Campaigning for Real Electoral Reform, Now
On the 8th January 2015, NOTA UK member Rohin Vadera had an article published on the website Democracy Audit making the case for NOTA.
Two weeks later, Richard Berry, Research Associate for the Democracy Audit website and the London School of Economics Public Policy Group, responded with an article rebutting NOTA and citing three other reforms he deemed more important.
Here NOTA UK founder Jamie Stanley responds to Berry’s article:
To foster accountability and restore our right to dissent, we need another option on the ballot paper.
As Scotland’s recent Independence Referendum showed, a large proportion of the population can be successfully engaged in, and passionate about politics. Yet whilst the number of political parties offering their services appears to be significantly expanding – along with the scope of electorate choice – the fundamental option to reject all possible candidates in an accountable manner, remains absent. Such a re-buffal – for reasons such as uncertainty, dissent or apathy – is currently tied to a more fundamental rejection; that of our right as citizens to legitimately take part in fair and free elections, in which each of our voices, no matter the persuasion, carry equal weight and importance.
Our present participation is limited. Saying “no”, “don’t know” or “don’t care” are essentially illegitimate choices in Britain’s current election procedures. They are also viewpoints that – when held – systematically disenfranchise large segments of our population. Instead of respecting all opinions, our system demands conformity to historically dominant and simplified groupings. This inherently limits electoral choice and shuts off possibilities for progress, evolution and improvement. It also results in a loaded and skewed response by voters to the limited options available, whilst diminishing the value of the dissenting public’s voice. Far from celebrating diversity and complexity, our system seeks to streamline debate, limit our participation in it and rests upon the population’s tacit acquiescence to Britain’s prevailing political consensus.
As Susan Harrison noted on openDemocracy some years ago, what is so illegitimate about a voter who would “like to register the fact that I have taken the trouble to vote, have thought about things, and yet (found that) there isn’t really anybody whose opinions represent mine”? Simply not agreeing with those in power, or with those putting themselves forward for political office, should not be considered invalid. At the very least, “not being able to agree” ought to be acknowledged, accurately recorded and taken as a barometer on the legitimacy of a political class that ostensibly represents the whole population. Presently, voters are only left with the ability to spoil their ballot, which provides no measure of actual voter discontent and can be dismissed by political elites as an act carried out in error or misunderstanding.
The inclusion of an official “None of the Above” (NOTA) option on all ballot papers can help restore our right to contribute, our right to be heard and our right to dissent. Such efforts will re-invigorate Britain’s democratic tradition, and promote elements central to it, including heightening electoral participation, inclusion and accountability. It will also help to increase the people’s power to press for change through the ballot box, bolster our ability to demand better quality politicians – as Democrat contenders recently experienced in Nevada when they were all rejected in favour of a ‘None of These Candidates’ option – and boost electoral turnout, the decline of which is an engrained negative dimension of politics in modern Britain.
As Graham Allen MP has noted, “turnout for the last general election was only 65% – almost 16 million voters chose not to participate – and millions of people are not even registered to vote … this is not an acceptable state of affairs for a modern democracy”. The percentage of those voting has fallen dramatically since 1950, when voter turnout across the UK was 84%, and the country enjoyed a high level of political participation and involvement. Now, when 65% of an electorate votes, a party only needs 33% of the electorate to claim a majority and mandate to govern – hardly the hallmark of a healthy democracy.
Beyond this equation, current voter apathy has clear electoral advantages for those in power. Rather than needing to get the entire population galvanized behind a set of core political beliefs, the contemporary politician secures victory by targeting a small number of swing voters identified via focus groups. Low voter turnout makes the number of these critical voters even smaller. NOTA would act as a significant performance indicator for politicians, whose power rests upon electoral calculation rather than full electoral engagement. For the dedicated MPs who fully represent their constituents (and who are not moonlighting with a second job – a notable contemporary trend), a low NOTA turnout could be a noteworthy validation of their role as a community servant.
