The Anti-Vote

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Posted this on Opposing Ideologies because it refers to democracy within capitalism, and only the capitalists and I dunno, PA and myself seem to have anything to say other than "filthy liberal" on the subject, so here goes.

What do you think about an Anti-Vote? By that I mean using your vote to cancel out a positive vote. So say 3 people vote for the Labour party, but someone anti-votes them. They are left with two votes.

I think this might be a good way to combat far-right parties such as the BNP. Most people appear to be apolitical, but realize that racism is a bad thing. They could use there otherwise wasted vote to combat nutjob parties.

-Alex

[Folk The System]

hmm combating one nutjob party by voting for another?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

But voting directly against the BNP might well reduce there political power to virtually nothing.

This would be used primarily by people who otherwise would not vote at all.

-Alex

[JazzRemington]

This was the arguement against allowing women to vote: they would cancel out their husband's vote. But I don't think it'll actually do anything, if that's what you're getting at. There's usually a system set up in case of a dead tie, which is extremely rare.

[Cryotank Screams]

In regards to far-right parties, would it not make more sense to combat them directly via revolutionary means, than to place your hopes on a "anti-vote?"

[Demogorgon]

Well there is limited need to combat the BNP that way, despite what the press likes to say, they don't get very many votes in the grand scheme of things.

People on this board are funny when it comes to voting though. They still haven't noticed that their pointless abstaining from voting has not accelerated any revolution. The way they talk, you'd think there were still property qualifications.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

In regards to far-right parties, would it not make more sense to combat them directly via revolutionary means, than to place your hopes on a "anti-vote?"

Sure. But why not do both? An anti vote's only a little cross on a slip of paper, I'm sure it won't take up too much of our time. :)

Anywho, I didn't particularly mean that it would be used by us, but more the politically apathetic. A vote against the BNP is better than no vote at all, surely?

Patton - Merci Beaucoup. I'm sure someone else thought of it before me, but I'm all up for taking the credit. :P

Demogorgon - Even if they aren't as popular as the press would have us believe, it'd be nice to really humiliate them at the ballot box. They might even resort back to grassroots racism stuff, like beating up black people in the streets. And then, Bam! We've a darn good excuse to fight them back, and the law will be on our side for once. They'll all end up in prison for a long time, or beaten the crap out of. Hopefully it would put the far-right's agenda back a good few years. :)

-Alex

[Rollo]

Sure. But why not do both? An anti vote's only a little cross on a slip of paper, I'm sure it won't take up too much of our time. :)
It takes ages to wait in the line to vote, during which time you could be doing something more productive.


Anywho, I didn't particularly mean that it would be used by us, but more the politically apathetic. A vote against the BNP is better than no vote at all, surely?
If I ever vote, I'll vote for the party that's obviously going to lose ( One nation or Australia first, like the BNP but less member )



Demogorgon - Even if they aren't as popular as the press would have us believe, it'd be nice to really humiliate them at the ballot box. They might even resort back to grassroots racism stuff, like beating up black people in the streets. And then, Bam! We've a darn good excuse to fight them back, and the law will be on our side for once. They'll all end up in prison for a long time, or beaten the crap out of. Hopefully it would put the far-right's agenda back a good few years. :)

The law won't be on your side, if you hit them back, the law will hit you.


-Alex

-Rollo

[BurnTheOliveTree]

It takes ages to wait in the line to vote, during which time you could be doing something more productive.

Come off it. You'd be doing what? Making jokes in chit-chat? No disrespect or anything. I doubt your day-to-day revolutionary activities have capitalism shaking in it's boots. We can spare an hour or two to humiliate the BNP. And, like I said, it's more an idea for the apoliticals who don't vote because they aren't interested in politics, but still hate the BNP.


If I ever vote, I'll vote for the party that's obviously going to lose ( One nation or Australia first, like the BNP but less member )

Good for you. Given a choice between a useless vote or a vote against the BNP, I know what I'd pick.


The law won't be on your side, if you hit them back, the law will hit you.

I guess I'm less cynical about the police than most. I reckon if the BNP really honestly show their true colours, the police are humans too, they're going to want to hurt them. We certainly wouldn't be the villains of the piece.

That said, perhaps you have a point. In which case, sit back and watch the police arrest every last one of 'em. It's all good. :)

-Alex

[Rollo]

Come off it. You'd be doing what? Making jokes in chit-chat? No disrespect or anything. I doubt your day-to-day revolutionary activities have capitalism shaking in it's boots. We can spare an hour or two to humiliate the BNP. And, like I said, it's more an idea for the apoliticals who don't vote because they aren't interested in politics, but still hate the BNP.

