Many Britons have got an election coming up later this week, on Thursday the 5th of May to be exact. As with many local council elections there’s the possibility that it will be a contest marked by low turnout.
If we get low turnouts then we will get the sort of scummy and unrepresentative politicians that we deserve because we chose to stay at home whilst others, who may not have our personal interests or the nation’s interests at heart, get out and vote. Yes I know that in many of the seats that are being fought the choice presented to us will be dire, the same old Cons, Lib Dems, Labour and Greens who have shat on us politically for as long as many of us can remember, but we should still turn up and exercise our hard won right to choose who represents us. Even if there isn’t a Reform candidate or a solid trustworthy independent for which to cast your vote we should still drag ourselves down to the Polling Station.
Why you might ask bother to vote if we are not being given a full range of choice of candidate? Well the answer as I see it would be to spoil ones ballot, as all these ballots need to be noted and calculated and the nature of the ballot spoiling is also recorded. It’s probably morally cleaner to spoil your ballot by writing ‘they are all the bloody same’ or ‘no proper choice’ or ‘all a bunch of nine bob notes’ or whatever slogan you choose, rather than to vote for the traditional repository of protest votes the Lib Dems, as they are just as if not more slippery than the other parties. At least if you voice your opinion by spoiling your ballot you make your voice heard by the psephologists and academics who might be able to ascertain political trends by looking at spoiled ballot protests. Voting for the main parties, some of whom can’t even define what a woman is, can’t be the noticeable voice of protest that a spoiled ballot protest can be.
Now of course I’m not saying that people should deliberately spoil their ballots when there is, for them, an adequate degree of choice on the ballot paper. Ideally people should vote for a party or a candidate positively having due regard as to whether it represents your views or not, but where people are offered a choice of the same turds just with different coloured rosettes on then it’s possible that spoiling the ballot might be the only choice available to them.
I want to be able to walk into a Polling Station and see a variety of candidates each representing a different point of view, that’s how I believe that elections should work. But I will be damned if I’ll vote for a candidate as ‘least worst’ knowing that if elected he or she will shit on me just as enthusiastically as one of the other candidates less favoured.
Whatever we do we should not let the apathy party win by staying at home. If we do that then we will wake up on the 6th May to some truly appalling local politicians ruling over us.
No Local Government election in this area this year, but last time, with a choice between the party of Tweedledum and the party of Tweedledee, I voted ‘None of the above’. And I’ll continue to do so whilst I’m effectively disenfranchised. If enough of us do this, they may get the message.
That’s very much my view. Spoiled ballots need to be recorded as does the reason and the nature of the despoilation.
To add: If what I’m hearing in the political grapevine is correct there’s going to be more than a few ballot papers spoiled with the words ‘Woman = Adult Human Female’ as a protest against those politicians who are fearful of using the dictionary definition of the word ‘woman’.
A plague on all your houses is probably going to be a popular view but honestly the options for many will justify just that. No election here tomorrow but last time the choice was between a Labour candidate who doesn’t have the slightest interest in the area and a Conservative carpet bagger candidate parachuted in from 20 miles away.
Yes, I’m all for going out and voting, even if to spoil the ballot paper it counts as voting.
Voting in local elections is often low, and extremist parties can capitilise on this by promoting a few of their candidates, and if they make it to second for instance it brings in funding and support for the next time.
I’m with you on this. We should get out and vote even if there’s no one to positively vote for. Even if it to write ‘ya boo sucks’ on the ballot paper. As for extremists, I disagree. There are very few occasions when they’ve done well and even in one of the most famous cases whichis the BNP gaining seats in Barking and Dagenham this mainly came about because a lot of people were so disgusted with Labour and Labour’s failure to listen to the concerns of long time residents that a lot of people said ‘fuck it’ and voted BNP. I saw this happen when I lived there and this has also been covered by the Trade Unionist Paul Embery in his book ‘Despised’. You can find my review of Mr Embery’s book here. https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2022/02/24/book-review-despised-by-paul-embery/
As a rule however the first past the post system counteracts the low turn out issue when it comes to extremist parties. This is something that the Socialist Workers Party and similar far left groupuscules found out years ago. Revolutionary anti-democracy Marxists don’t sell that well to the electorate and they could not exploit low turnout situations to create an elected political powerbase. The SWP now doesn’t stand candidates in elections preferring instead to engage in entryism into other groups on the Left.