I have the opportunity, should I choose to follow through on the relatively small amount of paperwork, to vote in two of the most important election systems in the world. This ought to give me a powerful sense of entitlement as a global democratic citizen. But in neither case do I bother. The reason in both cases is the same (1). It's the same reason that Mr. Peter MacLeod of Fareham, Hampshire didn't vote yesterday, as he explained to The Independent:
"Sir: The party leaders have been desperately exhorting us to vote, but for the first time in a general election I am declining the offer. Not because I am apathetic to politics, far from it. I value my vote and would like it to count. It might have something to do with the fact that party leaders rarely, if ever visit my constituency, minor parties do not always put up candidates and canvassers never knock on my door.When the party leaders plead for us to vote, they are not really talking to me. They are talking to the minority of people who really elect governments in this so-called democracy. They are of course the floating voters who live in marginal seats.
I however, like a majority of us, live in a safe seat. No one hunts for my vote because the result is guaranteed. At the last two elections, the winning candidate here polled more votes than the next two parties combined, at a time when Tory fortunes appeared to be in a terminal nosedive. I could vote Tory as I did in the 1980s but I would only needlessly add to the candidate's assured large majority. I could vote Lib Dem again or even Labour or Green but I would be wasting my time.
We need electoral reform to re-engage people like me who know that their vote does not materially count. A simple amalgam of PR and first-past-the-post would suffice, with half the MPs locally voted for and the remainder elected according to national voting figures."
(1) Not strictly true in the case of Pennsylvania, a presidential swing-state which in recent elections has been a major battleground. But certainly true in the specific case of Philadelphia, which in addition to being congressionally no-contest has such a dismal record of Tammany-style corruption that a democratic political culture has more or less broken down.
Posted by Alan Allport at May 6, 2005 07:29 AMAdmit that you are just too lazy to bother.
I was so excited when I got to vote in my first presidential election that I went to a scary polling place in North Philly despite the fact that my roommate got mugged on her way there.
Vote against the corruption in Philadelphia. The next election has so much potential since there is no heir apparent to Mayor Street.
Posted by: Barbara MacDonald at May 6, 2005 01:55 PMY'know, Alan, there is such a thing as getting off your duff to go campaign in a swing district.
It looks like the Harry's Place UK contingent were doing that in Bethnal Green for Oona King. Sorry she lost. I don't agree with the Harry group on everything but replacing Galloway with King sounded like a good idea.
Maybe we should have written letters from the U.S. to Bethnal Green voters, as Guardian readers did to Ohioans last fall. Wonder if the results would have been similar.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 6, 2005 02:04 PMY'know, Alan, there is such a thing as getting off your duff to go campaign in a swing district.
Not that this would have the slightest effect on the influence of my vote, which was the point of the post. Quite apart from the practical difficulties of your proposal the problem is a really a structural one. I will accept laziness as a partial explanation for my behavior, but I contend that a system that encourages me to be this lazy is a system in need of much reform.
Maybe we should have written letters from the U.S. to Bethnal Green voters, as Guardian readers did to Ohioans last fall. Wonder if the results would have been similar.
Mild hostility towards the letter-writers? Probably.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 6, 2005 02:09 PMReplacing Galloway with King sounded like a good idea.
Small point of order: Galloway was the challenger (though until last night he was also the MP for another constituency) and was seeking to replace King, not the other way round.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 6, 2005 02:13 PMOops. Galloway was the challenger? Sorry, how could he change constituencies in this way? Don't candidates for office need to live in their districts there?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 6, 2005 02:53 PMNo. All you need is £500 and the signatures of 10 voters who live in the constituency. You can even stand for more than one constituency in a single election, though you can only be returned to one seat in the unlikely event that you win both. There is much more acceptance of shopping around for seats in Britain than in the US, with its more stringent residency requirements.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 6, 2005 04:24 PMThanks...although Massachusetts was, for a few brief shining moments, "the only state with three Senators..."
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 6, 2005 04:34 PMI had the impression that Bethnal Green had a substantial Muslim population, hence the strong anti-war vote. No?
Posted by: Bobby Farouk at May 6, 2005 04:40 PMThere being however I gather several different types of anti-war votes in Britain if I'm understanding correctly.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 6, 2005 05:18 PMI was working on Polling Day for the Labour Party for my 13th successive General Election.
[It began in 1959, when I stuffed envelopes as an 11-year-old. Nationally, the Tories have won six, Labour seven since then. In the local constituencies where I was directly involved, the score has been the same.That somehow still seems hard to believe.]
What struck me this time - apart from the amicable presence in a South London polling station of people coming out to vote dressed in costumes from all over the world - was the weird ignorance betrayed by some voters.
One man asked: I don't live here, but it'll take me a long time to get home. Can I just vote here instead?
Another said: Is it just today, the voting, or is it going on tomorrow as well?
Many people confused their polling card - sent out about two weeks in advance with information on where to vote - with the actual ballot paper.
This is the first election at which I have seen not a single house locally with a Tory poster, with the sole exception of a house in Camberwell displaying a huge sign for Oliver Letwin (whose constituency is in Dorset). I asked the owners when they came to vote, and they said they had been on holiday near Lulworth, seen these huge signs in fields, and gone to the local Tory organisers to ask for one "for our farm".
So it was a post-modern joke after all.
Posted by: Tom Deveson at May 8, 2005 04:11 AMI was working on Polling Day for the Labour Party for my 13th successive General Election.
So what was it Gladstone said to you in 1882?
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 8, 2005 08:00 AMWe looked back on the Midlothian campaign with a measure of statesmanlike satisfaction, and then he advised me to chew each mouthful thirty-three times, a suggestion I haven't always followed.
Posted by: Tom Deveson at May 8, 2005 11:50 AMThat's an opening for a joke about mutual mastication that's too cheap even for me.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 8, 2005 05:20 PM