I really don’t get that. If there’s no candidate that you want to vote for on the ballot, just don’t bother going to the polls. Don’t waste your own time, and the time of the hard-working tellers at the count centres, who have to sort your bit of useless paper from the ones that do make a difference.
You might say you’re exercising your democratic right to protest that there’s nobody on the ballot who reflects your views. But have you thought that you’re just being cranky? That you’re throwing your toys out of the playpen because you’re in a sulk?
OK, so you don’t have Maria Steen, or Gareth Sheridan on the ballot, or any of the others who didn’t make it through the nomination process. Or you might vote for Jim Gavin, whose name IS there, even though you know he backed out of the race after stumbling at the second debate fence. And you know that’s another wasted effort.
The vote that we all enjoy today is a democratic one. It was hard fought for. It’s valuable because everyone has it. That wasn’t always the case. A vote in Ireland was based on religion, with Catholics disenfranchised, until 1793. Then it was only on the basis of property ownership until 1918. With the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922, the franchise was opened to all men and women citizens of the state, and it’s now 53 years since the voting age here was lowered to 18.
Sometimes I think we don’t appreciate it. Turnout in the 2018 presidential election was less than 44 per cent, the lowest ever. Unlike, for example, Australia, voting here is not mandatory. What we have easy in our generation maybe we don’t value.
Use it or lose it, isn’t that what they say about life and skills? If we don’t use our vote, we could lose our democracy. If that sounds extreme, look at what’s happening across the Atlantic. In just half a year since the present incumbent of the USA’s highest office took up residence, what has been the flagship of modern democracy is being steered directly towards the rocks of autocracy. The really scary part is how easily the instruments of state — justice, law enforcement and defence — can be turned on a country’s own citizens. All made possible on a winner’s margin of less than 1 percent of the eligible turnout. More than a third of those eligible to vote in that election didn’t do so. And there’s a strong push from the current administration to make it more difficult for those groups who might oppose them to be able to vote next time around.
It couldn’t happen here. Could it? Well, have a think about it if you’re one of those considering the deliberate spoiling of your vote next week. What we take for granted in this safe, mostly comfortable, and in many other ways fortunate country of ours, may be much more fragile than you think.
