A Comment on LFAT: To vote or not to vote…

A comment I’ve made on LFAT on a thread about Labour hypocrisy… It’s off topic but I’m not a well man!

I am, at the age of 36, for the first time in my life, considering deliberately not voting.

Why?

Well, as Ghandi showed, there’s a certain something to the idea of withdrawing your consent to your own oppression.

Oppression? You ask? That’s a bit strong…

Well, no, it’s not. Our ‘democracy’ is like a rigged card game. You can play it as earnestly or as cunningly as you like, but it’s still rigged. Face facts – if 70% of the electorate turnout and a government is returned on 40% of the vote, that’s still only 30-odd percent of the people that support it, which is minority rule of the divide-and-conquer variety. Even if you support the eventual winner, you can’t claim to have ‘the people’ behind you. You’re just less *unpopular* than the rest in that slightly fewer people dislike you than others.

What a great, democratic, institution!

So what is making me think seriously about not voting?

Well, the situation described above will not change until the turnout drops to below 50 percent. Why? Because at that point it becomes a headline and will enter the minds of most people. Until then it just concerns those few people like me interested in both politics AND fairness, not merely team advantage. At that time, it will become obvious that the situation is ridiculous – a government will claim a democratic mandate on an effective 20% (1 in 5) of the electorate (40% of a 50% turnout). Then we can effectively have reform of our system. Then we can reconnect our politics with our people, whatever that will mean.