Importantly, change appears to be afoot for democracy in Britain and its constituent parts. At the beginning of December, the UK Parliament’s Political Constitution and Reform Committee asked the public for their views concerning how to improve electoral engagement. Apart from suggestions to lower the voting age to 16 (which will occur in the 2016 Holyrood elections), electronic voting, compulsory voting and holding elections at weekends, their online survey also asks whether ‘None of the Above’ should be an official option on the ballot paper. Whether you agree, disagree or don’t know, taking part in the survey can be the first step to making all of our democratic voices reheard. And for politicians opposed to having a “None of the Above” option, it is time to stop being afraid of democracy, and to accept your public accountability.
Originally published on openDemocracy.net Republished with permission.
Like Dr. Who and Sam Beckett, the group formerly known as Notavote and The NOTA Party has apparently once again morphed into a seemingly different entity. There is now an ‘Above & Beyond Party’ that intends to pick up where they left off after being barred from standing by the Electoral Commission. Below is my open letter to Mark Flanagan, the apparent head honcho. Feel free to share.
***UPDATE*** Apparently, Above & Beyond is in fact Mark Flanagan’s separate, further offshot from Notavote / The NOTA Party… which makes it even worse! Original letter edited slightly to make more sense in light of this.
Dear Mark,
Since its inception in 2012, Adrian Langan’s Notavote / The NOTA Party (now aided and abetted by your offshoot Above & Beyond Party) has consistently sought to cancel out and replace NOTA UK as the primary group campaigning for a formal None of the Above option on UK ballot papers for all future elections.
This is in spite of NOTA UK pre-dating their efforts by two whole years and in spite of the significant progress we have made towards getting NOTA in place for real since our inception in 2010.
Notavote / NOTA party members inadvertent (or concerted, depending on your view point) efforts to undermine the credibility of NOTA in the past have included:
– claiming that their party’s presence on the ballot paper constituted a bonafide NOTA option when it clearly didn’t,
– lying about their origins and claiming to have been set up in 2007 in order to get the jump on us,
– allowing known far right agitators to infiltrate their facebook group at an admin level,
– bullying and ejecting their own members if they spoke up for NOTA UK,
– and, of course, publicly attacking my own personal credibility at various times along the way.
They were recently prevented from standing candidates on a supposedly NOTA platform next May by the Electoral Commission on the grounds that the party name could have confused voters into thinking it is already possible to vote for None of the Above when it isn’t. This deception is in fact exactly what members of the group, a group that you yourself were at the time a part of, had attempted to do.
Your group’s reaction to this news was to encourage your supporters to believe that the banning was the result of a conspiracy to prevent NOTA appearing on the ballot paper. (NOTA UK’s response to this can be seen here: https://nota-uk.org/2014/11/08/nota-banned-as-party-name-by-electoral-commission/ )
I later appealed via our NOTA UK blog for you to finally put this perceived split to bed by publicly endorsing our campaign and acknowledging that your efforts must now be, and always should have been, in support of our campaign rather than in competition to it (see here: https://nota-uk.org/2014/11/28/appeal-to-reason-and-logic-re-the-nota-party/ )
There was no response.
Instead, you have now taken it upon yourself to re-brand the idea as The Above & Beyond Party, identical to its predecessor in all but name, and restated your intention to stand single issue NOTA candidates next May, now complete with a set of proposals to deal with a NOTA ‘win’, once in place, that run directly contrary to NOTA UK proposals that have been formally presented to a parliamentary select committee and accepted into the public record.
So – with all this in mind, please answer the following questions:
1: There is a parliamentary select committee survey and public consultation running until January 9th 2015 that invites members of the public to put forward their views on a set of proposed electoral reforms, including (thanks to NOTA UK’s lobbying) inclusion of an official None of the Above option on the ballot paper. (Survey: http://tinyurl.com/octv8r3 Consultation: http://tinyurl.com/oxboqy4 )
Why have you not mentioned this in your campaign material or made any effort to alert your supporters to this crucial, landmark change of attitude in the corridors of power towards NOTA?
