchised.

California, with its numerous “propositions” and recall elections, has more direct democracy than any other state in the U.S. (and probably any other large political unit anywhere). It also has some of the strangest and most unfair laws, and is considered to be one of the most politically unstable states. Direct democracy works in small towns, but not when trying to run a country.

40

pepi 06.11.04 at 5:36 pm

e. naeher: I understand your position but I still disagree. Yes, if your views are “widlly divergent from the norm”, then obviously they won’t likely become majority, at least not in the immediate, but you never know, especially in the longer run.

For instance, in countries with a Catholic tradition who had referenda or laws approving divorce and/or abortion (Spain, Italy, Ireland), the concepts of the right to have a choice on those matters was _nowhere_ near the majority only a few decades, or years, before.

Acknowledgement for gay unions would have been an inconceivable suggestion anywhere on the planet only forty years ago, now it’s already law in several countries.

Environmental concerns were nowhere near being taken so seriously before the ’70’s, now in countries like Germany or nothern European countries there are strict laws on recycling and for environmental protection and so on.

Domestic abuse was not even considered a crime in many places; children’s rights were not acknowledged at all; human rights did not even exist as such only fifty (?) years ago.

Of course if no one had bothered to make pressures on those things, they wouldn’t have become part of political issues and therefore, part of electoral and government programmes. Things you could vote on and pick your representatives accordingly.

It’s a process that happens both outside and inside of elections.

Especially if it’s a proportional system, where there’s lots more than two parties and even the “wild” ideas get a bigger foot in the door. If you’re supporting something unpopular, then it’s all the more reason to give more votes to parties or candidates supporting them – provided there are any, of course.

You can’t demand to have a majority share your views. You just need to have your views represented, even in a tiny portion.

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pepi 06.11.04 at 7:11 pm

ray – What do I suggest? A very different system, of direct democracy rather than representative democracy. http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/

Oh, I like anarchist ideas in many fields, at conceptual level, but I don’t share them as a whole, or taken literally, as a political system. It’s not realistic. I don’t even think direct democracy would be a good idea.

I didn’t mean the only impact elections have require you to wait five years to make your statement. Parties and politicians still have to take into account the public opinion. The Iraq war is not a good example of this. But then again, wars are _never_ the subject of popular vote.

And what do you do if you agree with the Labour party on everything except Iraq?

I don’t know. It’d be hard. I’d probably still vote for Labour anyway, if I’d agreed on all other issues. I wouldn’t take the war as the definining factor in choosing. Besides, I’m not too sure what exactly was the other parties position on the war. AFAIK, only the Greens were really against it all the way.

I have it easier, I’m voting in Italy, it’s Berlusconi and its nutter allies at the government, so, it’s really a no-brainer. Even regardless of Iraq, the least-repellent choice at that level is _extremely_ easy. _Anything_ would be less repellent.

It gets more difficult at the second level, as I have a choice of at least five parties on the left. From the semi-decent to the nutter kind. What sucks is that this is the very first government that lasts a whole legislature since… Mussolini really. No chance it’ll fall before the next national elections. Because there’s still another 2 years to wait for that, the local and European elections are a good test.

So maybe now you get the idea why I’m so motivated to go voting.

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pepi 06.11.04 at 7:16 pm

Look at the BBC website team having fun with the election reporting – the caption below the photo:

“Former adult entertainer Dolly Buster is used to illustrate many election stories, _like this one_”

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