So EVERYBODY makes jokes in chit-chat? It takes an hour or more to get to the closest voting location in my area, and adleast 2 to wait in line. 3 Hours lost in which I could have been gardening or working out.



Good for you. Given a choice between a useless vote or a vote against the BNP, I know what I'd pick.


Do you honestly think the BNP are going to win any election? Even if they do, the ultra right of the BNP might push forward more revolutionary ideas once people see how bad they actually are.


I guess I'm less cynical about the police than most. I reckon if the BNP really honestly show their true colours, the police are humans too, they're going to want to hurt them. We certainly wouldn't be the villains of the piece.

That said, perhaps you have a point. In which case, sit back and watch the police arrest every last one of 'em. It's all good. :)

I dunno what the police are like there but the police here won't arrest people for just being racist. Also, I don't think the BNP are going to go out in the street and start being racist simply because they lost the election.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

So EVERYBODY makes jokes in chit-chat? It takes an hour or more to get to the closest voting location in my area, and adleast 2 to wait in line. 3 Hours lost in which I could have been gardening or working out.


Well, I have to concede that point. Why fight the BNP when you could be weeding the garden or doing press ups? :lol:


Do you honestly think the BNP are going to win any election? Even if they do, the ultra right of the BNP might push forward more revolutionary ideas once people see how bad they actually are.

We ignore them at our peril. In any case, any force that churns out racist drivel with such chilling efficiency that they do needs to be humiliated on every level, grassroots and mainstream democracy.


I dunno what the police are like there but the police here won't arrest people for just being racist. Also, I don't think the BNP are going to go out in the street and start being racist simply because they lost the election.

Not just for being racist, for being violently racist. Like I said, the police are humans, and I'd wager even the most reactionary police are going to do their job if they see Nick Griffin and Co. beating up ethnic minorities in the streets. If the BNP are consistently humiliated in elections, they'll cut their losses with 'legitimate' democracy and go back to being regular thugs. At which point they lose sympathy from the population, and their entire nasty movement regresses. :)


-Alex

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2006 10:22 pm
Posted this on Opposing Ideologies because it refers to democracy within capitalism, and only the capitalists and I dunno, PA and myself seem to have anything to say other than "filthy liberal" on the subject, so here goes.

What do you think about an Anti-Vote? By that I mean using your vote to cancel out a positive vote. So say 3 people vote for the Labour party, but someone anti-votes them. They are left with two votes.

I think this might be a good way to combat far-right parties such as the BNP. Most people appear to be apolitical, but realize that racism is a bad thing. They could use there otherwise wasted vote to combat nutjob parties.

-Alex
The liberal democrats would win election after election with this, since both Labour and Tories would be wiping out each-other. And don't forget that in the UK, you vote for candidates, not parties.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

You think so Serpent? Why wouldn't they just vote for their own parties? If they were narrow minded enough to assume that it was a straight race between tories and labour, a positive vote for their own party makes just as much difference as a negative on against their opponents. And most folks like to be positive. :)

Does it make an awful lot of difference about the candidate thing? You just anti-vote the BNP's candidate. :huh:

-Alex

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2006 02:36 pm
You think so Serpent? Why wouldn't they just vote for their own parties? If they were narrow minded enough to assume that it was a straight race between tories and labour, a positive vote for their own party makes just as much difference as a negative on against their opponents. And most folks like to be positive. :)

Does it make an awful lot of difference about the candidate thing? You just anti-vote the BNP's candidate. :huh:

-Alex
Most people see that BNP got no chance whatsoever, so they anti-vote the party which have a chance to get in instead of their own party. Remember that the UK already have an efficient barrier against small parties, namely the "first-past-the-post sytem".

[Intellectual47]

I dunno about this anti-vote stuff.
I mean, it's not there's a checkbox on the ballot that says "this will cancel the vote against BNP". It just seems like the whole idea of the anti-vote just seems a waste of time since if you vote for your party, it's an anti-vote for everyone else. You don't have to call it anything.
Unless you're proposing putting that checkbox on your ballot. I would still think it's a waste of time, but I wouldn't oppose you.

[Rollo]

Well, I have to concede that point. Why fight the BNP when you could be weeding the garden or doing press ups? :lol:


I was using one of my routines as an example, most places actually stop work so they can go vote, everything is inconvenienced just so you can throw in a vote which in the end does little to nothing. The people you will be reaching out to are the far minority and these so called counter votes are also voting for another idiot party.


We ignore them at our peril. In any case, any force that churns out racist drivel with such chilling efficiency that they do needs to be humiliated on every level, grassroots and mainstream democracy.


