The photograph shows a message I’ve stuck on our front door. My wife thinks I’m being very rude, whilst I believe the rudeness lies with those who feel entitled to knock on my front door to sell their politics or religion.
The sign has no doubt contributed to the nefarious rumour doing the rounds - no doubt put about by my friends - that I don’t vote.
This is untrue; I do vote, but I do so selectively. I voted for the Good Friday Agreement and against Brexit, so can claim that my democratic choices have been honoured at least 50% of the time.
- It will take more than glitzy Ireland’s Future meetings to achieve reunification - unionists and reconciliation, for a start - Jake O’KaneOpens in new window
- Gaffe-prone Tim Collins shows the risks of parachuting in election candidates - Jake O’KaneOpens in new window
- Divide and conquer policies have left our children loaded with debt and our planet in crisis - Jake O’KaneOpens in new window
I acknowledge, however, that I haven’t voted for some time in council, assembly or Westminster elections. Despite this, I do believe in democracy and the importance of voting and would never urge or try to influence anyone to follow my example.
I also know that my late father would not have approved, having spent his life involved in local politics. For him, the right to vote was sacrosanct, having lived through a time when, as a Catholic in Northern Ireland, that right had been denied him.
From its inception, NI was intended to be a Protestant state for a Protestant people, with electoral practices skewed in that direction.
My reasons for not voting satisfy me and I feel no need to justify them, even though I realise this causes paroxysms of fury amongst self-appointed defenders of the democratic process.
Being only a week out from the upcoming Westminster election, the mob have assembled holding laptops instead of pitch forks and anti-social media instead of torches to denounce those of us who don’t vote.
The nauseatingly predictable name-calling has officially begun. Seemingly, those of us who refuse to tick a box are a bunch of malcontents and moaning minnies mixed with a bit of perpetual grinch, all because we’ve recused ourselves from what passes for democracy in this dysfunctional little statelet.
Being a card-carrying malcontent, I admit to a deep sense of satisfaction at the irrational anger my non-voting stance elicits. I can even predict the arguments my detractors will use.
Rather than attacking the ever-growing number who feel completely detached from, and disaffected with, politics, it would be more useful to address the issues that have left people in that state
My favourite over the last decade has been: “If no-one voted, we’d have no government.” I love pointing out this was our reality for most of the last eight years, with the assembly sequentially collapsed by Sinn Féin and the DUP. Other suggestions are that I should vote for the least-worst option, to keep ‘the other side’ out, or just spoil my vote. I often say that I’d consider voting if there was a box on the ballot paper which read, ‘None of the above’.
Rather than attacking the ever-growing number who feel completely detached from, and disaffected with, politics, it would be more useful to address the issues that have left people in that state.
You don’t have to look too far for explanations, with 14 years of Tory greed, graft and cronyism and the NI Assembly only sitting for two of the past seven years. Further afield, there is a more worrying shift towards right-wing populism in countries including France and Italy, whilst in Russia, democracy no longer exists, with Putin effectively a modern-day tsar.
Political dramas are also being played out in the US, where the challenger for the presidency has been found guilty of a litany of criminal charges. And so, although I can see why some might attack me on the importance of voting, my counter-argument is that the problem we have is the paucity of people many consider worth voting for.
As a political satirist, the main reason I don’t vote is because voting would require me to choose an allegiance and pick a side – not doing so therefore enables me to comment, challenge and condemn all politicians, when necessary, on an equal basis. However, I do not say this to excuse or explain my stance as I give not one damn what anyone thinks.
Neither am I alone in not voting. Indeed, such is public disaffection with the electoral process that if we non-voters banded together - something anathematic to our natures - we’d account for a larger number than either of the main parties here. Indeed, there are now more non-voters than voters for any single party in the north.
So, rather than infantile name-calling, it may be time for a moment of humility from those who choose to vote, and rational debate as to why a growing number of their fellow citizens are choosing not to.
