Election candidates (of all political hues) have two main tasks in order to be successful. Firstly, they need to persuade voters that they are the best candidate. Secondly, they need to persuade voters who are already inclined to support them that it is worth making the trip down to the polling station in order to vote for them. Of course in reality it’s a lot more complicated than that, but if you boil it right down those two tasks are what you tend to be left with.
Now as part of this process, there are also a whole series of electoral laws and offences to keep candidates in check. You can find a list of them here. I’d like to focus on two of them - bribery and treating:
Bribery - A person is guilty of bribery if they directly or indirectly give any money or procure any office to or for any voter, in order to induce any voter to vote, or not vote, for a particular candidate; or to vote or refrain from voting.6 (Corrupt practice: offence may be tried summarily or on indictment. One year on indictment).
Treating - A person is guilty of treating if either before, during or after an election they directly or indirectly give or provide (or pay wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing) any food, drink, entertainment or provision in order to influence any voter to vote or refrain from voting.7 (Corrupt practice: offence may be tried summarily or on indictment. One year on indictment).
Note that the above laws cover both of the scenarios I commented on at the start of this post. Bribing or treating an elector is a corrupt practice regardless of whether a candidate or Party is trying to change the way in which someone is trying to vote, or simply trying to increase their propensity to cast a ballot in the first place.
So, where does this leave the “doughnuts for votes” proposals put forward by Hazel Blears? Well, a person is guilty of treating voters if they “directly or indirectly give or provide (or pay wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing) any food, drink, entertainment or provision in order to influence any voter to vote or refrain from voting“.
Offering doughnuts, shopping vouchers or entry into a free prize draw clearly fall foul of the laws on treating and bribery. These election offences are not there for a bit of a giggle. They are there to keep our elections as fair as physically possible. These new proposals drive a double-decker bus through our election law. They are not for the good of democracy but simply to allow Hazel Blears and her Labour colleagues to bribe, cajole and treat reluctant Labour voters to the polls using vast sums of taxpayers’ money. It is a truly abhorrent and undemocratic proposal.
Not a big donut fan then?
It seems true the saying that ignorance is bliss, Ms Blears must be swimming in it. The reason apathy is an ever increasing part of todays society is down to basic facts that people need more oppurtunity to play a role in the issues that affect their daily lives.
Take Salford, not one Council meeting, committee (bar community ones) or panel runs in the evening or weekend. A person wanting to oppose a planning issue would have to take a day off to attend.
People wanted a vote on the TiF bid, it only took a U-Turn and grudgingly it has been given.
The views it seems of many councillors is that along with the day to day maintenance issues of council, Councillors seem to beleive they have a mandate to ignore peoples views in favour of their particular party Whip.
What we need is more public debates, more public votes, more examples of where people want change we as elected officials can show we can deliver it to them.
Untill then people will continue to switch off and allow the likes of Miss Blears to retain their seat on 30% range voter turnouts.
For reference I found the hardest thing about being elected was that less than a half of Swinton South voted at all, hopefully in 4 years that will change.
I can see it now…Going in to vote and choosing your doughnut..jam..sugar or icing..happily munching it on your way out… Then accidently you drop a bit on the floor and someone jumps out from behind a tree and fines you £50…Brilliant. Seriously wouldn’t a better idea be to choose a local charity on each ward and put a small amount of money in a tin at the polling station when you vote. The more people that vote, the more money the known charity gets. I think that would bring more people out especially if it was put on any leaflets.
It’s a shame (but not a surprise) they got rid of the “recall” idea - many politicians of all persuasions believe that all democracy is is a vote every four or five years and that once they’ve been elected that gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want (e.g. Derek Conway, Neil Hamilton, Mandelson, many many others…)
The possibility of a recall system for those that have abused their position in both national and local government would be a great idea, but as neither Labour or the Tories would ever support it, it’ll never happen…