Tag Archives: Elections

Getting NOTA on UK ballot papers now official Green Party policy!

November 24, 2015 Comments: 2

So – it took a while but the Green Party of England and Wales have now finally got back to me with full clarification of where they stand on the issue of NOTA. Here is the email in full:

“Dear Jamie,

Thanks for your email, which has been passed on to me in my capacity as
GPEW Policy Development Co-ordinator.

I’m pleased to confirm that the relevant policy chapter, Public
Administration https://policy.greenparty.org.uk/pa.html
was amended at our most recent conference and that section of text now
reads:
————
None of the Above/Re-open Nominations (RON) option

PA310 All ballot papers should allow electors to Re-Open Nominations
(RON) if they are not satisfied with voting for any of the nominated
candidates. Ballots lacking this option provide no valid way to register
non-consent in an election. If the RON option meets the threshold under
the rules of the election then nominations should be reopened and a
second election should take place for the position/s within a period of
two months. This process will continue until a winner is announced, with
the previous incumbent continuing in their role until a threshold is
met.
————

I appreciate the offer to work with us on improving this policy
position (and I do recognise that ‘RON’ and ‘NOTA’ are not the same
thing, as is implied by the current heading), but the reality is that
under our current policy process any member has the right to bring a
policy motion to conference, as long as three other members are prepared
to give it their support and it is posted on the pre-agenda forum of the
members’ website by the stated deadline. No consultation outwith the
party is currently required.

I’m sure you will agree with me that this really isn’t a satisfactory
situation as there are many campaigning organisations that have a lot to
offer us as we seek to improve our policies, and I hope that you’ll be
heartened to hear that Policy Committee are working on a new policy
process which has far more emphasis on truly effective consultation.
This has to go to spring 2016 conference for approval – if it is adopted
we will then be in a position to up our game quite considerably in terms
of making it much more worthwhile for proposers of motions to engage in
genuinely meaningful consultation.

So, the fact that you did not hear back from Natalie or Caroline is a
reflection of the fact that they were both inundated with communications
from members of the public in the run-up to the election – and also
perhaps that they have no more power to change our policy than any other
individual member. Neither of them were involved in the Democratic
Reform motion which came to the Autumn 2015 conference.

If you are willing to be put in touch with the Democratic Reform Policy
Working Group I’d be happy to effect an introduction, and this would
then lead into work to improve our position on RON and NOTA along the
lines you suggest.

I look forward to your further thoughts.

Kind regards,
Sam Riches
GPEW Policy Development Co-ordinator”

——————————————————–

This is great news for our campaign as it means that a comparatively small, but nonetheless influential, mainstream party has:

a) recognised the need to be able to formally withhold consent at an election

b) adopted a baseline policy addressing this need and

c) stated that they are keen to work with NOTA UK to develop the policy going forward.

When the time is right we now intend to make the case for honing the policy so that it focuses specifically on getting a formal ‘None of the Above’ option on ballot papers and nothing else.

We feel that in any system, a clear, self-explanatory and unambiguous NOTA option is essential. It would function as RON in practice if ever evoked, but would not need to be explained to people not used to election terminology as RON would. For this reason, we feel NOTA is by far the better option when it comes to national elections as we believe that most people won’t want to have to think about the mechanism and logistics of rejecting all that is on offer. They just want to be able to reject, formally and unambiguously, and to know that it counts for something. In that regard, NOTA trumps RON every time.

In light of the Green Party’s endorsement of NOTA, we will of course be contacting all the other mainstream parties again in due course to try to clarify where they stand on this democracy defining issue.

Stay tuned. Onwards!

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
24/11/15

“Room for a View: Democracy as a Deliberative System” by Simon Burall of pro-democracy think tank Involve

November 10, 2015 1 Comment

While the NOTA UK electoral reform campaign inevitably regroups between elections, I highly recommend that all our supporters familiarise themselves with the work of pro-democracy think-tank Involve, in particular its recent publication “Room for a View: Democracy as a Deliberative System”.

Among many other salient points, one argument it puts forward is that there is much more to a healthy, functioning, true democracy than voting in a general election every five years and that focussing alone on electoral reform is therefore not enough. I have always held this view myself, with the caveat that all the while an electoral system, the ultimate say that the public has over who is in power, is largely sewn up and monopolised by an anti-democratic elite, reforming it remains as high a priority as anything else, as whatever else is going on outside of that framework, the ultimate power to legislate and enforce policy can only ever remain in the same self-interested hands, negating any positive progress being made elsewhere.

The report also suggests that the focus within the electoral reform movement is not necessarily always correct when this wider context is taken into account. It has long been my contention that campaigning for desirable but not necessarily essential changes to the voting system as a whole (such as PR), in the context of a system where those monopolising it are the only ones with the power to change anything, is the definition of futility. Especially when there is a much more logically sound approach available.

