Decisions are made by those who turn up
The excellent Chris Dillow makes a rare but obvious error in his argument against the BNP’s forthcoming appearance on Question Time.
Dillow claims that the BBC should not take the BNP’s recent 6.2% share of the vote at this year’s European Parliament elections as evidence of the party’s strength among voters. He quite accurately points out that nearly two-thirds of eligible electors did not vote in June, but goes on to imply that the BNP may not therefore enjoy such levels of support among the total electorate. He concludes that “if [the BBC was] serious about allocating airtime according to electoral support, then every edition of Question Time would have two panelists who were antipathetic (or apathetic) to all the parties.”
This is an argument that is frequently advanced when someone wants to challenge the legitimacy of a party’s mandate in a low turnout election. And it is always wrong. The only thing we can say for sure about those who did not vote is that they did not vote. We cannot ascribe motive to these non-voters: even to call them “abstainers” assumes a degree of deliberation that may not exist.
It is likely that voters are proportionately more supportive of at least one each of our political parties than those who do not vote, and in that sense there exists a decent chance that the BNP’s support among the total electorate may be lower than 6.2%. But it may also be that the actual electorate are a perfectly weighted sample of the eligible electorate. We cannot know.
Even if we could, it would be unwise to accommodate non-voters in the way Dillow recommends. In democracy, as in so many other areas of life, decisions are made by those who turn up. We should encourage greater participation, while always recognising that those who do not vote forego the opportunity to have a preference counted. Until such a time when completion of the ballot paper is made compulsory, including an “abstain” section, judgments about the degree of voter apathy or antipathy should be reserved to that which we know from qualitative survey evidence. And this should not inform the composition of a political panel TV programme.
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flickr
Thanks for the coverage on the Labour leadership – best available.
Thanks for those knid words.
I agree that the motives of non-voters are very varied. But why should those of us who have (I think) reasonable reasons for not supporting any party be ignored? (Greater use of referenda might accommodate us).
Also, the motives for votings for any party are also varied. Why, then, do the parties often regard such votes as a full endorsement?
PS – I was for some time a member of the Labour party, and tried to change it. I got accused of entryism, and many people like me were expelled from the party.
Hi Chris
You’re quite right; the practice of voting is the bluntest of measures of opinion, and we should not read too many motives into those who do vote. We can, however, say they chose to do a thing; we can’t say even that of a non-voter.
I don’t incidentally, suggest that people who don’t support or represent a political party should be kept of programmes like QT. But I caution against the idea that all non-voters can be deemed to be apathetic or antipathetic to the available parties.
Love the blog, btw.
Adam
I cannot argue to the fact that those that vote make the decision, before putting the “but” to that I would comment on your statement in the final paragraph; the option in a compulsory completion of a ballot paper should be “none of the candidates” instead of “abstain”. I say that purely on a desire for democratic elections in the event of “none of the candidates receiving the highest count another election should be held. Of course this is a pipe dream fraught with problems.
So back to the “but”. I believe at the present time with politicians at Westminster held in low esteem and, the present financial crisis many of the electorate have no faith in the present system and wish to make some form of demonstration to bring about change, so what better way than to register there discontent by staying away from the polling station. This could be considered a tactic to get a decision of change, I base this on the view that a very low turn out, say below 30% would have an effect of the British Parliament’s standing in Europe and the rest of the world.
I was asked to look at the structure of my local party and came up with an idea to prevent the EC (admin types, some delegates and party chairs and vice chairs) making stupid decisions because someone was absent. For example, an entire campaign can be scuppered if the campaigns officer isn’t there to stop a penny-pinching treasurer or an it-should-have-been-me senior vice chair from cutting off the funding for candidate promotion. I suggested that some positions should either have more votes or that officers be allowed to have delegates to permit a section’s voice to be heard even if whoever-it-is can’t get a babysitter on the night.
Of course it didn’t go down well. Some people rely on other people not turning up to get what they want rather than argument. It can’t happen in Parliament as voting there is nigh compulsory; imagine if the country was run according to the wishes of those who could or did show up.
Quite agree. It’s compulsory to complete your census form, so why not your ballot paper?