Democracy how?

I've done my share of left-wing rabble rousing over the years, mostly for noble but doomed causes.  I've marched in the streets, put up posters, knocked on doors, signed petitions, handed out fliers and tricked myself into believing that the good people of [fill in whatever city, state or country I have lived in] would see the intrinsic justice of whatever cause I was advocating.

I hung on to this misplaced optimism until year upon year of crushing defeats convinced me that the great mass of voters are in fact ignorant, narrow-minded bigots who will vote against their best interests because of fear, racism and fanatical right-wing brainwashing.

My home state of California has a very granular democracy facilitated by an initiative process.  Anyone with an axe to grind and enough signatures can put propositions before the voters.  Depending on who you ask (especial after an election) this system is empowering or wickedly dangerous.

As participatory as the initiative process is it has a good number of failings; not the least of which is the relative ease by which a simple majority of voters can change the State Constitution.  A recent and infamous example was the anti-gay marriage proposition.  After the California Supreme Court allowed same-sex couples to marry, the rank and file of the religious right put forward a constitutional amendment banning the practice.  

The homophobes used the same rhetoric employed by anti-interracial marriage campaigners of the 1950s:  "it's not natural", "God did not intend such an unholy union" etc.  The Mormon church sent truckloads of money in support of the amendment and bigots from San Diego to the Oregon boarder were reaching for their bibles and ballot papers to turn back the tidal wave of queers who were set on defiling the sanctity of heterosexual marriage.

"Liberal" California went to the polls and overnight 3% of the population had a basic liberty stripped away.  The family values crowd successfully made it impossible for committed homosexual partners to have any say over the treatment of their ill partners in hospital, while simultaneously sanctifying the legitimacy of drunken, spur of the moment decisions made by vapid but straight morons- I'm looking at you Britney!

All this has come to mind because by a strange coincidence election season here in the UK is overlapping with state-wide primaries in California.  Being blessed as I am with dual citizenship I am able to observe first-hand the differences in the electoral process between  the ancient, some would say mummified, English system and that of the young pretender across the ocean.

I'm one of those people who get ridiculously excited about elections.  It is not without merit that I have worn the label of Political Junkie for most of my adult life.  For me all politics are personal and I consider the trek to the polling booth a sacred duty- a secular pilgrimage.  I vote as if my single vote would decide the election.  My answer to those who feel that one person can't make a difference is simply this, "Florida, 2000."

Casting a ballot is one of the few times we get to put our ideals into direct action.  All the activism and posturing, protesting, shouting and debating lead up to that moment when the tick goes in the box.  There are winners and losers and the debates go on but something changes and we make it happen.

Much is made, on both sides of the Atlantic, of the lack of voter turn out.  Time and again the minority decides for the majority simply because the majority can't find time enough to set down their chicken wings, squeeze into some stretch pants and waddle to the polls.  Blame for this sorry state of affairs most assuredly does not rest on the shoulders of the electoral commission.

Assuming you have the desire, the UK and US governments make it laughably easy to vote  even if you don't actually reside in-country.  California sends a registration form to my UK address every year to make sure all my details are correct and then mails me conformation that I am indeed signed up.  In the UK it is against the law not to register to vote (but voting is not mandatory) and the Register of Electors sends out an eligibility questioner and postal ballot request form each year.

Both the US and UK systems allow you to register to vote on-line, by FAX, by mail and I'm sure they are working on a text message system so even functionally illiterate 18-25 year olds can sign on.  This is where the similarity ends.

Unlike US elections where candidates and supporters/detractors of proposed amendments flood the airwaves, newspapers and Internet with information about their respective positions, in the UK there is radio silence.  I have been trying for three-days to track down any information at all about the voting records, political ideology, written position statements, hair colour, anything about the eleven candidates standing for my local council and the best that I could uncover is that fewer than half actually live in my area.  I was only able to find that little tidbit because their addresses are printed on the ballot.

Eleven candidates who allegedly want my vote so that they can make our council a safe place for kittens and old people or fix parking tickets for their friends yet they all act as if they are in the Witness Protection Program.  With the exception of this guy even the mighty Internet has no trace of any of them.

Our parliamentary candidates fare slightly better- they each have web pages and at least one of them responds to e-mail.

Contrast this with the Primary Election Guide I received from the State of California.  79 pages that include a non-partisan summery of each of the propositions, projected fiscal effects, candidate statements, complete texts of the initiatives and arguments for and against each one.  79 pages devoted to five initiatives and a handful of candidates vying to be the party's choice to run in the real show in November. 

The differences in the two systems is perhaps illustrated most clearly in the ballot papers themselves.  From California I receive a large form with the candidate's names, their occupations and the post each is running for; party affiliation is also indicated. On the back are the initiatives with a short summery.  There are a few instructions about how to fill out the form and a reminder to sign it before it gets sent back.  It's simple, friendly and designed to be completed and counted quickly.

UK postal votes, by contrast, contain pages upon pages of instructions followed by a small, Xeroxed ballot paper.  Voting consists of putting a large "X" next to the candidate of your choice.  The emphasis is on the party, not the individual, as illustrated by the large party logo next to the candidate's name.

This hive-like reliance and trust in party candidates to not only carry out the will of the voters but internally elect the national leader, seems to me a hugely suspect form of representational democracy. 

In the US, you might love your local congressional representative but dislike the President.  No problem, you can vote for your rep and against the President during the next election.  It doesn't work that way in the UK.

In England a vote for the party is a vote for that party's leader.  If your beloved MP is Labour but you can't stand Labour's leader, tough, they are a set.  Thousands of people in the UK are facing this kind of Sophie's Choice in the upcoming election.  Labour's Gorden Brown is widely disliked and Labour voters are faced with the unpalatable decision of either voting for a party they support and a leader they don't or an opposition candidate representing their most hated enemy: the Tories.  

Being a Lib Dem (Liberal Democrat for those of you outside the UK) I don't have to do much soul searching.  Nick Clegg, the party's leader, has the confidence and easy style of someone who knows he will never be Prime Minister.  He gets to be honest without fear of losing power because he has none.  The best he can hope for from the upcoming national election is that he gets to play kingmaker in a hung parliament.  Not a bad deal for a party which has spent the 22 years since its founding in the political wilderness.

It's time for me to give it one more shot and scour the Internet for any sort of fact or innuendo on our council candidates.  Unfulfilled I will then make three wild guess as to the  people best able to represent my interests.  Three people who will decide how our tax money is allocated, how our schools get run, how our local police operate.  I am voting in an information vacuum without tangible, verifiable data.  This is no way to run a democracy.