Election V: The Voting Dilemma
Three more days to go and I haven’t decided if I will be voting on Sunday.
My reasons for not going are rather trivial: (1) I no longer live in the constituency wherein I’m registered. So there will have to be some travelling involved if I were to go exercise my right to vote. However, I’m living in the next constituency, so it’s not really far. (2) If I were to go vote, it will have to be before 11H at the latest. Otherwise I’m susceptible to (rather bad) headaches (that stay with me the whole day) once the sun comes out, particularly on weekends. However I just can’t see myself waking up early and travelling 30 minutes before the coffee has set in on a Sunday morning.
On the other hand, even if I did vote, I’m not sure for whom I will do so. The decision is not an easy one - at least not if you really thought about it. However, if I didn’t think too much about it, I know which way I will cast my say… Things are less clear at the national level, but at the local level it’s simpler.
First, there’s this. Secondly, there’s my experience with the constituency in which I do live. In the seven years that I’ve been here I haven’t once seen or heard from the MP or the State Assembly persons at all. Then all of a sudden in the last two weeks, we’ve received flyers inviting us once to a meeting with the local police to discuss crime issues and once to meet the local councillors. How timely!
But more importantly, I feel that the quality of life has fallen in the last five years. Crime has definitely gone up - I’ve had one petty theft and a house burglary in the last year alone. The traffic situation has become worse thanks to over-development and bad planning - but at the same time the roads around my area have not been resurfaced in seven years whereas a little-used road on the periphery has been done up at least three or four times (I wonder why?). I get more brown water from the taps now than I did in previous years. And the field in front of our house has gone completely bald and no one has bothered to replant the grass - so I get dust blowing into my living room. I could go on… but I wouldn’t.
The incumbent will not have my sympathy. But then, I’m not voting in the area I now live. However, with little else to go on, if I did go and vote, I will have to base my decision on the experience I did have. And that, unfortunately, has not been terribly positive.
But no. I have not made up my mind if I would go and vote at all. I’m still debating the relative cost of the 30 minute travelling each way and the risk of a minor migraine against the relative benefit of not changing the ultimate outcome but only affecting the relative one, which, given the current climate, in my view, is debatable to begin with…
Posted on March 18th, 2004 by jl
Filed under: My Malaysia
Same dilemma here. And to make it worse, it shares a day with an extremely important (well to me at least) education fair by Education UK.
Not to mention the constituency I registered with is bloody far. Gah.
if undecided do a spoilt vote!
ash: tu lah sapa suroh tak re-register dekat2?
I agree with my Sharizal - my dad’s always going on about not voting being a choice - i.e. making a statement. That only works in countries where voting is compulsory. In countries like ours, not voting just ends up in the same category as apathy - and therefore, has no say at all. Spoilt votes, on the other hand, intentionally done especially - will say something. At least louder than not voting. Sometimes, it’s good to be part of statistics.
spoiling your vote has the same effect on the results as not voting. I’m not about to waste my effort and risk a migraine for that. If I’m going to the ballot box, I’m voting. Not spoiling. But as I said… I’m not sure the cost benefit analysis works out in favour of getting up early on Sunday morning…
OMG! You’re going to absolutely HATE hearing this — and I heard this from a friend close to the source, so I’m pretty sure it’s true — but apparently they’re going to make the sun come out EVERY MORNING from tomorrow onwards!
I think you should vote.
I think you know why.
Reasons:
1. Many years ago, when independence was achieved, some right of representation in government was won for you and your kind.
2. This said fight for representation may not have been easily achieved. It may also have been the case that those then ’sold us out’ - I am of the opinion they did - but who is to know for certain? Maybe some compromises had to be made. (I think they still sold us out though).
3. In any case some right of representation exists now.
4. Rights and freedom are fleeting things. Like money, if you are careless, it will be taken from you.
5. Frequently rights and freedom have to be redeemed by action.
6. This action in your case should be at least voting, may be even running in elections and trying to change thing, but of course, the more you invest yourself and your effort, the more you are likely to suffer loss in some form or rather.
BUT you really ask is voting pointless…
Is voting pointless? Is the status quo likely to remain constant. Well, sociodemographically looking at the past and present, I guess one could to some extent guess what the future holds, by no means highly accurately… but… hmmm… as a crude and DEFINITELY by no means direct analogy, I guess one could look at the population demographics of Northern Ireland, how much of the electoral clout the loyalists held many years ago and how much they have now, and how much electoral power they will have in years to come, and why this is so.
I guess then it depends on how much hope you have.
And if you have little hope, why stay?
mmm…: thank you for the considered response, but I think you paint the situation in far too much black and white. While in principle, I can’t argue with the points you have raised, nor do I necessarily disagree with them, in practice I do think there’s too much hyperbole and spin on the argument. If matters in life were as clear and simple, I wouldn’t be neurotic. Instead, they are full of shades of grey and therein lies the beauty of life. And I revel in it.