To vote or not to vote
Whether or not you agree with Russell Brand's advice to people not to vote - and I regard it as a really bad idea - one good thing to be said for it is that it has got people talking.
One of Brand's fellow comedians re-joined the Labour party in response - not sure whether the Staggers blog in the New Statesman was being ironic when they joked in response to this that Miliband appears to have the comedian's vote locked up.
Jeremy Paxman had a bit of a ding-dong with Brand over this, but later admitted that he hadn't voted himself in 2010, for which he in turn was roundly chastised by Nick Clegg.
To be fair to Paxman, he wasn't seeking to defend his own failure to vote and was actually quite self critical about it.
"I can understand that: the whole green-bench pantomime in Westminster looks a remote and self-important echo chamber. But it is all we have," he said.
On his decision not to vote, he added: "By the time the polls had closed and it was too late to take part, I was feeling really uncomfortable: the person who chooses not to vote - cannot even be bothered to write 'none of the above' on a ballot paper - disqualifies himself from passing any comment at all."
On the radio this evening someone who appears to be more familiar with the Spanish system of voting than the Brtish one was extolling the "blank vote" which enables Spanish voters to cast a "none of the above" vote by submitting a blank paper. The number of such votes is counted and recorded by the returning officer, which the chap was praising in contrast to the British system.
He appeared not to be aware that the number of spoiled papers - of all types, including blank ones and those on which the voter has written something - is counted, announced and recorded in this country too.
Students at a number of British Universities employ the system that when an "abstain" or "Re-open nominations" box gets more support than any of the candidates the election is declared void, nobody is elected, and you have another vote in which new candidates can stand. It happened a couple of times while I was doing a Master's degree at UEA.
And there is a case for that system - on balance, given the opportunity, I would support introducing it in British public elections. If we had had it during the recent Police and Crime Commissioner elections those who wanted not to elect anyone would have had a very clear opportunity to vote accordingly, and there would be no argument about whether those who stayed at home were opposed to the system or just could not be bothered. My personal opinion is that it would not have changed the result of most of the elections but what is beyond question is that anyone who did get elected would have had more legitimacy.
But while we have the existing system there is an important point about how you can make your views known far more effectively by turning up than by staying at home.
When votes are being counted, all ballot papers which have anything other than the right number of crosses in the right part of the ballot paper are put into a separate pile. Before a decision is made on whether to count those papers, each and every one of them has to be shown to the candidate, agent or a counting agent from every political party or candidate attending the count. If the voter's intention is obvious and providing the voter has not identified himself or herself, the vote will still be counted so it is actually possible to do this without spoiling your paper. But the key point I am making is that if you write something on the ballot paper, the candidates or someone close to them will see what you have written.
So if you don't want to vote for any of the candidates because you think say, that all of them are too right-wing or too left wing, because all of them support nuclear power or none of them do, because they're all too supportive of the European Union or too keen on leaving, or none of them are doing enough about a particular issue in your patch, or for any other reason which can be summarised in a few words, you can let them know. If you turn up at the polling station and write that reason on your ballot paper, all candidates who bother to turn up at the count - and the vast majority of us do - will find out why we lost your vote.
And to anyone who can't be bothered to do that I would encourage them to ask themself this question - is the problem with the system, or with you?
One of Brand's fellow comedians re-joined the Labour party in response - not sure whether the Staggers blog in the New Statesman was being ironic when they joked in response to this that Miliband appears to have the comedian's vote locked up.
Jeremy Paxman had a bit of a ding-dong with Brand over this, but later admitted that he hadn't voted himself in 2010, for which he in turn was roundly chastised by Nick Clegg.
To be fair to Paxman, he wasn't seeking to defend his own failure to vote and was actually quite self critical about it.
"I can understand that: the whole green-bench pantomime in Westminster looks a remote and self-important echo chamber. But it is all we have," he said.
On his decision not to vote, he added: "By the time the polls had closed and it was too late to take part, I was feeling really uncomfortable: the person who chooses not to vote - cannot even be bothered to write 'none of the above' on a ballot paper - disqualifies himself from passing any comment at all."
On the radio this evening someone who appears to be more familiar with the Spanish system of voting than the Brtish one was extolling the "blank vote" which enables Spanish voters to cast a "none of the above" vote by submitting a blank paper. The number of such votes is counted and recorded by the returning officer, which the chap was praising in contrast to the British system.
He appeared not to be aware that the number of spoiled papers - of all types, including blank ones and those on which the voter has written something - is counted, announced and recorded in this country too.
Students at a number of British Universities employ the system that when an "abstain" or "Re-open nominations" box gets more support than any of the candidates the election is declared void, nobody is elected, and you have another vote in which new candidates can stand. It happened a couple of times while I was doing a Master's degree at UEA.
And there is a case for that system - on balance, given the opportunity, I would support introducing it in British public elections. If we had had it during the recent Police and Crime Commissioner elections those who wanted not to elect anyone would have had a very clear opportunity to vote accordingly, and there would be no argument about whether those who stayed at home were opposed to the system or just could not be bothered. My personal opinion is that it would not have changed the result of most of the elections but what is beyond question is that anyone who did get elected would have had more legitimacy.
But while we have the existing system there is an important point about how you can make your views known far more effectively by turning up than by staying at home.
When votes are being counted, all ballot papers which have anything other than the right number of crosses in the right part of the ballot paper are put into a separate pile. Before a decision is made on whether to count those papers, each and every one of them has to be shown to the candidate, agent or a counting agent from every political party or candidate attending the count. If the voter's intention is obvious and providing the voter has not identified himself or herself, the vote will still be counted so it is actually possible to do this without spoiling your paper. But the key point I am making is that if you write something on the ballot paper, the candidates or someone close to them will see what you have written.
So if you don't want to vote for any of the candidates because you think say, that all of them are too right-wing or too left wing, because all of them support nuclear power or none of them do, because they're all too supportive of the European Union or too keen on leaving, or none of them are doing enough about a particular issue in your patch, or for any other reason which can be summarised in a few words, you can let them know. If you turn up at the polling station and write that reason on your ballot paper, all candidates who bother to turn up at the count - and the vast majority of us do - will find out why we lost your vote.
And to anyone who can't be bothered to do that I would encourage them to ask themself this question - is the problem with the system, or with you?
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