A formal, binding ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option on ballot papers, by contrast, would be achievable once it is properly and widely understood as the democratic pre-requisite that it is, as to argue against it is to argue against a central pillar of democracy itself, namely consent and the concurrent need to be able to withhold it (which in the context of elections must be formal as consenting by voting is formal). Whatever else is going on outside of the electoral system, until such time as the electoral reform movement as a whole wakes up to this reality and refocusses its efforts on the only achievable reform with real potential to enable further reform, no meaningful progress is likely to be made in this area.

In my view, the kind of progressive, deliberative democracy that Involve’s report outlines would have to incorporate a bona fide, binding NOTA option on ballot papers. With that in mind, I’ll be reaching out to Involve in the coming weeks to see where they stand on the specific issue of getting NOTA on ballot papers as part of a broader effort to fully democratise the UK political system.

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
10/11/15

ERS Report: A Response to Andrew Rawnsley

May 31, 2015 Comments: 4

On 31st May 2015, The Guardian website published an article titled ‘The real reason David Cameron is sitting on a Commons majority’, written by the award-winning political commentator and critically-acclaimed broadcaster and author Andrew Rawnsley.

It is, in my view, the most accurate and honest assessment I have read of the political landscape in the UK both before and after the 2015 general election, in which the Conservatives were able to form a government with a tiny majority of 12 seats in parliament.

Rawnsley’s article – which pre-empted and referenced a now published Electoral Reform Society (ERS) report on how and why the 2015 general election has produced the most disproportionate result in British election history – is excellent, not least of all because he concludes by laying bare the futility of pushing for Proportional Representation (PR) in a landscape where the only parties that can ever call the shots under First Past The Post (FPTP) have nothing to gain from introducing it.

The current system always delivers a majority of seats in parliament one way or another, so it can always be argued that it is democratic enough, even though it patently isn’t. Calls for ditching FPTP in favour of PR can therefore always be ignored, all the while only beneficiaries of the current system are the ones in power. Which is always and forever, as things stand.

And yet, inexplicably, simply calling for PR remains the central strategy of the ERS and most other reformists at this time. It’s maddening.

What Andrew sadly doesn’t go on to discuss – and what the ERS seem unable to grasp – is that the way to achieve democratic reform in such a landscape is to go back to basics, figure out what else is missing and determine what is actually achievable. When you sit down and do this, the solution presents itself.

There is only one reform that would be achievable now with enough support for it. It is achievable because it represents a democratic pre-requisite, a mechanism that is essential in any system of government claiming to be a democracy, one that should have been there all along and that cannot be argued against without arguing against democracy itself, once it is properly understood.

It is the ability to formally withhold consent and reject all that is on offer at the ballot box. The key word there is formally. Consent is central to the concept of democracy but only measurable if it is possible to withhold it. In the context of elections, consenting (voting) is a formal act. The withholding of consent, therefore, must also be formal for it to be meaningful. But it is currently not possible to do this in the UK. Abstaining and ballot spoiling are ambiguous and informal acts that can never affect the result in any way, even if practised by a majority, so neither in any way provides this essential mechanism.

The only way to formally withhold consent at an election is by including an official None Of The Above (NOTA) option on ballot papers with formalised consequences for the result if a majority make use of it.

If this mechanism were in place, the very prospect of a party being beaten by more voters actively and visibly rejecting all that is on offer would force all parties to lift their game and compel them to represent more voters in the first place, organically cleaning up the whole process and levelling the playing field considerably. From there, the chances of further democratic reform towards PR would be greatly improved. Without NOTA in the first instance, how is PR or any other democratic reform ever going to occur? Seriously, how?! It can’t. Not in the current landscape. NOTA, by contrast, would become inevitable if enough people were calling for it as the democratic pre-requisite that it is.

For this reason, NOTA remains the ground zero of electoral reform upon which all other democratic reform could be built. Far from being a ‘cop out’, it is the next giant leap on the road to universal suffrage.

Even the Political & Constitutional Reform Committee (PCRC) – now abolished by David Cameron – were beginning to understand and accept the significance of NOTA. Thanks to our lobbying and a sizeable positive response to its consultation on ‘voter engagement’, the PCRC felt compelled to recommend in its February 2015 report that the next government consult before May 2015 solely on inclusion of NOTA on ballot papers. This was due to the clear demand for it and the perceived positive impact that it would have on voter engagement.

Just because the PCRC is no more, there is no reason to give up on NOTA or any of its other recommendations. If anything, it is time to step up the fight. But we must be realistic and not waste our energies lobbying turkeys to vote for Christmas. For the reasons stated, NOTA is the achievable ‘square one’ for any and all democratic reform of the UK’s system of government.

Electoral reformists like the ERS continue to ignore this game changing, logical starting point for democratic reform at their peril – and to the detriment of us all.

