If you’re one of London’s 5.8m registered voters then today is all about YOU.
Today is YOUR chance to decide who is Mayor of London and who holds him to account for the next four years.
Over the past weeks we’ve published hundreds of news articles detailing polices and thousands of words of advice on how to vote.
We never tell you WHO to vote for. That’s a decision only you can make after listening to what the candidates are promising.
But voting matters and we do ask you to spare a few minutes to cast yours.
By voting you ensure you have a say in London’s future and you earn the right to complain if the guy you didn’t want to win, wins.
Staying at home and not being part of the decision means the rest of us don’t have to listen to your complaints when things happen that you don’t like.
So voting not only gives you a voice today, it also earns you the right to cheer or complain every day until 2016.
Simon Billinton says
Alternatively, those who don’t vote perhaps do have a right to complain about those voters who revalidate the same narrow elite of candidates and the structural power dynamics of this type of politics by actively going out and voting them back in.
It is these voters who perhaps don’t have any right to complain as they are the people endorsing and perpetuating the status quo.
I will be voting today, but the idea of not voting does not equate to a non-vote. It only appears that way because there is currently no clear way of registering a non-vote for all the candidates, or the system of election or whatever it is you want to say. I personally think all election ballots should have voting options for ‘none of the above’ or ‘change the voting system’ for example.
It is absurd and restrictive to think that at an election, the only valid proclamation a voting citizen can make is to be choose from a pre determined set of candidates. Why can’t I make an alternative assertion of my wishes?
Damian Hockney says
Simon, you have a point…indeed there should be some actual way of going to the polling station and expressing ‘none of the above’ in a definite way. Spoiling the ballot paper just comes across as a little odd or cranky. The other problem about everyone dutifully voting for one of the “main” candidates is that it actually makes parties claim that they have even more legitimacy for what they are doing. Most people, by virtue of the tv bar on the so-called “minor” candidates, really are not aware of the fact that others are standing. Just ask a sample of voters. In an entirely unscientific example, I asked a few people I have dealt with recently (shops, friends of relatives etc) ‘who is standing?’ and they could only name two “and that policeman bloke and some woman or other”. Not one of a dozen people could name anyone except Ken or Boris which I thought was interesting. On the basis that no information is made available other than in a partisan form by the media, and the candidates are barred from even writing one letter to their potential constituents, you cannot expect people to be properly informed, only somewhat confused. And add to this acreage of ballot paper and you really do get the “why bother?” approach. The difference between the UK and France, where a former colleague is analysing public opinion is heroic (wrong word maybe…). There, there was 80% recognition of all 10 candidates. And of course the scrupulous media rules were part of that, allowing candidates to let themselves be known. The main parties here do not want this type of scrutiny, and the possibility that people will go out and vote for alternative candidates. So they use the structures to suppress diverse voices. And that is why the turnout will be half of that the first round of the Presidential Election in France…a choice between two very similar candidates offering very little that varies (“and that Hugh Paddick”, as someone once said to me). Oh dear, we’re all going ‘Round the Horne’.