sweet effay

... and I'll be voting. Not because I have any faith in the system or any of the parties, but because I've never seen a decent argument for not voting. Yes, everything that Infinite Thought says is true, but none of it constitutes a reason for not turning up and, at least, ruining your ballot paper.

K-Punk goes with the old don't vote, don't encourage them line, but the point is that these people need no encouragement. If three people voted, and any party had two of the votes, they would happily claim a mandate. This would be more difficult if there were more spoiled papers than proper votes...

Both IT and K-P claim that there is 'an argument for urgent reform of the electoral system'. If you really believe that, shouldn't you be voting for the parties that argue urgent reform of the electoral system, or am I missing something here?

It is possible to live in a constituency, where there is somebody who actually deserves your vote in that they do a lot of good locally even if their party is run by sycophants with their hands down the y-fronts of Big Business (although personally, if they were a Tory, I still wouldn't vote for them). However, the main reason that I always turn out is that I have a gut feeling that these people don't want me to: The people the main parties are desperate to drag down to the polling station are the party faithful who would always vote for them so long as they could be dragged off their couches, but who don't turn out because they think that there is no point. Politicians dread people who actually think about what they are doing and still turn out.

Voting is not such a big deal, but it's not such a big effort either. It probably won't do any good, but it can't do any harm to try and keep the worst of these bastards out of office wherever possible.