In my statist youth I was a firm believer in compulsory voting. “We should be like Australia,” I used to say, “and make people vote.” Of course, I would never subscribe to such a draconian policy these days, having indoctrinated myself with the works of Popper, Rand, and Murray N. Rothbard. But until swayed by the wise words of Mr Carr, I used to think it unfortunate that so many British people had become addicted to this growing habit of electoral abstention.
Some British politicians even cry the odd crocodile tear about it, on late-night political programmes. Not that it stops Tony Blair from strutting across the political landscape, like Godzilla, despite wielding only a quarter of the votes of the British electorate, from the 2001 General Election. What people in the ruling class like Mr Blair truly fear, of course, is the growing de-legitimisation of the British state, including all of its political parties, which this increase in non-voting represents. However, despite these fears, non-voting is generally becoming a rational and respectable thing to do.
At least that’s according to one of my favourite Telegraph writers, Tom Utley.
I realise that I am preaching the most dreadful heresy. I know that we are all supposed to pull pious faces and say that the vote is our most precious possession, that men and women have died for it and that to abstain in an election is a grave dereliction of a civic duty. But that has always struck me as a silly argument. If we do not honestly care which of the assorted bores, cranks and exhibitionists on a ballot paper should win an election, then why should we pretend that we do?
Now where I increasingly differ from Mr Utley, after repeatedly failing to hear Oliver Letwin’s outright condemnation of David Blunkett’s plans for a national ID card, is in his proposed solution to the crisis:
People don’t think voting matters, and it is the politicians’ job to persuade them that it does…Elections must be made to matter again. What I am really saying, I suppose, is Vote Tory.
Aside from this hesitant political plug, it’s an interesting article, especially as it’s the first time, as an admittedly irregular reader of the Telegraph, that I’ve seen the rationality of non-voting discussed with any kind of seriousness within its hallowed pages. It seems Mr Carr’s message is getting through.
Not voting is not always an expression of apathy… for me, not voting is an expression of antipathy. Don’t vote, you’ll only encourage them.
A vote for none of the above has always seemed like the sanest choice to me.
I have reached the point (with respect to Australia) where I find both political parties to be so laughably ridiculous that I cannot imagine voting for either of them, and the minor parties are even worse. This means that if find myself resident in Australia at the time of the next election, I will have to choose what to do. I can either vote; turn up at the polling booth, have my name crossed off and then leave; not turn up and then lie that I was out of the country or otherwise indisposed on polling day; pay the fine that they will impose on me for not voting; or (ultimately) get sent to jail for refusing to pay the fine. (It has been done).
For those Britons and Americans who like Prime Minister Howard due to his support of the US on the war against Iraq, I would like to point out that Mr Howard is simply a traditional big government conserative and not a libertarian in even the remotest sense. (Just to emphasise just how not a libertarian he is, might I point to his own list of his achievements. Particulary , may I point out out that he once raised the income tax rate (for one year on a one off basis, which took the top marginal rate to 48.7%) in order to fund a compulsory purchase of citizens firearms after gun laws were massively tightened.
I haven’t voted in a British election, either local or national, since 1992. But I feel a lingering sense that, if decent folk don’t get involved in politics, then as in nature, the vacumn will be filled by more and more extremists, bores, cranks and power maniacs.
What to do?
I’m with non-voting – last General Election that’s what I did, though it was the first time I’d failed to vote since I became eligible. I gave it considerable thought, but was forced to conclude that none of the main candidates was worth a vote, and this time there was no suitable independent. In ’97 I’d voted for an indie because of the Tory-instigated Firearms Act, and of course I made the most of it by telling my Tory candidate (who gets in every time, and with whom I’ve corresponded a lot) just what I’d done, and why. At first he was terribly upset, and wrote me a quite intemperate (for him) letter; later he calmed down a bit. This time, he failed to reply to my explanation of my non-vote…
It might be interesting to discover at exactly what low turnout figure the reptiles of Westminster start to get rattled. Having 84% of the Brent East electorate fail to vote Lib Dem doesn’t so far seem to have restricted Charles Kennedy’s buoyancy.
