Democracy in crisis
Ben Wildsmith
The upcoming presidential election in the USA comes at the end of a turbulent year for democracy.
From India to France, Germany, and the UK, elections have raised concerns about the health of the process and whether it is producing results that reflect the true will of the electorate.
The low turnout in the UK, along with a particularly distorted result from the first-past-the-post system has seen Labour achieve a majority that seems to outweigh enthusiasm for the incoming government.
In France, meanwhile, President Macron has lent credence to accusations of regal inclinations by ignoring the electorate altogether and installing Carry On Brexit’s Michel Barnier as his Prime Minister.
All of these elections have been conducted amidst fear that extremism might take hold. In the case of India, a surprise lukewarm endorsement of Narender Modhi prevented what was beginning to look like autocracy from going any further.
Benefit
In the UK, Reform UK’s systemic disadvantage is being touted as a benefit of first-past-the-post, as if leaving views unrepresented will make them go away.
Here in Wales, our adoption of a closed list version of proportional representation seems certain to damage calls for PR in the wider UK. If the exotic creatures that represent us didn’t seem detached enough, they’ll now be unveiled after the election like a particularly unsettling episode of The Masked Singer.
‘Just put a cross next to the colour you like, there’s a good voter.’
Much of life that was once under democratic control has passed into private administration. Services like Royal Mail have found themselves in direct competition with the Premier League of capitalism, scrambling to remain relevant as Amazon delivers everything to everyone yesterday.
The customer experience of people as citizens is a shambles in comparison with the efficiency they receive from corporations. As the state has been starved, the private sector is ever ready to lend its energy to government failings.
If we all became shareholders in a government run by Apple, would the sky fall? Is a gerrymandered, incompetent government too high a price to pay for nominal input into its decisions?
Most people still think so, I hope, but democracy being a thing is not a given.
US Presidential race
Both candidates in the US Presidential race are claiming that the other will bring democracy to an end.
Once people can make that threat and be taken seriously, then the conditions are already in place for the continuance of democracy to be up for debate.
The merest suggestion of it would have been taboo ten years ago, now presidential candidates are lobbing it like a brick through the Overton window.
American politics is, of course, at an extremely low ebb. The final weeks of the campaign will be marked by dire warnings of what might happen if the other side wins. The central problem is that everybody made their minds up months, if not years, ago.
Neither candidate is attempting to persuade undecided voters, because there are too few of them to be statistically relevant. Their campaigns are solely focussed on motivating supporters to go out and vote. So, with each side exclusively talking to people who already support them, there is no persuasive appeal to the nation at all.
Whoever wins will have made an enemy of half the country.
Participation
If we value democracy, we should insist on participation. Every technological means should be available to make voting as easy as possible. General elections should be public holidays with festive events and constant reminders to get your vote in. Kids should vote along with adults, their votes counting when they reach 16.
Personally, I feel voting should be compulsory. We are obliged to educate our children, pay taxes, insure our cars and a host of other intrusive, government-mandated responsibilities.
Nobody should be unheard, and if they want to spoil their ballot paper, that’s a valid democratic act. If the entire electorate were voting, then candidates would be obliged to persuade, rather than rely on a radicalised minority to prevail.
Things have a tendency of evaporating from society. You turn around twice, and all the pubs have gone, or cash machines. Democracy could go like that; people could just lose interest.
We should talk about it more.
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Replaced by bookies, vape shops and food banks…
It was about 1980 that book shops were transformed into video rental outlets then morphed into mobile phone shops thence on to tattoo parlors and nail bars…some high street…
Our press pretty much fell for the trick and ran the “don’t vote for them but don’t vote for them either”. Seemed to have worked in the UK.
Compulsory voting with “none of the above” as an option is the only way.
‘Every technological means should be available to make voting as easy as possible. General elections should be public holidays with festive events and constant reminders to get your vote in.’ I might conceivably have gone with that idea if it had been mooted half a century ago, but I’ve got doubts about implementing the ‘public holiday with festive events’ approach to a major election in today’s climate. We seem in the last decade or so to have morphed into a state of affairs in which quite a lot of voters are swayed less by a political party’s projected apparent competence… Read more »
Campaigning is forbidden on election day. Celebrating democracy itself is worthwhile in my opinion.
That being the case, running any sort of ‘hoorah’ event on the day of the day of the poll would presumably risk breaking the law?
Nothing to do with campaigning, so no.
A while back my bank questioned my use of cash and instructed me to download an app and bank online. When I told them that I didn’t own a mobile phone I was ridiculed by staff; something about which I later complained. Customer service is dead. Democracy will undoubtedly go the same way. I was talking recently with a 19 year old who told me that she was the only one of her group of friends who voted in this year’s UK General Election. She said that the others thought that politics and politicians are totally irrelevant to their lives.… Read more »
Trump should have been disqualified after January 6th.
Yes, ‘Storming of the Reichstag’ – that was Angela Merkel’s words.
Not sure if we have ever had real democracy in this country Ben, sure there has been a nod in that direction but the same people are still running the show that were two hundred or more years ago.
If we look at the countries that have compulsory voting, they have higher turnout – and that’s all. In every other respect, politics there is much the same as it is elsewhere. Politics isn’t noticeably more intelligent, responsive or inclusive in Australia or Belgium, which have compulsory voting, than in New Zealand or the Netherlands, which don’t. Compulsory voting is a cosmetic fix that would improve the turnout figures – hence boosting the self-esteem of politicians – while doing nothing to address the reasons why so many people are now thoroughly browned off with just about everything. But that’s how… Read more »
I don’t think it’s entirely true that compulsory voting is only cosmetic. One example of a positive consequence of compulsory voting is that it averts the danger of having an election outcome distorted by voter turnout. E.g. one group of voters likely to vote a particular way might think their vote won’t make any difference, and so they don’t bother to vote, whereas a more motivated minority, whose views don’t reflect the general will and values of a populace, can then appear to have more weight and legitimacy then they do in reality.
That would surely be solved by elections using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) where you vote 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice and so on until ‘Reopen nominations’ option is selected (RON).
This STV system is being denied to you by Tory and Labour bureaucrats who think they know better and that is why people are turned off voting.
The voter turnout at elections surely be solved by holding elections using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) where you vote 1st, 2nd and 3rd choice and so on until ‘Reopen nominations’ option is selected (RON) giving you more purpose and ensuring your option is more likely to count. This adoption of the STV system is being denied to you by Tory and Labour bureaucrats who think they know better and that is why people are turned off voting. Those same Labour and Tory conspired to present the ‘closed party list’ system carefully introduced alongside with improvements to the Senedd and… Read more »