You can support NOTA UK’s campaign for achievable electoral reform by signing our petition here and by following and subscribing to us via these social media links:

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NOTA UK website

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
31/05/15

NOTA vs the Red Herring of PR

May 23, 2015 Comments: 5

The 2015 UK general election saw a majority Conservative government elected with the support of less than a quarter of the voting age population, leading to renewed calls for a change from the First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system to a form of Proportional Representation (PR).

This is the new majority Conservative government’s response to these calls for PR (click to enlarge):

11212617_10153293858650132_8978201650478429228_o

The Electoral Reform Society can correct the false assertions as much as they like. The government’s position is not going to change. This is why campaigning for PR as the catch all solution to the problems of our failing ‘democracy’ is the wrong approach.

NOTA UK’s detractors have made similar false arguments against inclusion of a formal ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) option on ballot papers in the past. But when confronted with the irrefutable argument that NOTA is an essential pre-requisite in any system claiming to be a democracy, they literally have nothing to say. Because it is impossible to dress opposition to NOTA up as a pro-democracy argument, once its true significance is understood. Whereas PR can always be refuted in seemingly pro-democracy terms.

That’s the difference.

For this reason, NOTA would be achievable as an unavoidable government concession with enough widespread understanding of and support for it. PR never will be all the while only entrenched beneficiaries of FPTP are in power – which is always and forever as things currently stand.

Once in place, by virtue of giving a potential voice to literally millions of currently silent and unrepresented voters, NOTA would level the playing field considerably and pave the way for further democratic reform.

Consequently, NOTA remains the ground zero of electoral reform upon which all other democratic progress could be built.

Get involved and help us spread the word here: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/inclusion-of-an-official-none-of-the-above-option-for-all-uk-elections-2

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
23/05/15

We Need To Talk About ‘Democracy’

May 11, 2015 Comments: 6

In light of the 2015 general election result, the almost 75% of the population who didn’t vote for the new Conservative government appear to fall into two distinct camps. There are those so angered by the outcome that they are prepared to take to the streets and demand the right to somehow overrule or otherwise undermine the result. Then there are those who simply shrug their shoulders and say: ‘Well what can you do, that’s democracy for you!” But is it?

Regardless of which party you support, could those refusing to take the result lying down perhaps have a point? In a word: yes.

The central premise behind the political idea of democracy is that the consent of the governed must be sought and obtained by those who would govern before they can take office. If the majority consent, then they have achieved this. People consent by voting. Whether your choice wins or not is irrelevant. All the while a majority participate, those that govern can claim it is a democracy.

HOWEVER – there are two problems with this when it comes to UK parliamentary ‘democracy’.

Firstly, consent is only measurable if it is possible to withhold consent. Otherwise, whether you consent or not is immaterial. In the context of elections, consenting (voting) is formal so the withholding of consent must be formal also. This is currently impossible as abstaining and ballot spoiling are ambiguous, informal acts that in no way affect the result. Inclusion of a formal ‘None Of The Above’ (NOTA) option on ballot papers is the only way to formally withhold consent at an election. Without such a mechanism, an electoral system or system of government simply cannot be described as a true democracy.

Secondly, in the UK, no matter how many people consent by voting, a majority of seats can always be achieved one way or another. That would be true with a 30% turnout or a 90% turnout. If you do the maths and include all those not even registered to vote as well as those who were registered but didn’t vote, the number of people that participate in general elections usually only just scrapes past 50%. But it wouldn’t matter if it didn’t. Technically, it wouldn’t matter if the turnout fell below 50% of all registered voters either. Whoever had more than half the seats could still claim a mandate.

Clearly, that is not true democracy by any stretch of the imagination.

And that’s before we even get in to the totally undemocratic voting system, the undemocratic party whip system, the power of corporate lobbying and the undue influence over voters of the corporate media. To believe that such a system represents the ideal of true democracy is pure delusion.

We need to start talking about this. We need to start being honest about the total lack of any meaningful, truly representative democracy in the UK if we are ever to have a chance of installing one.

Due to it being absolutely essential in any true democracy, and given that ‘the powers that be’ must be seen to be pro-democracy at all times even if they aren’t in practice, NOTA is the achievable, logical starting point for meaningful democratic reform. All other reforms can be paid lip service to and roundly ignored. NOTA is different.

You can get involved by signing and sharing our petition here and by following/subscribing to us via these social media links:

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NOTA UK website

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
10/05/15

 

An Open Letter to Russell Brand & Brian May

April 27, 2015 1 Comment

Dear Russell and Brian,

In the run up to this year’s UK general election, I have been closely following your respective approaches to getting people to engage with the pressing problems of our times.

On the surface of it, you both appear to be wanting the same thing: a fairer, more humane, compassionate and environmentally sustainable society with communities and ordinary people calling the shots as opposed to career politicians and corporate lackeys.

Russell, your message is much more nuanced than the simplified ‘don’t vote’ version of it regularly cited by the mainstream media. What you are basically saying is we need to disengage from the established political system as it is not fit for purpose and instead become politically active at the grass roots level.

