doing it for the kids

I like voting. I mean I like going to vote, irrespective of what’s on offer. I like the squeaky floors and the stubby little pencils in the voting booths. I like the big pile of women’s magazines in front of the poll clerk, the size of the pile being a reliable indicator of turnout. I’m slightly mystified by the fact that every male poll clerk I’ve ever seen seems to be reading Angling Times.

I like the fact that the whole voting apparatus is comprehensive and modest at the same time. One day, everything’s normal. Wake up the next day and you discover that a huge civic initiative has been rolled out silently on municipal brothel creepers overnight. It's like getting a visit from the democracy pixies.

I used to like the old metal ballot boxes, and used especially to like the fact that they were sealed at the end of the day with molten wax. Now they seem to be made out of the same material as wheelie bins.

This is a shame, but you should still vote. More importantly, go and vote. To me, a postal vote feels like a civic obligation to reply to junk mail. There was never a crisis in the electoral system that required this change. Voting in Britain is a very easy thing to do, so much so that I think there’s a case for saying that attempts to change the way we vote are themselves evidence of the intention to commit polling fraud. Of course, they may simply reflect the managerial view of efficiency, ie that nothing is really efficient unless it involves some combination of purposeless change and expensive technology. When you go to vote, you vote against this notion.

And when you go to vote, you also get the kids who attend the primary school you vote in the day off. When you’re young, school is like death and taxes. Then you get a free day because the adults want your school for their bizarre civic rituals. I like the idea that civic life should have some institutional generosity built into it. Can there be a better citizenship lesson than that?

Of course, a gratuitous day off for primary school kids can’t be expected to please the current government. But it’s not something they can easily stop happening. So, when you go to vote, think of the mean, thwarted look in their piggy little eyes.

Comments

[Anthony]

When I was at junior school we never got a day off. The polling station was in the community centre just next door. We would arrive at school in the morning and our playground would be decorated with blog black and white signs with arrows to the "POLLING STATION" whatever such a place was, and all day strange grown ups would go wandering through the school playground.

These days of course the polling station is still at the community centre, but now they close the school just in case any of the people walking through the playground to vote are PAEDOPHILES! Burn them! Daily Mail panic, etc, etc...

[Chris Brooke]

It'd be tremendous if someone could do an opinion poll sometime, asking about attitudes to voting, etc., in order to measure apathy, and then asking at the end whether they used to get the day off school when there was an election going on, and then seeing if there's any kind of correlation.

They used my local primary school for elections all the time, we got the day off, and I'm still broadly in favour of parliamentary (and local) democracy. There may be others out there like me, too.

[Iain]

Actually, that reminds me; this is another reason for making polling day either a public holiday, or just on the weekend. All us poor parents have to find something else to do with our kids while they would normally be in schools.

I think that probably isn't quite as important as increasing turnout, but it's another useful thing.

[jamie]

Chris: I'm sure there is. Maybe it has effects on the way people vote too. I remember being very impressed with the miners at the age of nine when mum told me they'd forced Heath to hold an election. I was even more impressed when Wilson gave us another day off a few months later.

Iain: I think a public holiday might increase turnout, because at least it shows that democracy has a cost that's worth paying, namely a day's lost productivity. The current message is that voting's a kind of minor obligation that has to be squeezed in around your more important obligations to your employer.

[Alex]

Unfortunately, my local polling stations are located next to a Catholic church, in a university lecture hall, and in a brass band's rehearsal room. Or should that be fortunately? At least there's a chance it might prevent some religion from taking place.

And the first one is opposite my local pub.

[jamie]

So what's the chance of it being Alderman Harrowell by this time tomorrow, Alex?

[Alex]

Probably much less than I think. Canvass results have been encouraging, but are notoriously optimistic as most people will be nice to you.

[Phil]

"Alderman Harrowell" - there's a ballad in there (or possibly a Victorian novel)

But will they still let you be noisy and socialistic?
(Oh, Alderman Harrowell, Harrowell, oh...)

[jamie]

" "Alderman Harrowell" - there's a ballad in there"

something involving making shoeless orphans water the workers' beer, before throwing them out into the snow, I think. Sung with a hand cupped over the ear.

[Chris Williams]

Don't worry, chaps, the orphans get let back in - and plum duff is served all round - when Alderman Harrowell perishes in the mine disaster in verse seven.

[jamie]

"Alderman Harrowell, there's trouble at t'mill."

"Trouble! What trouble?"

"It's t'mill 'ands. They say they've too far to come for work"

"Nay! They've but three fields to cross."

"Aye - Huddersfield, Macclesfield and Sheffield!"

I do like that one...

[Matthew]

I read on a blog - probably this one - the world's shortest negotiation. It's in a coal mine, naturally:

"Owt?"
"Nowt!"
"Reet"

Anyway, back to Prescott. Was this diary, which apparently was almost the perfect Tabloid find, verifiably written before she was paid £100k? Who writes that sort of stuff in their diary?

[dsquared]

Alex came in fourth according to the Runnymede council website. Not bad but glancing through the history reveals that he was always on a hiding to nothing in this safer than safe Tory seat.

[dsquared]

btw I think that the three fields would be Chesterfield, Sheffield and Huddersfield as Macc is really quite a detour for such a journey.

[Andrew Duffin]

Almost the only thing I ever achieved as a Primary School Governor was getting elections held somewhere else (the village hall, in fact), so that the children didn't need to lose yet another day's schooling (along with all the teacher bunk-off, sorry training, days, any day when it looks as if it might possibly be going to snow anywhere in the UK, etc etc).

Having now seen the quality of the "education" they get at that school, I think on balance they'd learn more playing out in the woods and fields.

Before you tell me, I know they wouldn't do that anyway, they'd just play computer games.