A load of old ballots
The Scottish Parliament
So the dust has finally settled on Alex Salmond (“for first minster”) and his dastardly maneuver to sneak votes right from under the noses of the voters themselves – those same voters who messed up all the ballot papers. In no small part, it's dust that has been hoovered up by Salmond himself: by rushing at the election fiasco press with calls for Scottish electoral autonomy, Salmond has effectively scared off many of the SNP's critics – everyone else, that is.
But there's another, equally important tussle being punched out over wasted ballot papers: namely, is “the voter” stupid or not? Of course the answer is yes, at least for the 146,000 who couldn't figure out the Scottish Parliament ballots, and a further 38,532 for whom local council choices proved too opaque.
Befitting the spectacle of a public inquiry, the Gould report on May's election troubles, naturally, extrapolates: the 200,000 unfortunates easily become “the voters,” the helpless victims to “a notable level of party self-interest evident in ministerial decision making (especially in regard to the timing and method of counts and the design of ballot papers).”
Should the wording of the report be taken at face value, this might well be tantamount to abuse. The Scotland Secretary, Douglas Alexander is surely guilty of an unforgivable failure to handhold; a vicious disregard for the laws designed to protect those most vulnerable or daft in our society. Angus Macleod in the Times (24 October) willingly conforms, lamenting the fact that “the voters lost.” Poor, wee voters. Come 27 October, however, and it appears that Macleod has given those voters back their spunk, as he credits them with putting the thumbscrews on Salmond over his electoral promises on student debt and class sizes.
It's a bit unfair to single out Angus Macleod for toying simultaneously with ideas of the thicko voter and the media's make-believe ideal, the ever-savvy man on the street. Politicians are equally guilty of holding at arm's length a handy abstraction of the electorate – an abstraction which neatly seals them off from the sticky task of admitting that voter x, on page 42 of the Gould Report who “switched off” when asked to contribute to democracy can't be lumped in with voter y who, thankfully, didn't. Far easier to paint the voter as a confused bunny than to recognise ballot paper boo-boos as an indicator of a failure to equip some members of the population with the necessary tools for democratic participation.
It's fairly pointless for politicians to talk about “the voter:” Churchill's “average voter” doesn't really exist. But the report by Ron Gould does, though, and his recommendations for sweeping electoral reform are being taken all to seriously. By treating “the voter” as a single entity Gould proposes formulating policy on the back of the minority of voters who can't work a ballot paper. These aren't the voters who ought to be directing politics.
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