Are you sure you're not ment to be on lib-com?


Not just for being racist, for being violently racist. Like I said, the police are humans, and I'd wager even the most reactionary police are going to do their job if they see Nick Griffin and Co. beating up ethnic minorities in the streets. If the BNP are consistently humiliated in elections, they'll cut their losses with 'legitimate' democracy and go back to being regular thugs. At which point they lose sympathy from the population, and their entire nasty movement regresses. :)

Plenty people are violently racist. Every day, still little to nothing is done. Out of all the people at Australia's cronulla riots only a few were arrested. To me it seems like you're less anti party and more pro liberal.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Most people see that BNP got no chance whatsoever, so they anti-vote the party which have a chance to get in instead of their own party. Remember that the UK already have an efficient barrier against small parties, namely the "first-past-the-post sytem".

But it's just not the case that they have "no chance". Galloway and his Respect party were considered to have very little or no chance of winning Bethnal Green & Bow, but win it they did. Freak victories can and do happen, and as far as I'm aware, the BNP are a fair whack ahead of Respect in popularity.

If they're worried that other parties have a serious chance of beating them, a positive vote for their own party is just as good as an anti vote for others, especially if more than one party has a chance of beating them.

Remind me again how the first-past-the-post syetm works.

-Alex

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I was using one of my routines as an example, most places actually stop work so they can go vote, everything is inconvenienced just so you can throw in a vote which in the end does little to nothing. The people you will be reaching out to are the far minority and these so called counter votes are also voting for another idiot party.


I didn't really understand what you meant here. Anyway, point is, in the grand scheme of things, really, voting or anti-voting as the case may be is not an awfully time consuming process.


Are you sure you're not ment to be on lib-com?

What is that, an insult? Meh. Not worth responding to anwyho.


Plenty people are violently racist. Every day, still little to nothing is done. Out of all the people at Australia's cronulla riots only a few were arrested. To me it seems like you're less anti party and more pro liberal.

I don't know about plenty... A few wingnuts, who in england at least, usually get what they deserve. Now, the BNP is an entire fucking party of said wingnuts, who hide behing legitimacy. If the anti-vote is implemented and used to totally humiliate them at the ballot box, they won't bother with the ballow box, or with legitimacy. They'll come out of the wingnut closet, so to speak. Thus we'd probably have full scale street violence, and all the little watered down nazis that constitute the BNP will be carted off to prison.

Perhaps Australia is in a worse situation than over here.

-Alex

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2006 04:32 pm

Most people see that BNP got no chance whatsoever, so they anti-vote the party which have a chance to get in instead of their own party. Remember that the UK already have an efficient barrier against small parties, namely the "first-past-the-post sytem".

But it's just not the case that they have "no chance". Galloway and his Respect party were considered to have very little or no chance of winning Bethnal Green & Bow, but win it they did. Freak victories can and do happen, and as far as I'm aware, the BNP are a fair whack ahead of Respect in popularity.

If they're worried that other parties have a serious chance of beating them, a positive vote for their own party is just as good as an anti vote for others, especially if more than one party has a chance of beating them.

Remind me again how the first-past-the-post syetm works.

-Alex
Galloway is very popular in his own area, but BNP, which got among 3-5% of the population behind itself, is distributed scarcely. The anti-vote system would mean that the biggest parties which assemble most voters behind them are wiped out, while third parties which do not offend anyone comes to the rise. Moreover, if it is only connected to the BNP, it would be discriminatory against them, and would give the state political power to de-facto ban small unpopular parties.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

The main point is not that they would win, but that the anti-vote would mean they lose so badly that they give up on mainstream politics altogether. Obviously you couldn't limit it to the BNP, because as you said that would open the floodgates for the government banning fringe movements everywhere.

At the risk of repeating myself, the main parties can still positively vote for their own party, which is just as useful, or more useful, than an anti-vote, provided you want Cameron or Blair. I said a few times that it was aimed at apolitcal people, i.e. those that don't want any party in particular, but still hate racism and want to combat it. An anti-vote is a way for those people to do that.

-Alex

[Dimentio]

"First past the vote" is widely practised in Anglo-Saxon countries and mean that you divide the country into smaller parts, corresponding to the number of seats in the parliament. Then, you hold a race between a group of candidates there, and the candidate with most votes pass, no matter if he/she only got about 1% of the votes [and the other two-hundred got about 0,45% each].

In continental Europe and Scandinavia, as well as in most third world countries, we have proportional systems, which means that all parties which pass a limit of votes on the national level would be represented.

