I’m watching Michael Portillo on This Week today and he makes a really interesting point about turn-out at the election. He suggests that people tend to vote less when they think they know what the outcome is going to be. It’s only when they’re unsure about the outcome that a large proportion are motivated to go out to the ballot box. Which brings up an interesting possibility – that not voting is based on a tacit accord, that it’s a mechanism of not-voting exchange that operates on assumption of balance. Maybe it’s not a cynical move that indicates people’s disillusionment with politics – maybe instead it’s like Arthur Dent in the beginning of The Hitchhiker’s Guide (book not film) who manages to abandon his place in front of a bulldozer to go down the pub. And how? By rationalising that the foreman was resigned to a wasted day anyway and therefore his moist be-mudded presence was really no longer necessary… This has changed my perspective completely from thinking of non-voters as indolent to thinking that they’re tactical, even-handed and pragmatic. The consequence being, of course, that whenever any one party tries to get their followers out to vote, the cosmic balance makes their corresponding numbers nervy enough to go out in response. Ah. The big wheel keeps on turning. On a simple line. Day by day…
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9 replies on “A political accord of non-voters…”
There was an intriguing Economist piece a few years back (ooh, I read the Economist), which indicated that non-voters political inclinations are broadly in the same percentages as voters. Which is to say, if they all voted, it wouldn’t make much difference.
I’m unsure as to both the mechanism of how that kind of homeostatis would work, and how exactly they determined it. It smelt a bit too much like wishful thinking at the time.
I’m not sure if I caught onto this from your site or not, but have you seen Do You Count? Turns I don’t in either of the places I’d be eligable to vote…
Tom, I’d be interested to know whether you think a system of proportional representation would encourage more people to vote?
In Noozleland, we get two votes – one for the electorate candidate we prefer, and one for the party we prefer (and it’s the overall share of the party vote that determines how many seats each party holds in Parliament).
So, even if you live in an electorate which is say a traditional Labour stronghold, you could cast your party vote for another party and that vote would contribute directly to that party’s presence in the House.
UK turnout in 1997 was 71%; in 2001, 60%.
NZ turnout in 1996 was 88%; in 1999, 85%; in 2002, 77%.
So, while people might tend to vote less when they think they know what the outcome is going to be, it’s probably also true that they vote less when they think their vote won’t actually make a difference to that final outcome. In NZ, it arguably does so more than in the UK.
Any thoughts?
This is a an interesting topic. Maybe now people will look at non-voters in a different light. Is it apathy or ‘active non-participation’? Everything isn’t as cut and dry as we would like sometimes.
Frankly, I think it’s apathy – but I think it’s apathy based on an assumption that they can’t do anything about the current situation – the assumption being that if either party tried to drive out their supporters, the increasing anxiety from the other party would drive up theirs in parallel. Perhaps the most important trick for an political campaign, then, is to mobilise your own supporters without necessarily letting the other team register the groundswell. That’s probably impossible though.
And to Dave – Proportional Representation fascinates me. I don’t like the idea that it reduces the immediate representation at the local level – I don’t like that it’s harder to get a candidate that your local party likes. But then again, it does seem clear that it provides a more effective balance of opinion across a country, which I definitely approve of.
I don’t know about whether it motivates people to vote though. I guess it makes it more likely that people will vote according to their heart rather than strategically or to keep some bastard out of power. But whether that gets more people to the polling station is unclear to me. If it is true that people don’t vote unless they think their vote could have an impact, the difference between vote rates in NZ and the UK could have more to do with people’s general sense of disconnection from government and a sense of the entrenchment of UK politics than it does about the system itself. Dunno.
what do you think we can do inorder to get more people who are citizents to vote. i think getting more people to vote will make a big difference and it will help alot.so now what do you think we can do in order to get more people to vote?
what do you think we can do inorder to get more people who are citizents to vote. i think getting more people to vote will make a big difference and it will help alot.so now what do you think we can do in order to get more people to vote?
what do you think we can do inorder to get more people who are citizents to vote. i think getting more people to vote will make a big difference and it will help alot.so now what do you think we can do in order to get more people to vote?