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First up on any political post has to be a disclaimer to the effect that not only do I support no party but I'm not hugely in favour of various aspects of the current system. My voting should not be taken as a tacit approval of *anything* about politics including its very existence.
Which leads me neatly onto my first point; there really ought to be some way of indicating that one abstains / wishes to re-open nominations / wouldnae touch any o' thae buggers wi' somebody else's ten foot barge-pole / however else you wish to put it with a greater or lesser number of expletives according to taste. Such a facility would be my preferred option since it would be rather more democratic than such make-do solutions as spoiling ballots or protest voting.
And from there we reach my second point - the large number of spoiled ballots. Quite an amount of media coverage is being devoted to how this is the fault of the new electronic counting system or a result of holding two elections with two different ballot papers* on the same day. Now, I must admit I hold a low opinion of the literacy and intelligence of the general public. Highlights of my experience with them** include regular conversations with people (native English speakers all) who didn't know what I meant by outlandish words and concepts such as zero / nothing / nought, what I meant by hundred or thousand, people who knew absolutely literally nothing about the world outside a part of their own town and people who had lost thousands of pounds on bogus workmen, 419 scams and fake lotteries. Bearing these wonderful experiences in mind I am in no doubt that the problem with spoiled ballots can be put down to user error caused by user stupidity and nothing but (except possibly a healthy dose of ill-education. And that old nature / nurture debate is for another day).***
The moral for the day is never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.
*For context, last night saw both local council elections in Scotland and also elections to the Scottish Executive. The latter features both first past the post constituency members as per normal and a limited proportional representation regional list system; for both one marks one cross against your single choice of candidate. As of last night the local council elections are now on single transferable vote with your chosen candidate(s) to be marked by number(s) in order of preference. Many of you will already know all of this but for anyone else the Wiki page on Scottish Elections isn't bad).
**I can recommend working on a public service to anyone. Anyone I don't like that is. The most representative of my experiences was working on directory enquiries; as T.E.P. said at the time, you don't know what stupid *is* until you've worked (effectively) tech support on something as basic as the phone book.
***This is somewhat borne out by looking at the number of spoiled ballots considered against low turnouts, assuming that voter apathy and voter incompetence are going to be somewhat related. That's yet another essay, though.
Which leads me neatly onto my first point; there really ought to be some way of indicating that one abstains / wishes to re-open nominations / wouldnae touch any o' thae buggers wi' somebody else's ten foot barge-pole / however else you wish to put it with a greater or lesser number of expletives according to taste. Such a facility would be my preferred option since it would be rather more democratic than such make-do solutions as spoiling ballots or protest voting.
And from there we reach my second point - the large number of spoiled ballots. Quite an amount of media coverage is being devoted to how this is the fault of the new electronic counting system or a result of holding two elections with two different ballot papers* on the same day. Now, I must admit I hold a low opinion of the literacy and intelligence of the general public. Highlights of my experience with them** include regular conversations with people (native English speakers all) who didn't know what I meant by outlandish words and concepts such as zero / nothing / nought, what I meant by hundred or thousand, people who knew absolutely literally nothing about the world outside a part of their own town and people who had lost thousands of pounds on bogus workmen, 419 scams and fake lotteries. Bearing these wonderful experiences in mind I am in no doubt that the problem with spoiled ballots can be put down to user error caused by user stupidity and nothing but (except possibly a healthy dose of ill-education. And that old nature / nurture debate is for another day).***
The moral for the day is never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.
*For context, last night saw both local council elections in Scotland and also elections to the Scottish Executive. The latter features both first past the post constituency members as per normal and a limited proportional representation regional list system; for both one marks one cross against your single choice of candidate. As of last night the local council elections are now on single transferable vote with your chosen candidate(s) to be marked by number(s) in order of preference. Many of you will already know all of this but for anyone else the Wiki page on Scottish Elections isn't bad).
**I can recommend working on a public service to anyone. Anyone I don't like that is. The most representative of my experiences was working on directory enquiries; as T.E.P. said at the time, you don't know what stupid *is* until you've worked (effectively) tech support on something as basic as the phone book.
***This is somewhat borne out by looking at the number of spoiled ballots considered against low turnouts, assuming that voter apathy and voter incompetence are going to be somewhat related. That's yet another essay, though.