Conversely, your message Brian is essentially get involved with the political system as it is by voting for decent candidates and policies in the hope that that will lead to the kind of changes you want to see.

As understandable and commendable as both these approaches are, the truth is that on their own neither of them can work in the long term.

I absolutely agree with you Russell that people need to look outside of the established political system and manage their own communities at a grass roots level. But that established political system will trundle on regardless, awarding thoroughly undeserving, corporately sponsored people disproportionate amounts of real power to ruin the lives of everybody else. So in conjunction with the grass roots engagement you espouse, we urgently need to radically reform the established political system into something that runs parallel to it and compliments those efforts – otherwise attempting to achieve real progress becomes a long, drawn out, stress and disease inducing battle with authority and bureaucracy. The New Era Estate campaign that you championed was inspiring and a perfect example of how and why people can win through when they organise and unite against injustice and corruption. But people shouldn’t have to go through all that just to get what is right. Not everybody has the gumption and fight in them that those people on that estate had. And for those that do, the stress levels involved with taking on the system undoubtedly take their toll in the long run. We need to create a society where it is not possible in the first place for people’s lives to be so utterly disregarded and ruined by a minority in pursuit of short term financial gain.

I also absolutely agree with you Brian that people should be able to influence decision making at a macro, societal level by engaging with the systems already in place. But, unfortunately, the established political system is absolutely a closed shop designed to ensure that no meaningful change of the guard can ever take place. I have written at length elsewhere about why this is the case. In a nutshell, no matter how many people vote and no matter who they vote for, the voting system in the UK guarantees that only one of two establishment parties can ever call the shots in government, even in the age of hung parliaments and coalitions. So Russell is 100% correct to say that engagement with that system in its current form is futile.

As stated, the problem is that this system trundles on regardless. Technically, even if considerably less than 50% of the population were to not vote at a general election, a government would still be able to claim a mandate as our system is not about vote share but seats: they will always be able to achieve a majority of seats in parliament and claim that that is sufficient mandate to govern. Yes, there would be an outcry and much hand wringing and calls for reform in that scenario. But technically there’d be nothing anyone could do about it. No amount of endorsing such a system by voting is going to change that paradigm. But, similarly, no amount of grass roots activism is going to prevent people of the political class from wielding disproportionate amounts of power over everybody else.

The solution to this problem, clearly, is to radically evolve the very systems by which governments are formed in the first place, in conjunction with grass roots activism, so that communities and ordinary people are truly represented at all levels of societal decision making. The million dollar question then is: “How on earth do we do that?”

There is a reason why I have devoted so much of my life over the past five years to campaigning for inclusion of an official None of the Above (NOTA) option on ballot papers – with formalised consequences for the result if the majority choose it – ahead of all other possible reforms and worthy causes. When you truly understand how the current electoral system works, it becomes clear that no meaningful reform of the kind that the Electoral Reform Society campaigns for (PR, right to recall, elected House of Lords etc.) can ever be achieved in the current paradigm. Because the only people that have the power to enact those changes have everything to lose and nothing to gain from doing so and there is currently no way of officially challenging their authority and forcing the issue.

By contrast, inclusion of NOTA on ballot papers is 100% achievable in the current paradigm as it can be clearly shown to be a democratic pre-requisite, impossible to argue against without arguing against democracy itself, once properly understood. This is because consent, central to the concept of democracy, is only truly measurable if it is possible to withhold consent. In the context of elections, consenting (voting) is a formal act. Therefore the withholding of consent must be formal also. Neither abstaining or ballot spoiling constitute the formal withholding of consent as both acts can be construed otherwise and neither affects the result in any way. The only way to formally withhold consent at an election is via a formal NOTA option on the ballot paper.

The powers that be can never be seen to be anti-democratic, even if they secretly are in practice. It stands to reason then, that with enough understanding among the general public of NOTA being 100% essential in any system claiming to be a democracy, it would become an inevitable government concession. This is essentially how votes for women and and the NHS were won. They weren’t benevolent gifts from on high, they were concessions to appease an increasingly politically aware populous. So could it be with NOTA.

Clearly, the fact that no reform other than NOTA is achievable at this time is not necessarily reason enough to champion it. But an understanding of how a post-NOTA inclusion political landscape would look is.

Introducing the possibility for the electorate to reject all candidates and parties on offer at an election would have a huge impact on the system as a whole. No party is going to want to be embarrassingly beaten at the polls by NOTA voters are they. So it follows that this potential would force them to put forward more ‘decent’ policies and candidates that would appeal to many more voters, potential NOTA voters included. So already, an organic levelling off and cleaning up of the political landscape will have occurred. The current two party oligarchy, while still favoured by the First Past The Post system, would for the first time be under threat as those parties will be just as vulnerable as any other to being visibly rejected by more people than not at the polls. In this new paradigm, the potential for further democratic reform would be greatly increased.

