Lucky me; I have the right to vote in elections in two countries this month. Actually, I have the right to vote in one and am forced to vote in another because Australia is a banana republic.
The first postal voting form is for the EU Referendum in the UK. Obviously I have selected the option for which many of my ancestors fought and died in various conflicts throughout the centuries; that of self-determination and the rights of the individual over arbitrary and unrepresentative rule.
If you are reading this and are able to vote in the referendum, before casting your vote remind yourself of Tony Benn’s questions to those in power and apply these to the 27 unelected officials in charge of the EU along with the (also unelected) Jean-Claude Juncker.
1.What Power Have You Got?
2.Where Did You Get It From?
3.In Whose Interests Do You Exercise It?
4.To Whom Are You Accountable?
5.How Can We Get Rid Of You?
The referendum isn’t about immigration, it isn’t about the economy, it isn’t about preventing the next world war; it’s about Magna Carta and Common Law. If you enjoy complying to laws set by people you’ve never heard of and have no influence over, even at election time, then vote remain.
I choose freedom;
Also this month, I am obliged to return voting forms for the Australian Federal elections.
Here are the two forms;
It’s worth reminding ourselves of the Athenian etymology of the noun which describes this; democracy is from “demos” – of the people and “kratos” – rule/power.
There’s over 150 names on this form. When we say “of the people”, do we mean the voters or the candidates? This is a serious question to my fellow Australians; is this the real voting form or is it some sort of bizarre social experiment or a hoax?
I have to choose a combination of 6 or 12 depending on whether I vote “above the line” or not. If I go with the simple option of selecting a combination of 6 names from the top 41 (giving almost 5 million combinations, by the way), I have tacitly agreed to an arrangement known as preferencing. This is where the candidate for one party agrees to divert his secondary votes to the candidate from another party or something along those lines. To be honest, I’ve not bothered looking into how it works because it’s clearly undemocratic and corrupt and my life is too short to spend vast swathes of time understanding the myriad methods of corruption of Australian politicians.
So, if I don’t want to delegate my choices to someone on the first list, I have to choose 12 names from the second list. Let’s say that list has 150 names (I’ve not counted them all), the total discrete combinations of 12 from 150 is a number with 17 digits following it. i.e. just slightly fewer than all the atoms combined in planet Earth.
What an absolute joke.
Well, two can play at taking the piss. I’m not going lend my voice to provide a so-called mandate in a system designed almost perfectly to not reflect my views and opinions.
Have your comedy voting forms back and put whoever you decide in power but don’t pretend that you have anybody’s approval.