Democracy has its limits but it’s so important that we vote

IF you are an Irish or British citizen, aged 18 or over and registered to vote you should turn up at your polling station and cast your vote on Saturday between 7am and 10pm. There are 3,366,382 people eligible to vote. If this column prompts one person to get out and vote, then I’ll consider it a great success.

So far only one canvasser has called to my door. I notice a neighbour has an A4 sheet of paper stuck to her hall door, advising all canvassers to stay away. It takes all types.

The lead-in time to an election can be quite educational. I learned this year that a candidate can go up for election in as many constituencies as she or he wishes. Eamon DeValera was elected unopposed in Clare East and contested the Mayo East election, which he won in 1918. Have you noticed that none of the outgoing TDs has TD after her or his name? That’s because the Dáil is dissolved. If they are not TDs are they still being paid salaries? And if they are not TDs how is it that they are eligible to use Oireachtas stationery? That seems to be a moot point at present.

And then there are the TDs’ gold-plated pensions, which don’t go down well when those same people are responsible for the so-called transitional pensions for people who have paid their fair share of taxes all their working lives.

But isn’t that the way of the world, at least it’s been how things have been since time immemorial? For instance, who suffers most in war? It is not the leaders and politicians. It’s the front line private soldiers, pregnant women, the sick and the old, the poor, the little children. Democracy as we know it, tries in some small way to create structures that allows everyone have a say in the running of affairs. Isn’t it healthier to have an assembly of elected people deciding matters rather than non-elected people, industrialists or bankers pulling all the strings. And didn’t we have the church controlling our lives for far too long.

Democracy has its limits but to quote Winston Churchill for the second week in succession: ‘At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper–no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.’ Churchill said that in the House of Commons in October, 1944.

But of course with our proportional representation multi-seat system we can give each candidate a vote in order of our choice.

We are still using pencil and paper in our elections in spite of former Fianna Fáil minister Martin Cullen spending €54 million of our money in buying electronic voting machines. Indeed, Bertie Ahern, along with Noel Dempsey supported electronic voting. Bertie famously said that we would become a ‘ laughing stock’ if we continued using a pencil and paper to record our votes.

It’s worth noting that former Socialist Party TD Kerryman Joe Higgins objected to electronic voting. He felt it could be open to hacking and manipulation. That was 2002. Joe was ahead of his time. The machines were eventually sold for scrap for €70,000.

Just a few days left. And then the count, results, smiles and tears.