I used to vote. My first participation in a general election I helped realise a dream - to get a self-described "deliberately employment-shy person" into our parliament. What had started as a joke years before had eventually snow-balled into the necessary votes to give the independent a seat.
And this guy was snarky... We used to have public financing where I live. Meaning each candidate or group (party) would have to get a certain number of validated signatures in order for them to be electable - on the ballot. Once support has been proven, each candidate is allotted some cash to create a splash, shake hands, ring doorbells, print posters and all that. This guy held voter rallies handing out luxury beer and promising things like "not headwind on the bike-paths," and "good weather all the time." He later had to stop handing out beer because he gave up drinking after realising he was an alcoholic, but he made up for it by handing out luxury candy instead.
As I said, he was eventually elected and then it got real... The established politicians called it everything from "a refreshing criticism of the lack of connectivity with the public," to "a failure of democracy and a catastrophe." The irony is, that these guys who did this as a stunt got the one seat that was going to be the swing-vote on many issues. They perfectly illustrated how dangerous "block-politics" can be in a parliamentary system. Block-politics arguably have the downside of forcing individual candidates to compromise on local loyalties in favour of party policies - touting the party line.
That was in 1994. I have since attempted to gather enthusiasm whenever there is an election but I just cannot. The whole purpose is to select and elect the best people to govern. To partake in parliament from where the government is formed. The ability to create laws and implement them gets shut down by block-politics. The responsibility is shifted higher up the chain, the relevance of what is local government is zero because there is no power there.
Without the power to create new laws and implement them, what is the point. There appears to be little emphasis on quality control... How many laws created, how many rulings based on that law, how many failed applications of the rule and so on... In stead we focus on voting records of individual politicians as a measure of how much they sell out when the party boss shakes his or her fists at the rank'n'file.
From an EU perspective - of which my country is a non-contributing member - things are even worse. In the US at least there appears to be a long tradition of states working together in a union. That is a relatively new thing in European politics and has led to something baffling.
In Europe, the European Parliament is not a parliament... In the sense that a parliament can suggest, debate, vote on and make into law. That power resides with the Commission - a ruling body of ONE Commissioner from each member state appointed by the Government of each member state.
This means that the ENTIRE European Parliament, the elections, the candidates the debates, the translators - the whole thing - is nonsensical because the resulting body does not have the power to suggest, or vote into law. They can however debate the suggestions (bills) coming down from the Commission, and BOY do they... Endlessly chiming on and on in their respective dialects as extremely well paid translators do a confuse-a-cat on them and the public...
And the silliness does not stop there no no no. Every so often, the whole thing - all 2500 members and staff are MOVED between Strasbourg in France and Brussels in Belgium (a country that recently spent 450 days WITHOUT ANY GOVERNMENT THEMSELVES DESPITE HOLDING ELECTIONS.) This periodic moving around 200 miles costs around 2-300 million dollars a year AND (naturally) results in massive tax deductions for the staff and politicians as they travel to and fro. Not surprisingly, attempts to curb the deductions have ALL failed because, well, that is the only thing members of the parliament actually have a say over - how much loot they can get.
To have a say in what laws and policies the european union implements, I have to vote for a candidate, hope he gets one of 179 seats in the Danish parliament. Once there, my candidate would then have to get into a coalition that can form a government before they in turn can appoint ONE EU-Commissar (YES that IS the correct translation, a COMMISSAR.) Then I would have to trust that this person not only reflects my regional governments views, I would have to do it in the dark because - surprise - the meetings are not open to the public and records are not subject to the same rules of openness that help ensure public oversight in local government. This practice has the arguable side effect of leaving journalists in the dark, maybe forcing them to buddy up to the politicians for information.
So I hope you can understand why I did not vote last time there was an election in my country. I have done on many occasions because I see it as the duty of all citizens in a representative democracy to make an effort to appreciate the gift of influence - whatever small it may be.
I do not vote in my country's general elections because my country has added the The European Convention on Human Rights to our constitution. The Convention is from 1950, not EU-related, and pre-dates the Union. This has the effect of allowing any citizen the right to overstep my country's supreme court rulings and seek justice outside the country's legal system - in effect an preventive tool against internal corruption of the courts. The downside is that any national laws that cover the same area become less important.
I feel confident in not voting because I do not live in a representative democracy any longer. I live in a fake democracy where the actual laws that influence my life are made, interpreted, and enforced by people that are not appointed through the process I am invited to take part in. For the reasons I gave earlier, my vote, literally, does... not... matter. I can vote for ANY candidate for the EU parliament and it will not make ANY impact on the wording of ANY law that I am supposed to comply by.
So I am inclined to agree with the George Carlin comedy routine. I do not vote because that would make me an idiot (a person who does not understand politics.)
The danger and downside of this stance is that people like me can be swept away by the show. We are easily swayed by superficial arguments, fancy slogans, shiny uniforms and lets not forget - charismatic personalities. This has, arguably, created a political alpha-male that is utterly incapable of governing but has excellent plumage - a political bird of paradise that struts his stuff to impress potential voters in a dance that ultimately ends in someone getting screwed.
Also: Richard Pryor in Brewsters Millions - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXkLs-Xesb4
