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Votes votes votes…

As we’re all about the nuts and bolts of elections at the moment I thought I’d share some of my experiences here in Britain. There is no great deep analysis or insight, just some anecdotes that might interest you.

Although postal voting has been made more easily available in the UK (while Tony B. Liar was PM, naturally) the majority are still cast in the old way, in a polling station, ballot paper, cross in the box next to the candidate’s name, paper goes in a sealed box, the box is taken to the count and counted that night, by hand. It’s clunky, old fashioned and not easy to cheat.

I was thirteen at the time of the 1983 general election, so not exactly deeply involved. I do remember my parents coming back from the polling station though, Dad was furious. Southall, the area I grew up had an Indian/Pakistani majority (maybe 60/70% at the time). When Dad saw a little old Indian lady being actually taken into a polling booth and “helped” to vote by a young man he objected to the election agents and was told it was necessary as she didn’t speak English! Needless to say, Southall is a monumentally safe Labour place, the old dear being “helped” in her voting wasn’t going to make any difference either way. Nevertheless, it struck at Dad’s soul to see the principle of the secret ballot abused.

I’ve said the old-fashioned paper ballot/hand count is hard to defraud, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. I got involved in politics in 1987 and over the next twenty years I took part in council and parliamentary elections in my local area as well as travelling to by-elections from Northern Ireland to the New Forest. One night I was a count invigilator on a council election in the 90s. I sat opposite a council worker as she counted ballot papers. There were only three candidates in the ward in question, Labour, Conservative and Lib-Dem. At the time I worked as a printer on permanent night shift, so I was well used to watching for discrepancies at speed and doing this all through the night. Every now and then a Lib-Dem or Conservative ballot paper went on the Labour pile. The counting was being done at speed and there were usually a couple of papers on top by the time I’d reacted. Each time we tracked back and ‘Oops!’ there it was, a paper on the wrong pile. Weirdly, her mistakes always put the papers on the Labour pile. It happened maybe half a dozen times before her accuracy got miraculously better. With hindsight I should have called an official, but I doubt anything would have been done. One wonders how many local council elections, which can hang on very few votes, are swung by one or two council employees “accidentally” putting votes from other parties onto the pile of the party that supports ever higher council spending? Cynical? Yup.

Ballot papers themselves have changed since I started voting. Back in the 80s all that was on the ballot was the names of the candidates with their address below. Of course, we talk about Labour this and Conservative that, but you vote for the person, not the party. In the last few years we’ve had a fair few MPs leave the party they in when they were elected, there is no new election, they keep their seat (although they usually lose it at the next general election). The same happens with councillors. At some point (I think in the 90s) the party affiliation was added under the candidate’s name, in smaller type. Today there is also the party logo next to the candidate and party name. This has been a feature of ballot papers in many developing countries for a long time due to high levels of illiteracy. Am I being a miserable old buffer when I think that if you can’t put a cross next to the candidate you want to vote for without the help of a little picture you really shouldn’t be voting? I’m not saying you should have to be someone who quotes Lord Acton over coffee and reads Hansard for pleasure to vote, but surely you should have enough English to recognise a name on a ballot paper?

Even how a ballot paper is laid out can be hotly contested at times. It has been known for candidates to change their name by deed poll in order to be at the top, as it is arranged alphabetically. Simply being first on the list is thought to be worth a few votes. In a one-off referendum the layout and wording are especially important. Take a look at these two ballot papers from the 2014 Scottish independence and 2016 Brexit votes.

What do you notice? The Scots one only mentions Scottish independence, it does not ask if you want to leave the United Kingdom, which is what Scots independence would mean. It doesn’t even mention the UK. The Brexit paper, in stark contrast, is phrased as leaving or remaining in the EU, not the UK re-establishing independence and it mentions the EU FIVE times! If it was appropriate to phrase the Scots vote as a yes/no independence question, then the Brexit vote should have been phrased similarly or vice versa. In both cases the establishment preference is the first box, despite the fact that alphabetically it should be the other way around on both. It is pretty clear which is the preferred option of the authorities running things.

In Scotland it went even further. Most people put a cross, or a tick, but some people wrote “yes” in the Yes box or “no” in the No box. This happened quite a lot in Glasgow apparently. Can you guess how they were counted? Yup, you guessed it, writing “yes” in the Yes box counted as a Yes vote, fair enough. Writing “no” in the No box was deemed a double negative so these were thrown out! I’m delighted to say these subtle, and not so subtle, tricks weren’t enough to win either referendum but neither result has really been accepted and we’re still fighting those fights.

Now, no doubt you’re thinking “Davey, you looney Limey, both Labour and the Tories opposed Scottish independence.” They did indeed, I’m not talking about politicians, but the establishment. The whole future of the UK thing is complicated and would need a series of posts, I don’t want to get too deep into this swamp here, but briefly. The Conservatives want to preserve the Union because they actually believe in it. Labour fear the breaking up of the Union because they very rarely win a majority in England and usually rely on MPs in Wales and Scotland to form governments (to be fair there are genuine patriots in the Labour Party, but they are in a minority). Their wishes take second place to the desire of the civil service, BBC, academia etc. etc. to subsume the UK bit by bit into the EU. Breaking up the Union into regions that fit neatly into the EU has been pushed for years.

Although we still think of our elections as safe and fair, complaints of fraud in the UK have risen in recent years, usually in Labour areas that are wonderfully diverse and enriched culturally. When Conservatives are accused of electoral fraud it’s almost always about breaking election spending rules, which few understand and fewer care about.

Increasingly blatant bias in the MSM, ballot papers for the illiterate, growing fraud and shrinking trust? 21st century Britain really is progressing isn’t it?

So, the USA is not alone in its democratic doubts. Neither the USA or the UK are pure democracies, the US is a federal republic, the UK a constitutional monarchy, but in both countries democracy is not just a core element of our systems, it is part of our tradition and national self-image. Let’s make sure it survives.

10 replies on “Votes votes votes…”

I’ve always preferred pushing authority down as close to the individual as possible. Based on that, I generally support independence movements such as Scotland’s while opposing large unions like the EU.

I haven’t looked into the Scotland matter, though, so I don’t know the full story. Can you point me to a resource that will do a good job explaining it?

At the moment to support Scottish “independance” IS to support the EU. It’s one of the paradoxes of modern UK culture and politics that British and English nationalism are bad and dangerous while Scots, Welsh, Irish and Cornish nationalism are lovely, cuddly things.

William the Bastard, Edward I, Henry VIII, everyone with the surname Stuart, Cardinal Mazarin, several Louis*. Maybe I should do a basic(ish) “how we got here” on the UK, we’re a maddeningly complicated country.
What’s the plural of Louis?

Maybe follow The Stories’ song, Brother Louie:

Louie Louie Louie Lou-eee
Louie Louie Louie Lou-eye

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