I want a “None of the Above” box on my voting slip.
Tony H – I certainly agree with ‘None of the above’ on the voting slip. I think ‘None’ would get a majority much of the time, which is why, of course, this phantom is not offered. But were it offered, and did it win, what would you then suggest? Retention of the status quo? New candidates? What? People who would like to vote but can’t stomach any of the candidates would have a reason to vote if they could put their X against ‘A pox on all their houses’. But then what? I would be interested to hear thoughts on the next step.
If we could do something viable in Britain, it might catch on in the EU.
What I’d like to see here in Norway, is the blank votes getting counted and their percentage showed alongside the other parties. And maybe even the blanks getting seats? 😀 (Seeing as the blank vote is a bit pointless as a protest if it’s not counted like the other votes are.)
No blank votes in your countries?
I feel that I do the best of both things – turn up, yet spoil my ballot paper intentionally. That’s my protest! I’ve stood up, but refused to be counted!
mike
For a long time now, I have been saying that abstaining from voting is a valid political statement. However, I have recently revised that view. Not to say that one should vote however but because in the U.K., spoiled ballots are counted. It is easy for politicians to discount non-voting as mere apathy, but were the number of spoils in an election to exceed the number of votes for any candidate, they might have to take notice. (Note that here in the U.S., no count is made of spoiled ballots).
The other tip I would give for voting is to vote your conscience. All this “voting for a third party is a wasted vote” is bullshit. So-called tactical voting subverts democracy and is largely responsible for the mess we find ourselves in.
Rich
One thought on voting reform:
I would like to see Tax Day (April 15th in the US, when your income taxes are due and payable) and Election Day be the same day. I think this would serve to focus the mind of voters wonderfully, especially if coupled with some tax reforms (no more withholding of taxes from your paycheck, so you have to actually write a check out of your own funds for all your income, Social Security, and other taxes, and all local/state taxes also due on Tax/Election Day).
Imagine the sea change in people’s attitude towards government if they actually got up, wrote a whopping big check to the government, and then went and voted. I predict that this simple procedural reform would well and truly bring about the end of the era of big government.
Due to our different systems (in the US, we have the day for our general elections fixed by statute), I am afraid it might not apply as well in Britain.
I think “none” should be on all ballots. If “none” received the largest number of votes, an office-holder could then be selected by lot and compelled to serve.
Soon it would become apparent that officials appointed by lot were far superior to the elected sort and we could get rid of politicians altogether…in my dreams.
The problem with NOTA is what to do if it wins. If this means that the incumbent keeps his or her seat until someone beats NOTA for the office, then I think we have something of a problem on our hands.
TP’s solution – office holder selected by lot – may be the best way out of this dead end, especially if we confirm that the new official’s salary will be exactly the same as what they were making in their real job.
In today’s statist world, not voting is the only principled option left. I can empathize with someone who sees voting as a form of self-defense, but voting in that manner legitimizes the corrupt culture and system that exists.
Although the state tries to make it sound as if voting is somehow essential to being a ‘good citizen’ or ‘doing your civic duty’ that is just gibberish. There is only fundamental duty – to act ethically in your everday actions. You can abstain from voting and still continue to live your everyday life on your terms, with your values, in relationships with the people important to you.