This is why NOTA is the ground zero of electoral reform upon which further democratic progress could be built. If we accept that the system cannot be ignored and must change, and if we accept that no other meaningful electoral reform is possible at this time, then we must also accept that campaigning for inclusion of NOTA, alongside grass roots activism, is the logical starting point for taking the power back.

To recap:

Russell, you are right to call for disengagement from the current political system and encourage grass roots, community engagement. But we need to reform that system as well, otherwise we will always be on the back foot, stronger in numbers but out-gunned where it matters. There is a way to do this. It’s called NOTA.

Brian, you are right to want to see increased engagement with the current political system making a real difference. But the sad truth is that it can’t, currently. They have it sewn up. Engagement with the current system is simply to endorse it and ensure its continuation. We need to change the game before we play it. There is a way to do this. It’s called NOTA.

Thanks to NOTA UK’s lobbying, the parliamentary Political & Constitutional Reform Committee (PCRC) felt compelled to explicitly recommend in its final report, published in February, that the next government consult before May 2016 specifically on the issue of inclusion of a formal NOTA option on UK ballot papers for all future national elections. So we have an unprecedented window of opportunity to push for real and lasting democratic reform. This is a huge development. With that in mind, I have written an open letter to all party leaders asking them to state for the record where they stand on this issue. As yet, none have responded.

The three of us, you with your respective audiences and me with a clear, logically sound path to real electoral reform and a growing movement of people getting behind it, could genuinely make history. But all the while we are pulling in different directions, I’m afraid it will be business as usual for those holding the reigns of power for the foreseeable future.

Feel free to contact me via email ( stan(at)nota-uk.org ), I’d be more than happy to discuss these issues with you.

Yours sincerely,
Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
27/04/15

The Case For NOTA: A Call To All Reformists

April 22, 2015 Comments: 2

As the 2015 UK general election approaches, talk of electoral reform and interest in NOTA UK’s campaign to get a formal None Of The Above (NOTA) option added to UK ballot papers grows. As well as an increase in support, this is inevitably accompanied by plenty of resistance and a general misunderstanding of what we are trying to achieve and why.

So I’m writing this as a direct call to all those seeking to reform UK democracy and make it fit for purpose at this time. In particular, I am keen for the arguments put forward here to be heard and understood by the Electoral Reform Society, campaign group Common Decency and high profile, pro-democracy individuals such as TV presenter Rick Edwards, columnist Polly Toynbee and writer Armando Iannucci.

The most common misconception and argument against having NOTA on ballot papers is the incorrect belief that it is already possible to formally reject all candidates in our system so why bother having it. This is often, but not always, accompanied by an inaccurate evaluation of the efficacy of being able to do so in the first place.

Making use of a formal NOTA option would categorically NOT be the same as abstaining or ballot spoiling. Abstaining is dismissed as voter apathy with no further analysis and cannot affect the result in any way, even if the majority do it. The same is true of ballot spoiling as they are never counted as spoiled in protest, only ever as spoiled in error or ‘intention uncertain’, so again, even if the majority do this it has zero effect. (More on that here: https://nota-uk.org/2015/03/02/election-hacking-what-the-electoral-commission-has-to-say/ )

Neither of these things make any difference because they are not recorded as a formal rejection, or the formal withholding of consent. Democracy is all about consent. When you vote you are consenting to be governed by whoever wins, even if your choice doesn’t win. But the giving of consent is only meaningful and measurable if it is possible to withhold consent. In the context of elections, consenting (voting) is a formal act. Therefore the withholding of consent MUST be formal also. Yet it is currently impossible to do this in the UK, for the reasons stated.

Utilising an official NOTA option, in stark contrast to pointless abstaining or ballot spoiling, would represent an unambiguous, formal withholding of consent and a rejection of all the candidates and/or the system as a whole. It is therefore meaningful. Crucially, as stated above, it is 100% essential to be able to do this in any true democracy.

If the majority were to choose NOTA, whether nationally or in specific constituencies, that would render the result null and void, triggering by-elections and/or a national re-run election as applicable. That is democracy in action. (We have a proposal to deal with the logistics of this, see here: https://nota-uk.org/2014/12/11/top-nota-faq-what-happens-if-nota-wins )

The point, though, is that the very presence of this mechanism would force all parties to lift their game and appeal to more voters, potential NOTA voters included, or risk the embarrassment of having more people actively, formally reject them than vote for them. Not spread out over several parties and therefore obscured, but visibly, undeniably, all in one place.

Think about that for a second.

The knock on effect of this ought to be that parties would feel obliged to put forward more universally acceptable and ‘decent’ policies and candidates, giving disillusioned voters something to vote for in the first place.

THAT is the whole point of NOTA. It is a vital check and balance in any truly democratic system, currently missing from ours. And because it can be shown to be a democratic pre-requisite, it is achievable – as the powers that be can never be seen to be anti-democratic (even if they are in practice).

