Thoughts about not voting

Russell Brand has recently advocated “not voting”. Jamie Bartlett on Democratic Audit is against this idea, arguing:

They [Peterloo Massacre, the Suffragettes, etc.] knew that voting wasn’t just about choosing the victor yourself, but creating a system where representatives knew they might be booted out the next time around, which is a powerful incentive to behave and listen.

The electorate very rarely boots out a representative. My constituency has not changed hands since the 1920s – and that is not unusual. Bluntly outside the marginals your vote does not count. Even in marginal constituencies the parties can now identify swing voters reasonably accurately – if you are not one of them they are not really interested in you.

So given the electoral system is unresponsive and the political system drives out diversity of opinion (most candidates of the main parties are decidedly “main-stream”),  there is a strong case for saying “don’t participate, it only encourages them”.

Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, so the current parties will not bring about reform to any system that is diverse and responsive. By refusing to vote we can ensure that “Christmas will come” (and the odd turkey will be slain). Then the turkeys need to think that if Christmas is inevitable, what type of Christmas do they want:

• a “white Christmas” under the current unreformed system with BNP candidates getting in due to abstentions
• an “inclusive warm Christmas of good cheer” under a reformed system with a wider range of candidates from a wider range of parties both on offer and getting in (due to purposeful wide and effective participation) and giving us a government that is representative and responsive.

My vote has never made a difference (I’m mid 50s) and I really cannot be bothered to even continue to go to the polling station, deface the BNP logo and write rude things about each party against their candidates’ names. The mischief of knowing that the returning officer and party agents (or sub-agents) will possibly see my scrawled comments wears a bit thin after almost 40 years. I am not longer prepared to continue the self-deception that I have a role in our “democracy”.

STV for MPs electing a Speaker, but not for us!

So in the by-election for a new deputy speaker there are seven candidates and according to the BBC News website (15 October 2013 Deputy Speaker: Seven Conservative MPs to contest ballot):

The election will be conducted under a system known as single transferable vote, where MPs will be able to list their preferred candidates in order of one to seven on the ballot paper.

If no candidate secures 50% plus one of the votes in the ballot, the candidate with the least votes will be eliminated and their preference votes re-distributed to other contenders. This process will continue until a winner emerges.