If I had felt compelled to tick the NOTA box on my voting slip I certainly wouldn’t wish subsequently to see the incumbent remaining as MP, because by definition he/she would be someone I had no time for. I suggest that if NOTA “won”, the only logical course would be for the constituency to remain unrepresented. This might (a) reduce the number of MPs (a good thing), (b) lessen the complacency of traditional party-ticket voters who found themselves unrepresented at Parliament, (c) promote greater political consciousness & involvement subsequently, (d) encourage candidates to take their potential constituents a little more seriously…
Of course I’d prefer to end the whole sorry charade, institute draft political service for all citizens meeting minimum requirements of literacy, numeracy, non-criminality, age (no-one under 25 – they think with their gonads and are inherently fascistic), slash the Civil Service and reduce their maximum service in any given department to two years, flog the Palace of Westminster and run minimal government from a few Portakabins in, say, Milton Keynes…
I, too, have written-in ‘NOTA’ (in the elections for the London Mayor), though I did it only after I was sure that the Stalinist newt-fancier was going to win, whatever I voted.
Yes, it’s a valid option – about the only way to express disgust at the political candidates appointed by the main parties. But instead of a NOTA vote resulting in either the incumbent remaining in her or his seat, or some sort of all-purpose muggins being drafted in, I would suggest that no one be appointed to serve and that the election would have to be re-run, repeatedly if need be, at the parties’ expense, until the bastards put up a candidate people did feel able to vote for.
I’m sure that the NOTA option would not win many seats. That doesn’t matter. All we need are one or two to shake the smug complacency of the political classes.
I’d like to see that imbecile Charles Kennedy or the grinning Bliar, smarm there way out of a slap in the face like that in one or two prime constituencies!
That’s a desirable outcome (for anarchists), because it will destroy the idea of government legitimacy. If only nutters vote, and the state becomes beholden to nuttery, then the people will resent and mock it, and ignore it to death.
I have a proposal for changing the rules of elections. Beside voting *for* a candidate one would also be allowed to vote *against* a candidate. The winner would be the candidate with most ‘for’ votes and least ‘against’.
This would solve our problem. We could go to vote, vote against all candidates feeling we have performed our civic duty with some sense of joy and enthusiasm.
Gee… sorry to break the spirit of this, but I always vote (in the US), and on the following principles:
1) If my vote will make no difference to the winner of a race, vote libertarian.
2) If my vote will make a difference, select the least evil choice that can win, and vote for him. This amounts, in almost every case, to voting for the Republican.
3)On non-partisan races (judges, for example), always vote against the incumbent unless I have solid information otherwise.
The one exception is that I always vote for Sheriff Joe Arpaio (no particular friend of civil rights) because he’s entertaining, he’s tough, he has the best PR machine in the world, he keeps his prisoners in a tent city in the desert, he makes them wear pink underwear, he only lets them watch Fox News and bland programming on TV, has a chain gang, has a tank (really, an APC) with a .50 cal machine gun, and he has a several thousand person citizen posse which to whom he offers full professional police firearms training, and those who go through the training carry while on volunteer duty.
Oh, and for those who say I should vote libertarian on principle… I’m not a libertarian! I just vote libertarian as the most rational protest vote (they are a whole lot closer to my world view than greens or commies or whatever).]
The other thing to do is to persuade any statist you know that it is not worth voting. Or even say that your vote will cancel his, so he shouldn’t vote and you won’t either. Do this with as many folks as you can. Then vote!
If I might play Devil’s Advocate here.
First of all, I have heard it argued by New Labour, of course, that low turnouts just show how spiffing everything is.
But I am far more concerned about the idea of legitimacy. If elections lose their legitimacy who or what gains? Liberty? Maybe, but not necessarily.
After all, I see bugger all evidence of the idea of freedom being planted firmly in the bosom of the British people. Half of them want to soak the rich and the other half want to flog poofs and “send ’em ‘ome.”
And if it is liberty that gains approval then how is it likely to manifest itself? The politicians are unlikely to loosen their grip on power without a fight and it is they after all who have at their disposal all those tanks and ground-attack aircraft.
OK, so what if the armed forces can’t be arsed to defend the government? What will they be arsed to fight for? I find it all a bit frightening.
For 300 years we Brits have avoided the horrors of a Civil War. That is Good Thing. Although I have little time for government I sort of accept that it is going to exist and if it is going to exist it might as well be stable.