Without NOTA, literally nothing is going to change. Because no amount of getting more people to vote can make any difference in the current paradigm, for the simple reason that, no matter what, there are only two parties that can ever really call the shots in practice, even in the age of coalition governments, and neither of those parties have any incentive or reason to introduce reforms that are seen as desirable only and not 100% essential. (More on that here: https://nota-uk.org/2015/04/18/problem-reaction-solution-why-understandable-efforts-to-encourage-high-voter-turnout-misses-the-point/ )

When you really understand that the problem is not lack of engagement with the system but the system itself, it becomes clear that the solution is not to endorse the system further but to actively change it from the ground up. The way to do that is to campaign for the achievable reform of NOTA, in the first instance, as it is the ground zero of electoral reform upon which all other democratic reform could be built.

The efforts of all those calling for electoral and democratic reform are commendable. But very few are seeing this bigger picture and taking the systems thinking approach that we are. If all those people and groups were to get on board with us, then we really would be on our way to making the current, fundamentally undemocratic UK electoral system a thing of the past.

Crucially, thanks to NOTA UK’s lobbying, we have a unique window of opportunity between now and May 2016 to lobby the next government hard to make NOTA a reality. We have written an open letter to all party leaders to find out where they stand on the issue in light of this development. (See here: https://nota-uk.org/2015/03/30/an-open-letter-to-the-leaders-of-all-uk-political-parties/)

Feel free to respond in the comments or by email ( stan(at)notauk.org ). Bear in mind that I reserve the right to publish conversations if I feel doing so may further understanding of and/or support for our cause.

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
22/04/15

Problem, Reaction, Solution: Why understandable efforts to boost voter turnout miss the point

April 18, 2015 Comments: 2

UPDATE: To be clear, NOTA UK are NOT ‘telling people to not vote’ as has been claimed. We are saying do whatever makes sense to you on polling day. But if you care about improving democracy, then please take the time to fully understand the system you are participating in so that you may evaluate the potential impact, or lack of impact, that your vote, or non-vote, will have in your constituency.

While it is commendable that so many prominent figures are urging people to register to vote and encouraging them to use their vote at the 2015 election, it is incredibly frustrating for anyone who understands how the current electoral system actually works that the false idea that we can vote our way into a better paradigm is being peddled alongside this.

The ‘if more people vote things will change’ myth is easily debunked. The myth goes that because 15.9 million people didn’t vote at the last election and the party with the most votes got only 10.7 million, if those people were to vote this time a result other than a Tory or Labour majority government, or a coalition with one or other of those two parties calling the shots, would be possible.

To illustrate why this is a false belief, I will use the example of my own constituency of Horsham.

First though, I will briefly outline how our First Past The Post (FPTP) system gives an unfair advantage to Labour and the Tories from the off.

Designed for two party politics, and therefore totally inappropriate in a multi-party system, FPTP ensures a two horse race in the vast majority of constituencies every single time. Not always between Labour and the Tories, sometimes it is Labour and the Lib Dems, or Lib Dems and the Tories, or even a smaller party and one of the big three. But in most seats, one or other of the only two in the running will be Labour or the Tories as they are the most established parties with the strongest traditional support bases nationally.

To form a government it is necessary for a party or coalition of parties to win a majority of seats in parliament. But because FPTP decrees that the candidate with the most votes in each seat wins even if the majority of voters voted against them (spread out over several parties), the percentage of vote share for each party never corresponds to the percentage of seats they have won. Example: in 2010 the Tories got 36.1% of the votes nationally but 47.1% of seats in parliament while the Lib Dems got 23% of the vote share but only 8.8% of seats.

This BBC ‘majority builder’ game helpfully, but unintentionally, illustrates how weighted towards the two main parties our current electoral system is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32336071

Now – in Horsham, a safe Tory seat, Frances Maude won in 2010 with around 29,000 votes. The 2nd placed Lib Dem candidate had around 18,000. Around 22,000 didn’t vote. On the surface of it, it seems that if those people had voted the result could have been affected, because mathematically, that is possible.

But look deeper and that notion starts to look increasingly implausible.

In order to have affected the result in any way, at least half of those non-voters would not only have had to have voted, but they would have ALL have had to have voted Lib Dem. It is extremely unlikely that that percentage of such a large group would all support the Lib Dems and no other parties if forced to choose. So they would also all have had to have decided to vote tactically just to keep the Tories out. That is a completely improbable outcome, given that 18,000 people already had voted Lib Dem, many of whom will probably have voted tactically also.

This situation is mirrored in over 300 seats around the country, most of which are rendered safe Tory or Labour seats (+ a comparative handful of safe Lib Dem, SNP & Plaid Cymru ones) by virtue of the FPTP voting system which, remember, renders the vast majority of seats a two horse race with all other parties completely redundant.

