Make the vote compulsory
02:56 Sunday 9 Dec 07
Millionaires will be created under a revolutionary scheme to hand out fortunes as a reward for the simple task of casting a vote. Guardian
Dame Jane Roberts …told The Observer she believes it is time for some radical thinking to revive interest in voting. ‘We want to incentivise voting and we are keen on the carrot rather than the stick.
‘Incentivise’ .. what a stupid word. You know who’d win? Some idiot who the rest of society would judge to be just that - an idiot - and it would actually dis-incentivise everyone.
What they do need to change is the act of voting. Right now it is optional. It needs to be compulsory. Failure to vote incurs a guaranteed fine of £250. No excuses, no being let off. No vote, pay. The arguments that people can’t get time off, or can’t be in the right place at the right time are crap, they don’t wash. They are excuses. The argument that it is your democratic right to not vote has some weight but not enough - fact is if it were law your democratic right to not vote just went the same way as your democratic right to drive at 100mph on the roads.
I think it was a Conservative election that was won where by the number of votes cast they had less than half of that vote. So we had a government where less than half of the people voted and less than half of those actually voted for the winner. That is nonsense, but it happened. Politicians trade on the fact that people will not vote. Come the next election Labour will be praying for storms, the others for a sunny day. Our government will again be chosen by the weather. This is plainly stupid.
Right now the politicians can very safely ignore over half the registered voters. They really don’t care and because of all their reports and research they know just where not to care too. Why waste time travelling where people will not vote? So they appeal to a few, hope for nice/bad weather and just hope their personal gravy train does not get rocked. (Except for Dennis Skinner). This lottery crap is another way of the Establishment patting the lower classes on the head (even though you just know it would be someone connected to a silver spoon that would be given the money. I wonder if there are people in the country who do actually believe that their vote is a secret….). And yet the Members of Parliament would have us believe that they serve us. That they look after our interests, that they answer to us. If you believe this you either are an MP or you sleep with one.
Making the vote compulsory means they have to pay attention (unless like GWB you get your vote machine buddies to screw the vote and the people for you).
Imagine voting was compulsory at the next election. Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems get 20%, 15% and 10% respectively. That would mean that 55% of the voters went into that booth and ruined their paper (you would never convince the govt to have a ‘none of the above’ choice.) But by having that 55% available to any of the parties the next time around they would all have to work harder. We are all - every one of us - a vote which is more than we are right now. We all must know that parliamentary boundaries are redrawn to favour the incumbent but by making everyone vote that starts to matter less. Those figures of 20/15/10 may not be that far off but no-one in power cares because that represents everyone who would turn out anyway. It’s a short-term view that it’s bad, that fines would be terrible and that it would be undemocratic.
The carrot has it’s place but with something as important as this? Use a stick. And hey, it’s once every couple of years if we include local elections so the hardship factor isn’t so high…
(Please not that I did not add into this comparisons to emerging democracies where people will queue for days to exercise their democratic right, nor did I mention any wars and I didn’t point at any of the gentler sex and say “Emily died for you!”. Someone else can use all that - I think it’s far better we focus on making politicians actually work and keep working.)
