Citizenship and voting.

[thorfinn]

Apropos of strepsil's post regarding being forced to join the electoral roll, I figured I'd post my opinions regarding Citizenship, what I think it means, and why, in a democracy, it's crucial for a Citizen to get out there and vote correctly, rather than spoiling their vote or not voting at all.

"Citizen" and "State" are intertwined concepts. A Citizen is a member of a State and a State is composed of the sum of and the interaction between its Citizens. They aren't separable concepts. You can't have a Citizen without a State for that Citizen to belong to and you can't have a State with no Citizens that go to make up that State. In a representative democracy, the basic concept is that Citizens are formed into groups, who then elect representatives of those groups, and those representatives are responsible for the process of government and lawmaking. Group formation, houses of parliament, the form and nature of parliament vs executive, etc, are details which vary between representative democracies. You should go find out about the details for your locality, because they matter, but they're not the key thing I'm here to talk about in this post.

The key thing is that as a Citizen of a democratic State, your chance to influence politics comes when you get to vote on something. Whether that vote is in a referendum, a local election, a regional election, a federal election, or some other time, that vote is the only chance that you get to express your view directly. There are plenty of ways to express it indirectly, for example, by writing letters to your representatives, influencing the media, etc, etc, but they are just that, indirect.

Now, let's jump back to the theoretical State entity. The point of a State is to have a particular form and methodology, and the aim of a State is, theoretically, to ensure that its Citizens are cared for as best as possible. Different States, obviously, do that differently, and strike different balances, and succeed or fail in different ways, but ultimately, that is the responsibility and purpose of the State as an entity. In a democratic state, the State is informed directly about the wishes of its Citizens by the votes of those Citizens, whenever a vote comes up.

Over to Citizens. As a Citizen, you're theoretically being looked after by the State. If you wish to express views about how that State is run, it is your responsibility to get out there and inform the State of your views. In a democracy, as already said above, but it bears repeating, the only time you get to express that view directly is when you cast a vote. That makes it crucial that you actually get out there and do so. If your genuine informed opinion is, "meh, these outcomes are all the same", then okay, spoil your vote, or don't vote. Bear in mind, though, that not voting is your active choice, and it is a choice that means that you are specifically accepting the consequences of the vote, whatever the consequences be.

In a democracy, because you can vote, it is not valid to say, "Well, I didn't vote, so Little Johnny/The Shrub isn't my fault." That's a completely bogus statement. In fact, quite the opposite is true. By not voting, you have expressly accepted the Will Of The Voters As Expressed By The Results Of The Vote, and if that is to put in Little Johnny or The Shrub (leaving aside questions of electoral fraud), then that's what you voted for by not voting. Only if you voted against, do you have even a skerrick of credibility, if the State goes and does something you don't like. You're still responsible for it, since a Citizen is always a part of the State, and thus is always partially responsible for anything the State does... But if you didn't express your will when you had the chance, then you don't even have a partial quitclaim on that responsibility.

If you think "I'm in a safe Blah Party seat, my vote doesn't count", that's utterly wrong. Even in a "safe" seat, the margins count, because they indicate to the party in question whether their political base is happy or not. Also, particularly hated politicians have lost elections in supposedly "safe" seats before, resulting in them being unable to be part of the government. You can make that happen. It happens more often in by-elections than general elections, but it has happened in both.

In Australia, because we have preferential voting, go out and vote against those you don't like, by numbering the ballot in reverse. Give your most hated party or politician the highest number available, and work downwards from most hated to least hated. A preferential voting system is designed to keep out the most hated options, rather than keep in the most liked options, so vote that way consciously.

The U.S. is different. You do not have preferential voting. A vote for someone who doesn't even have a chance is basically a wasted vote and you might as well not have voted at all. So, think carefully. If there are only two clear front runners nearing vote time, choose between those two, don't waste your vote on an also-ran. (Somebody correct me if this paragraph is wrong.) EDIT (corrections based on lederhosen and blarglefiend's comments): Thus, you have to think a bit differently. You can vote for someone who isn't already a front-runner, which means sacrificing your vote this time round. The idea with doing so is to exert a longer term influence, either by making your candidate look like a decent chance for next time or by dragging one of the front-runners in the direction of who you voted for. The other option is to vote short-term for a specific candidate, if you feel there is a difference between the front runners that matters to you more than exerting a longer term influence towards a minority runner. Or, of course, if you genuinely prefer a front runner, then vote for them.

Anyway, what all this is really saying is, "Inform yourself, get out there and actually vote." It's the only chance you get to exercise your political will directly, and if you don't use it, you cannot disavow responsibility for the results. As a Citizen of Australia, I will be exercising my political will at every chance I get, and I exhort you, if you are a Citizen of this or any other democratic State, to go out and exercise your political will at every chance you get, too.

Comments

[sly-girl.livejournal.com]

I disagree that the only way to exercise power as part of a party is to be the candidate.
For a start, you get to decide who will be the candidate. In factionalised parties (ie,
the Liberal party and the Labour party) this can make a hell of a difference to party policy,
something that is well worth exercising. In smaller parties (ie, the Greens and the Democrats)
you can influence policy simply by attending meetings and discussing it.

Remember also that political power is not all centred at a federal level. As a citizen of
the state of Australia I can make a difference locally, if I choose to do so. Even without the
vote at a local level (since I'm not a home-owner) I can influence political decisions. Hell,
getting a job in the public service means you actually have some level of control as to how
governmental policy is implemented. The lowliest clerk in the meanest apartment has some say in
exactly how they do their job.

I think you're drawing a rather fine line between what you call direct and indirect influence,
here. A vote is a tool to express your wishes. So is a letter, an affiliation with a society or
participation in a rally. Each is more or less powerful, depending on the situation. I don't
see how a vote is any more direct an approach than any of the others.

[thorfinn]

Mmm... I think we're arguing about definitions. As I said, I do agree completely that voting is not your only way of exercising political power. But political power is different and separate from the actual machinery of representative democracy. Think of it in terms of nomic. The rules of the political game start with the Constitution (although that itself is a weird and nasty hack), and flow on from there. The political process from there is about making legislation and policy, how votes are conducted and suchlike. Things like political parties and the two-party system are emergent phenomena given the rules of the political machinery and the representative voting process.

What I mean by "direct" is interacting with the rules of the political machinery at first hand. Yes, that is a rather fine line, agreed. It's orthogonal to the concept of political power and influence. As I agreed, you certainly can (and should) exert more political power and influence by doing things other than just casting a vote in an election.

We only get to interact directly with the Constitution via referenda or by being a Judge of the High Court. We don't get to interact with legislation directly (except as targets of it). That's reserved for our elected representatives and also for other Judges whose job it is to interpret and apply legislation in the courts. The only other time we get to interact directly with the political machinery is when we vote in elections, because elections are the rules machinery that result in political representation.

Again, power has nothing to do with what I'm saying. An individual vote in a federal election (unless you're in a really marginal seat) is probably a less powerful political tool than writing a letter to your representative, or joining a political party and voting to decide who the local candidate will be. It is, though, a more direct interaction with the machinery of politics, and is the only time that most of us will get to interact with that machinery directly.