The great Herbert Spencer, on the supposition that political power rests on the consent of the governed because our rulers are elected:
“But suppose he did not vote for him; and on the contrary did all in his power to get elected someone holding opposite views – what then? The reply will probably be that, by taking part in the election, he tacitly agreed to abide by the decision of the majority. And how if he did not vote at all? Why then he cannot justly complain at any tax, seeing that he made no protest at its imposition. So curiously enough it seems that he gave his consent whatever way he acted – whether he said yes, or whether he said no, or whether he remained neuter! A rather awckward doctrine this. Here stands the unfortunate citizen who is asked if he will pay money for a certain preffered advantage; and whether he employs the only means of expressing his refusal or does not employ it, we are told that he practically agrees; if only the number of others who agree is greater than the number of those who dissent. Thus we are introduced to a novel concept that A’s consent is not determined by what A say’s, but by what B may happen to say!”
So much to respond to.
First, may I express my surprise at the comments of Perry de Havilland? He has always struck me as a sensible person. I can’t believe he chose such an insensible course.
Does Perry seriously believe that politicians lay awake at night obsessing over his vote? I can assure you, they don’t.
What they have is a base of devoted followers who would be voting for them whether they (Labour) turn Britain into a province of France or (Tory) into a state of the US.
In other words, people who don’t vote encourage them. What they’re concerned about are the votes cast against them.
“None of the above” is merely another side of the same coin except that it is a reflection of a very pointless cynicism.
From the 1940s to the 1970s, conservatives in the US (which is where I’m from) were in very sorry shape as well. They had Eisenhower codifying FDR’s social welfare programs and Nixon imposing wage controls and the EPA.
Guess who supported Nixon? Some guy by the name of William F. Buckley Jr. (Perhaps some of you have heard of him?)
In other words, pragmatism is necessary in reality. Sometimes a blind dedication to principle only leads to a dead end.
The lesser of 2 evils IS the lesser of 2 evils.
The strategy should be to vote for the candidate that you disapprove of less. You should encourage them. Once they solidify their power, you should threaten them by witholding your support if they do not move in your direction.
Some of you even try to read some nobility or high purpose in this abdication of one’s responsibility. In reality, it is neither. I can assure you people, politicians love nothing other than voters who shut up and pay their taxes. In the mean time, the parties have at least a few million voters each who will go right on voting for them until the sun explodes.
I always support the most conservative candidate in the GOP during the primaries and the most electable candidate in the general elections. If it wasn’t for this level of pragmatism, the GOP will remain a pale copy of the Democrats who would’ve moved further left. Reagan would not be elected. There would be no confrontation with the USSR. There would not be a GOP Congress and welfare would not be reformed. The more than 200 federal agencies that the GOP Congress abolished would have remained…etc.
You can’t make any headway when you’re content in being taken for granted.
I often notice that some people always demand 100% and when they don’t get it, they sulk. A much better strategy is to get 60% and then go back for the rest later.
You can’t win a fight if you refuse to start one.
I suspect that some of you will soon be telling me how hopeless resistance is.
More hopeless than the time more than 20 years ago when British Airways and British Steel were all government run?
In short, get optimistic. Get involved.
Patrick,
I share much of your concern. Perhaps the abstainers like me are the ‘Devil’s Advocates’ not you.
Further, your estimations as to the obnoxious and totalitarian nature of most of the body politic echo my own observations.
There are a number of libertarians who believe that the bird of liberty will rise phoenix-like from the ashes of a political and/or social collapse but the experience of history simply does not support that thesis to any degree at all. Like you, I think it far more likely that we would witness quite the opposite result.
Despite my tetchy dismissals of the extant system I don’t want to see it collapse because, like you, I fear the likely consequences far more.
However, we cannot simply ignore the fact that, by every standard which can be measured, participation in and interest in electoral politics in this country is in freefall decline and I am just one of the many people who simply do not know what to do about it.
