Voting

Jonathan Pyke (ERS): With the big political guns trained for by-election battle on the well heeled streets of Henley, numbers at the 2nd reading of the Voting age (Reduction) Bill last Friday were somewhat thin. But enough MPs were present to confirm that Voting at 16 is an issue that has gained successively more and more support since 2002. One rather terse representative of the people, in a rather peevish turn, requested that that Bill might be an opportunity to resolve the issue once and for all. All the evidence suggests that he is going to be disappointed; the government is now examining the issue, and further opportunities to fully discuss the merits of lowering the voting age, like hardy perennials, will continue to spring up.

Maturity seems to be the crux of the matter. Are 16 and 17 year olds simply mature enough to take on the giddy responsibility of voting, with all the power their ‘x’ in the box signifies? Will they instead vote en masse for the monster raving loony party? Or perhaps fail to appreciate the cost to the public of education, and place wholesale pressure on the government to bring back student grants?

However there is growing recognition that young people’s reasons for supporting a lower voting age are cogent and valid. Support for Votes at 16 is only one of a range of issues concerning young people, which largely reflect those of adults. There is a definite trend towards disengagement with formal politics, and a feeling that single-issue campaigns have a greater chance of making supporters voices heard. But these tend to be on global issues such as climate change, human rights, and trade fairness; ask any group of young people what concerns them and they will list these examples, as will many groups of older voters. Dig a little deeper and they are concerned with the cost of public transport, health, safety.

Tony Curzon Price (London, oD): I voted once before yesterday. It was as a student twenty years ago, when, in Darwin's answer to the paradox of voting, the pretty politico from Pembroke knocked on my door and walked me to the station. The paradox of voting was part of my pathology of abstention: if an election is a dead-heat, then and only then would an abstainee's vote have made a difference; given that the probability of a dead-heat is about 32 million to one in the London mayoral election, voting would only make sense if I also played the lottery. I don't gamble at those odds, so why vote? According to the paradox, voting does not make sense in exactly the same way that Kant's categorical imperative does not make sense: "ask yourself whether your behaviour would be desirable if everyone followed it" is not a precept for the pragmatist who prefers the question: "ask what people actually do, not what they would do if ..." In those 20 years Darwin had not sent any other emissaries to counter the logic against Kant.

Alexandra Runswick (London, Unlock Democracy): For me the last six months have felt like death by a thousand government consultations. Unlock Democracy has been responding to consultations on the role of the Attorney General, war powers, treaty ratification, how petitions should be used in local government, freedom of information regulations and flag flying to name but a few. But there is one that seems to have disappeared without a trace: on the right of prisoners to vote.

Jon Bright (London, OK): OurKingdom has joined forces with the new economics foundation and the de Borda institute to launch a unique, innovative trial of a consensus voting and conflict resolution method known as the modified Borda count. We are inviting participation from interested think tanks, research groups, and members of the general public to help us explore the problems and possibilities generated by this method, and to see if the count can be used to resolve the contentious issue of party funding in modern day Britain.

Peter Facey (London, Unlock Democracy): The government's review of electoral systems was published yesterday, finally fulfilling a manifesto commitment dating back to 2001. Will it move us significantly forward, possibly even fulfilling Labour's 1997 promise to let voters decide which system best suits their interests? Sadly, the answer is "no," suggesting that Gordon Brown's "new politics" agenda amounts to little more than cherry picking the reforms which he feels best suit him.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The BBC tells us that it has taken the Council of Europe to draw up a full report (opens as pdf) which confirms it is "childishly simple" to forge postal ballots here and that the UK voting system is wide open to fraud.  For a summary of the links see the Jurist. Back in April 2005 Richard Mawrey, a Birmingham judge, compared Britain to a "banana republic" when he concluded that there had been widespread fraud in six council seats won by Labour. The BBC reported at the time,

Jonathan Bryant (Brighton & Hove, Direct Democracy): Conor Burns argued recently on Conservativehome.com about the need for the Conservative Party to embrace limited reform of our First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system, primarily due to its in-built bias against the Tories. Whilst this is undoubtedly true at the current point in time, Direct Democracy believe that the real problem which urgently needs addressing is not so much to do with the regional vagaries of FPTP, but that the current electoral system - with so many safe seats and one party fiefdoms - does not produce a parliament capable and willing to hold the executive to account. We need a system that produces a genuine legislature, not cheerleaders for the current or future government. Therefore, any proposed reforms should proceed on this basis.

Jon Bright (London, OK): Hat-tip to the ever useful Direct Democracy mail for a few of these links - starting with this Conor Burns article on Conservative Home. It's an extended look at why Tories have to, on average, get more votes across the country to get the same amount of seats as Labour (Tory constituencies generally have more voters in them, and these voters tend to turn out in higher numbers). The Tory problem is, essentially, that they have a lot of wasted votes in each election - far more people in their large constituencies are turning out than are needed to win them. Burns also blames the sluggishness of the boundary commission - reviewing once every 15 years, it can't keep pace with rapid population fluctuations in inner city areas.

Jon Bright (London, OK): Interesting article here by Ordovicius on the Wardman Wire, who analyses three factors which are significant in Welsh voting patterns: a lack of concerted and systematic opinion polling, a tendency of voters to roughly divide into three geographical areas (an argument advanced by Richard Wyn Jones) and the sense that most voters feel they are voting for a 'local', or anti-establishment party. Worth a read.

Peter Emerson (Belfast, de Borda Institute): Most problems in life are multi-optional...if, that is, the question is asked correctly. Unfortunately, many politicians ask only closed, yes-or-no questions. Take, for example, the debate on Iraq in 2002. There were many possibilities: war, sanctions, inspections, and so on. On the table, however, there was only a single resolution, number 1441. This led to the crazy situation whereby France, for one, voted in favour of something it did not actually like. The outcome of that vote was therefore almost meaningless: because the question was phrased as a closed one.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): One consequence of the appalling, drawn-out spectacle of the political class getting its knickers in a collective twist as to whether an election should be snapped is that people will want them to be fixed term. It was a mistake of Brown's not to give us a date in two year's time. But without rules how can anyone disguard the opportunity of choosing one's own timing - it is just too tempting? It is also more than tempting not to vote for the lot of them, as increasing numbers are doing, especially younger citizens. At a recent Fabian conference called Democracy Day, Fiona MacTaggert MP set out the case for compulsory voting. An aghast Suzy Dean sent openDemocracy a strong attack on Fiona which you can read here. Fiona has replied with eloquence, facts and draws on her experience as an MP. Read the exchange and comment on it here. I have also done an introduction for oD's global readership, which connects the issues to the dLiberation debate on Europe as well. Do we need some constitutional rules?