Voter Apathy in Haringey...

Permalink Reply by Seema Chandwani on January 12, 2012 at 1:06

I agree with all of this, in fact I am sure I was thinking it and you just stole my thoughts!!!! (and my cat!!) x

My only feedback (or question, as it is one I am battling with) is.... structurally local elections and local councillors are meant to be exactly what you have suggested as "Tottenham Futures" or "Haringey Peoples Party". After some thought over the past 12 -18 months about this, I also considered the concept of localised parties...

My personal feeling is I do not believe that local politicians should be party affliated, if you look at the structure of the Youth Council/UK Youth Parliament the youth politicians are voted based on their beliefs & manifesto, the concept of "Blue vs Red" politics is of no interest and it is organically about the candidate. This removes what I call "lazy voting" based on party affection/loyality and more on the calibre of candidate at election time. Strangely, young people have a more democratic structure than we do (although more needs to be done to encourage a wider range of young people to be involved).

However, the structure is what we have nationally and it is not something I can change. So I thought further and wondered why locally Labour has been "allowed" to disengage, the people we have to blame for that, sadly is ourselves as residents...

The Labour Party structure (and I assume all parties but I will focus on Labour) is set up from local membership, if these grassroots people are prepared to represent their communities, the Labour party locally provides that structure. Candidates are selected by votes from the local Labour membership... if you are not a member then you have no say who the party puts forward to represent you, therefore through my thought process I can either spend time creating my own structure/party (which is not easy or cheap and possibly not going to attract many votes as we are working against the tide of loyality) or I become part of the process/selection of candidates and direction of the party.

So, I concluded my journey by joining the Labour Party and have faith that if like minded people did the same we would have the local change we desire. I was shocked to find out that the Tottenham Labour Party only had just over 400 members (this was about 6 months ago)... 400? That is only 10% of those who are members of this site! The opportunity for the right people to reclaim Labour locally is there and currently Tottenham Labour is offering £15 annual joining fee. I know a few young voters (18-25) took advantage of the £1 a year rate before Xmas so again it looks like they have sussed the rules of the game and are a few steps ahead.

Just as you requested however... is the below:

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Seema Chandwani on January 12, 2012 at 22:14

If Alan had more like minded ppl in the party, then more would support him to be in the cabniet... I still believe its a numbers game & the numbers of likeminded ppl who debate here are not part of the debate where the power is decided

You found my cat yet?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John D on January 11, 2012 at 23:57

No vote is a token gesture.

Are you talking about General Elections or Council elections ?

Locally, the Lib Dems could have taken control of the Council at the last election, but inexplicably fell back. A few more LibDem votes in the marginal wards could have made a big difference.

In Parliamentary elections it might seem almost impossible to unseat the incumbent party but if they see their majority significantly decreased, they might begin to listen harder to the voters' voice and less to the party dogma.

Every vote counts.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Seema Chandwani on January 12, 2012 at 1:07

If more people voted we would have had more lib dems???? I now think I have found a reason to promote non voting x

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on January 12, 2012 at 2:08

Join the Labour party and then you will have some influence on who actually stands in Harringay/the ladder for Labour. I'm sure the LibDems are on the look out for someone to stand alongside Karen and David too. In the last local election the three Labour candidates were decided by nine members who bothered to turn up to the meeting. Chris was someone that David got chatting to on his doorstep. It's farce but there is where to do something about it.

The count for the Harringay ward in the 2010 election took much longer than any of the other wards in the borough because of all the split voting. People thought about WHO they were voting for and not necessarily which party they were in (which is not how they want us to think).

I'm not apathetic anyway.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Seema Chandwani on January 12, 2012 at 2:13

Thanks for validating my point... I assmed its the same for all party selection & it is where the power should be fought/obtained (in my opinion). You are right, its not how they want us to think

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on January 13, 2012 at 10:47

Maybe you read this article in the Independent, Seema? If not, it riffs on the anarchist slogan that: "Whoever you vote for the Government gets in". And that for some people not voting is an active choice.

And not everyone who joins a political party is active politically. In fact it's quite certain that many members of the three largest parties are intellectually dead. Not a glimmer or flicker of curiosity; or a single new idea for years and years. The parties helpfully stick "passed their sell-by" labels on lots of these people, so the public can tell. 'Lord' this and 'Baroness' that.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Seema Chandwani on January 14, 2012 at 2:42

I do agree with the fact ppl choose not to vote as their vote... My brother & sister both dont vote, despite the fact that my family are politically astute. They are both in Enfield, my Brother (the older) says he voted to get Portilo out and Twigg in, but then was disappointed with Twigg so resigned that they are all the same. My sister just isnt interested, she sees the connection between her circumstances and politics, she just doesnt see the connection between politicians and addressing her circumstances.

Strangely, as I am about to launch a London wide project called "Youth Vote London" we had a discussion about this in our project meeting (and have been for months).. is it apathy? is it a conscious decision/statement?

Thanks for the tip off about the intellectually dead... Im sure i'll fit right in

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on January 13, 2012 at 12:20

I think the implications of a society in which the majority of people do not vote are understated.

People don't vote in local Haringey councillor elections - even Haringey by-elections suffer poor average turnouts and I think it's getting worse.

The Electoral Commission claim that average national voter turnout is below half and are reported as saying that, for example, "56% of 19-24-year-olds and 55% of 17- and 18-year-olds are on the electoral register".

Around half a million 18-year-olds are registered to vote yet around 1 million 18-year-olds are registered facebookers.

Why is that?

Without a majority, there is no mandate for the candidates. They simply don't represent the people who live here.

Every elected rep therefore only represents their 'vested' interest. They gain control over us by going through the pain of submitting themselves to public scrutiny via the election process, then the further pain of party factions.

We get the representation we deserve.

It seems incredible to me that people don't identify representation as the central issue. No wonder council officials see themselves as 'custodians' of our resources, often defending the Council against that fickle minority - 'voters', with their unrepresentative plaints and 'councillors' with their vested interests.

If you had the power to grow Haringey for the 'common good' but no majority voice from the people, how would your decisions be held accountable?

Here's a response.

People can't be bothered to go to the polling station or send off a postal vote, but they will click on t'interweb. So, how about a 'Consensus Party' using 'Electronic' democracy? Not just tweeting a Haringey area forum,

but Hyperlinks in every document. Attending meetings by two-way Skype. Good quality video meetings on Youtube (better than the poor quality Council Webcasts we have now - don't get me started...). The facility to issue 'likes' and 'dislikes'. Electronic polls on everything, no matter how trivial. Maybe even loyalty points so as to build a reputation people can assess, based on your 'Klout' score:

The old idea of a 'party' is bankrupt to me - how many of us who support any one party support every single party policy 100%? Surely we all mix and match the policies we support and so I see no reason why we can't mix and match voting. If I'm not in the Green party I can still support their energy policies, even if my party doesn't.

Welcome to the network neighbourhood that HoL is helping enact here. If we were to use this excellent website more (e.g. run polls) we'd be ahead of the game, particularly if we accept that a majority isn't needed.

Maybe HoL can introduce what some other sites do - give us the ability to 'rate' posts for content, humour etc.

Even in this golden future most people won't bother, so maybe it's fair enough that those who care enough to click earn the right to decide what happens here.