Having run straight to the bottom of the comments window with only a glance at all preceding, I am here to say this:
If the essence of the action comprised in voting were properly identified, it would commonly be known as conspiracy.
The whole aim of the thing is to mass the greatest number of individuals interested to violate their fellows’ rights with the imprimatur of state.
That’s all it really is.
If I came upon a gang outside your house holding a vote on whether to enter by force and take your possessions or dictate the terms and conditions of your life, no power on earth could get me to cast a ballot, not even against it. That’s because the question is closed. The wrong of the proposition simply is not open to determination by a show of hands.
The crucial thing to realize in this is that nothing about that essence is changed simply because it is scaled up to the proportions of a “polis”, and dressed with threadbare platitudes about “responsibility”, etc. It remains what it is.
I have never voted in my whole life, and I never, ever will, regardless of what the HTY’s of the world have to say about it. (Here’s a clue for that person: I am “involved”, and I don’t have to traipse over to the voting booth every couple of years for that.)
No gangs for me, nor me for any of them.
“Suppose they gave an election and nobody came?”
Stop it.
“Listen to me, children…”
“The November Stomp”
(All sounds: Billy Beck, 1991)
I’m fortunate in that my polling place still uses paper ballots. If there is nobody I care to vote for, I turn in the ballot marked in such as a way as to let my vote be heard for: “NOBODY, because I don’t like any of these idiots.”.
I didn’t used to vote at all when there wasn’t anyone I cared for. However, my non-vote could be attributed to sickness, laziness, etc.. I wanted to register my displeasure at the choices and let it be known I wasn’t lazy or sick. So now I vote in every election.
I’ve also started to take part in local issues. I don’t think it’s good to sit back and complain if you don’t try and solve the problems. It’s easy to gripe, but not so easy to find a way to get involved and make a difference.
I’m happy to say that one difference I helped to make was to keep our property taxes from increasing. Our town managers wanted to charge above the allowed %. To do this, a majority vote by the town citizens was necessary. So, I joined others in helping to defeat this. (My role was very minor. Just call people and hand out leaflets.)
I sometimes think we don’t do anything because we can’t see what we can do or else it’s that we are waiting for some perfect opportunity that will never arrive.
I always keep in mind that the perfect is the enemy of the good. If we wait for the perfect party, the perfect candidate, the perfect whatever, we can miss the imperfect that would be better than what the ‘other camp’ offers.
Pragmatism would require us to endure and support nastiness in order to fight off the vile. We’d do this in order to slowly push The System towards a better direction (or at least slow the bastard down). But this assumes those nasty people are willing to listen to the 1-2% of the electorate who want change so radical as to reduce the very necessity of that person’s position. And they’d only spare any time to listen if that sliver of votes is the electable margin for the foreseeable future!
Even assuming a long enough time line, you’ve still got to deal with overwhelming collectivism on the part of the other 97% of voters.
Is that kind of grinding, errosive, and spirit-draining battle the one we want to fight? It isn’t the only peaceful option we have (Mr. Beck has described one other such option), but is it the one with the greatest chance of success? And do you want to do something tantamount to shooting yourself (and others) in the foot rather than letting someone else shoot you (and others) in both feet?
Voting for the person closest to your beliefs may feel a safe answer, but until a wholesale demographic and philsophical change occurs in your nation (the likes of which I don’t think has ever occured anywhere on this planet), your “near-perfect” candidate is literally wasting his or her time in respect to accomplishing the real goal: getting into power in order to dissolve power. My mind won’t budge on this until several liberty-focused and non-hypocritical candidates for major office get more than 40% of the vote in open and contested elections.
Of course, I say all this after I voted for the recent Texas Constitutional amendments and I just started getting involved in my county’s (big L) Libertarian Party chapter, who firmly disavows such aforementioned doom and gloom. I’m caught in the middle between acknowledging the almost insurmountable effort needed to get change through the “normal channels” and the desire to do something more than just live my life as best as I can the way I want to in defiance of the rules put in front of me.