In the US, we have 2 parties in both congress and senate. In United Kingdom, we have about 3 parties represented. Countries with "first past the vote"-systems tend to favour big parties. That creates strong governments [except in USA, which is a republic].

In countries with proportional systems, we have often 5-10 parties represented in the parliament. That often gives better democratic representation, but also creates minority/coalition governments.

[Rollo]

Things probably are different here, but where I live it is fairly rural and even getting to the place to vote can be hard. There are quite a few rednecks here but they don't vote either because it takes too long to drive there. The state is clearly ignoring our area.

The situation with the violenty racist is clearly different.

e.g

http://www.skynews.com.au/photos/SkyNews_Image_20060611054822.jpg


All those people are trying to get the labanese out of town.

[Knight of Cydonia]

i never vote coz i think what the fuck is vote profit for me? it just a tool for those who want to be rich with giving people promises so they can sit on the government nice soft chair. i never vote for anyone. am i an anti vote? :rolleyes:

[Dimentio]

In Indonesia it is probably futile to vote anyway, because the generals rule their own district and the state is composed of departments which are not working as they should but often are rather corrupt. So I do not blame you.

Anti-vote was a system proposed by BurnTheOliveTree. It was rather a more active "against someone", than simply not taking part in the election. Abstaining from voting is only progressive when less than 50% voting means that the government/opposition is disqualified.

[Knight of Cydonia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2006 03:09 am
In Indonesia it is probably futile to vote anyway, because the generals rule their own district and the state is composed of departments which are not working as they should but often are rather corrupt.
100% right :D

[Dimentio]

Districts it should be in plural.

The only recent president which actually appeared as somewhat decent was Wahid, but he was ejected from presidenthood and replaced by Sukarnoputri. Wahid was probably self-enriching like everyone else, but at least he was less globalism-friendly than the current rulers.

[Knight of Cydonia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2006 03:15 am
Districts it should be in plural.

The only recent president which actually appeared as somewhat decent was Wahid, but he was ejected from presidenthood and replaced by Sukarnoputri. Wahid was probably self-enriching like everyone else, but at least he was less globalism-friendly than the current rulers.
yeah but Wahid is too ignorance, so the people behind him have a chance to made him a pawn. but he is friendly indeed.

i kinda like Megawati Soekarno putri for first, but then i thing she just like the other president that only have promises and never fullfilled it.

[Dimentio]

The generals have become smarter. Instead of putting a military dictator in charge and getting all the blame for that, they put the nominal power in the hands of civilians - preferably women and disabled for international sympathy - and then continues as before with corruption, repression of ethnic minorities and favor to businessmen and militias.

But 25.000 islands was not a good prospect for the first.

[Raisa]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2006 10:22 pm
Posted this on Opposing Ideologies because it refers to democracy within capitalism, and only the capitalists and I dunno, PA and myself seem to have anything to say other than "filthy liberal" on the subject, so here goes.

What do you think about an Anti-Vote? By that I mean using your vote to cancel out a positive vote. So say 3 people vote for the Labour party, but someone anti-votes them. They are left with two votes.

I think this might be a good way to combat far-right parties such as the BNP. Most people appear to be apolitical, but realize that racism is a bad thing. They could use there otherwise wasted vote to combat nutjob parties.

-Alex
i think its stupid but we do it here ALL the time in america.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

BNP take a goose-step forward - highest ever BNP result - 33 gains and many second places
Broxbourne keep council seat, Epping Forest gain three, Sandwell win 3 new seats, Redditch win one seat, Stoke win 3 new seats, Pendle win a seat, Dagenham and Barking win 12 seats, Burnley 2 seats, Kirklees 2 seats

Far right breakaway group 'England First' in Blackburn has won 2 seats


I just did a very quick google, that was according to Socialist Unity (http://www.socialistunitynetwork.co.uk/activate/election2006.htm)


I don't think they can be ignored. And what's worse is that the BNP focus a lot on the working class... We really need to have the working class on our side!

-Alex

[BurnTheOliveTree]

The BBC. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4974870.stm)
British National Party supporters claim it is "on its way" after doubling its number of councillors in England.
The biggest gains were in Barking and Dagenham, where it seized 11 of the 13 seats it contested, becoming the second party. One ward has still to declare.

The BNP also won seats in Epping Forest, Stoke-on-Trent and Sandwell.

The party fielded more than 350 candidates and now has 46 seats in England. Before Thursday's local elections it held about 20 of 22,000.


Taken from the BBC.

-Alex

[Dimentio]

If BNP makes progress, I believe that both labour and the conservatives would adapt their policies more after the BNP. The BNP itself can never win power, because of the majority-system in Great Britain.