Think about it. It is simply not realistic to believe that just because getting more people to vote could mathematically cause an upset at an election that it actually will. It’s nowhere near as simple as that. It is wishful thinking to believe otherwise.

To believe that the problem with our ‘democracy’ can be solved by more people voting is to fundamentally misunderstand this problem. The problem is that our system ISN’T a democracy in the first place. The system is designed in such a way as to ensure two party hegemony at all times, even in the age of coalitions, as the voting system still ensures that the two main parties have way more seats than all their potential coalition partners put together, so one of them will always call the shots even in a coalition government.

For this reason, either Labour or the Tories are the only parties that can ever wield any real power in the UK as things stand, no other outcome is possible. That’s not my opinion, it is the stark reality that reveals itself when you really look into what’s going on and how this system works.

To think this paradigm can be changed by further legitimising and endorsing it is pure delusion. The paradigm needs to change first. The logical starting point for that is to get a functioning ‪#‎NoneOfTheAbove‬ option on ballot papers in the first instance and then use the newly levelled playing field to push for further reform. Seriously – how else is that going to happen?!

And to those who try to claim that coming at the problem from this angle is negative, I say this: is it positive or negative to delude oneself as to the true extent and nature of a problem? Is it positive or negative to have fully understood a problem and exhausted all other possibilities before settling on a workable and achievable solution?

Take as long as you need.

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
18/04/15

GUEST BLOG: Is NOTA a Legal Requirement?

April 16, 2015 Comments: 3

In an update to his guest blog from last year, NOTA UK’s Rohin Vadera further explores the question:

Is a ‘None of the Above’ option on ballot papers a legal requirement?

In September 2013, the Indian Supreme Court (SC) ruled that electronic voting machines (EVMs) must include a ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) option for the upcoming national election. Its presence was intended to provide the option for a voter to effectively spoil their vote in private, otherwise impossible given the way voters cast their vote through an EVM.

In this case the NOTA option allowed voters to come to the polling section to register their desire to abstain from the voting process. But it did not function as a true NOTA option, which is a mechanism to formally reject all candidates on offer and initiate a re-run election if need be.

The full judgement is available here: http://www.pucl.org/Topics/Law/2013/vote_none.pdf

What is interesting from the NOTA UK point of view is that the SC based its judgement on sections from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the latter of which India has ratified (as has the UK). The ICCPR in particular is a covenant that the UK is legally bound to follow and its terms cannot be overturned by an act of parliament, as I understand it.

Part of the SC judgement is laid out below:

49) However correspondingly, we should also appreciate that the election is a mechanism, which ultimately represents the will of the people. The essence of the electoral system should be to ensure freedom of voters to exercise their free choice. Article 19 guarantees all individuals the right to speak, criticize, and disagree on a particular issue. It stands on the spirit of tolerance and allows people to have diverse views, ideas and ideologies. Not allowing a person to cast a vote negatively defeats the very freedom of expression and the right ensured in Article 21 (of the UDHR) i.e., the right to liberty.

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The SC gave reasons why it felt that the NOTA option was an important part of the voting process:

55) Giving right to a voter not to vote for any candidate while protecting his right of secrecy is extremely important in a democracy. Such an option gives the voter the right to express his disapproval with the kind of candidates that are being put up by the political parties. When the political parties realise that a large number of people are expressing their disapproval with the candidates being put up by them, gradually there will be a systematic change and the political parties will be forced to accept the will of the people and field candidates who are known for their integrity.

I certainly agree with the reasoning. However, for NOTA to have a substantive impact as described above it must be able to affect the results of an election in a formalised and robust manner. Politicians are used to widespread approbation, so a widely used symbolic NOTA option could be shrugged off, or used in some type of political game that results in no substantive positive changes.

A symbolic NOTA option provides little incentive for disillusioned voters to express their voice as there are no clear and unambiguous consequences to that choice. Uncertainty is the worst outcome of all and undermines the use of this type of NOTA, as disillusioned voters would likely steer clear of the voting process altogether, instead of choosing an ineffective NOTA option.

The SC has also made the common mistake of conflating NOTA with abstention, using it as a mechanism to ‘actively abstain’, rather than reject, in the hope that it will have a positive impact.

So what is the relevance to the UK situation?

Firstly the Indian experience demonstrates that documents like the UDHR and the ICCPR carry weight in determination of election law and secondly there is a good reason to believe that these documents have clauses that require a properly functioning NOTA option that allows voters to reject all candidates with formalised consequences.

Before going into the aforementioned documents, readers should remember that NOTA confers the ability to withhold one’s consent during an election process and thereby ensures that consent can also be validly given, thus making an election a democratic process where voters are the sovereign power. Without NOTA you cannot have an electoral democracy. It is as simple as that.

What I hope to demonstrate is that not only is it a democratic pre-requisite, it is also a legal requirement for any country that has agreed to abide by the UDHR, and especially the ICCPR.