Cheery thoughts before my bedtime.
We need to make our NOTA votes count. We must legitimise it as a valid option, and if NOTA is what the majority vote for, then NOTA is what they get. No one “serving”, if that is not too strong a term, in that office, whether it be MP or local councillor. Practically speaking, it is outrageous and undemocratic that a minority should be able to outvote a majority. If 15% of his constituents vote for (I’m holding down the rising gorge here) Tony Blair, a few vote for other candidates, but 65% vote for NOTA, then the majority has expressed a clear preference for Not Tony Blair. People who don’t vote because “they’re all as bad as each other” would have something to vote for.
A poster above suggested a NOTA victory should force the parties to field another candidate, at their own expense, and try again, and again if necessary. This is also a good idea. Let the bastards try to please their masters, the electorate.
Mr Carr writes:
…interest in electoral politics in this country is in freefall decline and I am just one of the many people who simply do not know what to do about it.
At the appalling risk of sounding unspeakably ingratiating, and sickeningly parochial, I think you’re doing a great job right here, David, of getting the ideas of liberty “out there”. Interspersed, of course, with those “trivial” Samizdata posters! 🙂
You know I wish we could go further, and transmute the “Libertarian Alliance” into the “Libertarian Party”, but it seems there’s no great will or stomach out there for that, except in a small raving mad corner of Henley-on-Thames.
But if the Conservative Party badly lose the next election, they may collapse and split formally into a Libertarian wing and a Paternalist wing, with possibly a rump of UKIP and dissaffected Liberal Democrats joining the Libertarian wing, and the Paternalist wing joining New Labour.
My much hoped-for Libertarian party, under whatever name, may then emerge blinking into the light.
It’s all wishes, hopes, wings, and prayers, I know, but we hold the only logically sound position, the one which will generate the most wealth and the least unhappiness in the world, the most production and the least number of parasites, the most peace and the greatest level of individual freedom.
One day, in some future Renaissance, some bugger somewhere is going to try it! 🙂
But we must maintain a thread between now and then, to give them something to work with, to save them having to work it out all over again, and keep this thread going through whatever the statists throw at us.
Fortunately, they need us to feast upon, so they’ll always have to let at least some of us live, but we don’t need them. This gives us our crucial advantage. Without us, they starve. Without them, well, who cares! 🙂
One day we shall work out how to throw them off, and keep them off. Until then all we Carrites have just got to keep plugging away at it, especially our leader! 😎
In the English part of the UK,voting is irrelevant.
who ever is elected can be overuled by the welsh ,scots and northern irish politicos including messrs adams and mcguiness, and some unknown twat in brussels What is the point?
Hello to everyone
I do not think that either simply voting or abstaining to vote will change the trend.
Whether we vote or not we are still giving what Ayn Rand calls “the sanction of the victim”. It may be an active sanction actually voting for statist MP’s in hoping they will restrain their ferocious dogs, or passive not voting, protesting but still co-operating with the state.
We should be organising campaigns around, non-cooperation. The pensioners revolt against council tax rises are an example. The pensioners refuse to pay and dare New Labour to lock them up. If New Labour locks them up the public backlash will be intense highlighting the hypocricy of the “caring” politicians who lock up pensioners who dare to resist.
Neither are there many pensioners, there is probably a hard core of maybe 200 who are commited enough to take it to the bitter end, with many more supporters willing to wait and see if the government clamps down or not.
Like the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s or the Indian National Congress before it. They were not won by appealing to their enemies better nature, they were won by confronting the government head on and embarassing them through non-violent resistance.
Though as Libertarians our numbers are few, we can make a lot of trouble for the ruling class by simply refusing to sanction the coercive nature of the state. It means risking fines and prison, but no war was ever won without casualties. The alternative is to watch helplessly as liberal civilisation around us crumbles.
Our first start should be supporting and encouraging the pensioners council tax revolt and organising similar protests.