UDHR Article 21.3 is relevant to NOTA, in my view:

21.3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

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ICCPR Article 25(b) is also relevant:

25. Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without any of the distinctions mentioned in article 2 and without unreasonable restrictions:

(b) To vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of the electors.

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UDHR 21.3 is clear and unambiguous in its support for a bona fide NOTA option. If the ‘will of the people’ is the basis of a government’s authority, then that government must surely have obtained their consent first. And how can voters give consent unless there is a commensurate ability to withhold it?

This is of course assuming that the oft used phrase ‘will of the people’ actually means what it says rather than being a meaningless cliché, included for effect.

The ICCPR article 25(b) is a little more subtle, but once understood, equally compelling. Elections are supposed to guarantee ‘the free expression of the will of the electors’. How can that be guaranteed unless their consent has been sought and obtained?

For those in any doubt, if we examine the dictionary meaning of ‘will’, in this context it means: expressing desire, consent, or willingness.

How can any government that is based on the will of the electorate not have their consent? Once we can establish that consent cannot be formally given (by voting) without a bona fide NOTA option facilitating the formal withholding of it, the UK is, arguably, legally bound to provide it.

The ICCPR is especially important in this regard as the UK agency responsible for elections could theoretically be sued for breach of covenant if they failed to carry out elections as set out by the terms of the ICCPR and could in turn be liable for monetary recompense to the aggrieved parties i.e. all UK citizens. The ramifications are enormous.

I don’t recommend that anyone rush off to sue the UK government just yet (unless you allow me to join in!), but it is an interesting avenue to pursue should other ways of bringing this important reform into the election process not come to fruition.

Rohin Vadera

16/04/15

The full text of the UDHR and ICCPR can be found here:

The UDHR is here: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=eng

The ICCPR is here: http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx

Party Politics & Coalition Government

April 13, 2015 Leave a comment

I want to briefly talk about party politics in the UK and how it plays into coalition formation.

The first thing to note is that you don’t have to be opposed to party politics in general or all of the parties on offer to support the idea of having a formal ‘None Of The Above’ option on the ballot paper. You can support a political party and acknowledge the importance of being able to formally withhold consent at an election via NOTA, essential in any true democracy – these two things are not mutually exclusive.

At the same time, it is important to understand the reality of how our system works. There is much talk of coalitions at the moment, the favoured outcome for many being a ‘rainbow coalition’ of Labour, Lib Dems, SNP and possibly even the Greens. On the surface of it, this seems like a reasonable outcome, a potentially more ‘left leaning’ and progressive government.

But there is a huge problem here, one that is not immediately obvious unless you fully understand how our current system works. The problem is that even in a coalition of more than two parties, the party whip system, that ensures MP’s always have to tow the party line or face punishment, effectively becomes a government whip system, in practice, on issues that could ‘make or break’ the coalition.

In addition, the completely outdated and inappropriate First Past The Post voting system (designed for two party politics) ensures that the vast majority of MP’s will be elected with far less than 50% of the votes cast, while there are over 300 safe Labour and Conservative seats. This means that, mathematically speaking, the dominant party in any coalition will always be Labour or the Conservatives as they will always have more votes than the other coalition parties combined.

This means that, in practice, only one or other of those two parties can ever call the shots in government, no matter what the outcome of an election.

It’s a closed shop, a two horse race. Every. Single. Time.

This is why we will need to have an official NOTA option on ballot papers – with formalised consequences for the result if the majority were to choose it – before there is any point in trying to change the system by engaging with it (unless you are happy with Labour and/or the Conservatives ruling the roost for ever more).

For anyone one who wants to do the math(s), the latest seat predictions can be found here: http://may2015.com/category/seat-calculator/

Of course, a change to the voting system to one that recognises the existence of more than two parties, is long overdue also. But it can always be argued, by those that benefit from it, that the current system is ‘democratic enough’ and ‘works just fine’. NOTA, by contrast, can be shown to be a democratic pre-requisite as it is the only way to withhold consent formally at an election (consent being central to the concept of democracy and only truly measurable if it is possible to withhold it), the key word here being formally, as giving consent by voting is formal so the withholding of it must be also (the only other options being abstaining or ballot spoiling, both informal acts that in no way affect the result and therefore in no way constitute withholding consent formally).

Once properly understood this way, it becomes impossible to argue against NOTA without arguing against democracy itself. For this reason, above all other potential reforms, it is achievable and could pave the way for further reform of our system of government. This is why NOTA should be the priority for all pro-democracy campaigners at this time.

Far from being a negative cop out or a wrecking option, inclusion of NOTA on ballots remains a positive, logical progression towards an actual, true democracy, where the playing field is more level and more than two establishment parties – and parties not even of the establishment – can find themselves on an equal footing.

Only then will support for parties other than the main two actually mean something and the formation of coalition governments have the potential to be progressive.

Get involved here: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/inclusion-of-an-official-none-of-the-above-option-for-all-uk-elections-2

Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
13/04/15