2: Your proposal as to what would happen in the event of a NOTA ‘win’, aside from being completely unworkable, flies in the face of the solid proposal to deal with such a scenario that we have been promoting for years now and that the afore mentioned committee has accepted into the public record. (See here: http://tinyurl.com/mcqywys )
Are you purposely trying to undermine and cancel out the good work and massive progress towards NOTA for real that NOTA UK have achieved in the last four years? And if so, why? In whose interests are you acting, if not all who want to see NOTA on the ballot paper?
These are legitimate questions Mark. Because nothing that you or Adrian are doing is in any way aiding the cause that we supposedly share. By constantly presenting yourself as THE None of the Above movement, complete with strategies and proposals that fly directly in the face of our formally established ones, all you are doing is making all those campaigning for NOTA look like they don’t know what they are doing.
But we do know what we are doing.
The real question is: what exactly are you playing at?
I eagerly await your response.
Yours sincerely,
Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
10/12/14
On 13/09/14 I attended the Electoral Reform Society’s AGM to represent and debate our policy proposal, that the ERS start campaigning for a bona fide ‘None of the Above’ option with formalised consequences to be added to UK ballot papers for all future elections.
Needless to say, it was predictably frustrating. Out of a five hour day, only 40 mins were set aside for debating the nine policy proposals put forward by members, including ours. A token gesture, lip service, nothing more. A number of people complained about this, myself included.
I got less than a minute to talk about NOTA and then less than a minute to respond to one reasonable question about blank votes from a younger ERS member and three logical fallacy based objections from older members who evidently don’t understand what NOTA is.
But then again, why would they? I was given no time to speak and the society’s formal recommendation to reject the proposal was itself based on a number of clear and demonstrable logical fallacies and blanket misrepresentations of NOTA. (A point by point take-down of their recommendation to reject can be viewed here: https://nota-uk.org/2014/08/30/nota-uks-policy-proposal-to-be-debated-by-ers-at-their-agm/ )
It’s almost as though the upper echelons of ERS don’t want a fair and open debate on anything they have already decided they’re not interested in – like genuine, achievable electoral reform…
The only upside was that there is obviously a split in the ERS on this issue, even on the council, as a council member slipped me a note with an email address wanting to stay in touch as, apparently, some members are very interested in NOTA and want to help in the future. All the younger members I spoke to afterwards knew where I was coming from and were very supportive. I made sure to leave a few copies of our evidence submission to the parliamentary select committee looking into ‘voter engagement’ with all the info that I’d not been allowed to present. (See here: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/WrittenEvidence.svc/EvidenceHtml/7985 )
In the end, the vote on our NOTA proposal was 92 for, 128 against with 19 abstaining. There were nowhere near that many people in the room so we must have got a fair few postal/proxy votes. So not a bad showing at all really, all things considered. Thanks to everyone who took the time to send in their votes in favour.
I never expected to win the vote, the odds were always stacked against us. But it matters not, for me it was more about making our presence felt and making connections. We are still making the solid and indisputable case for NOTA and will continue to. Slowly but surely we are getting heard above all the noise and chatter.
Onwards & Upwards!
FOOTNOTE: The first of our four part video series is nearly ready and will be published soon, so keep an eye out for that!
NOTA UK ( https://nota-uk.org/ ) has tabled a policy motion for consideration at this year’s AGM of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS).
The motion tabled is: “The ERS should actively advocate the inclusion of a ‘None of the Above’ option that will require a new election to be called if more than 50% of ballots cast choose that option.”
If we act together we have a real chance of persuading the ERS to start officially campaigning for a ‘None of the Above’ option with teeth on UK ballot papers. NOTA is something that is long overdue in the UK and essential in any true democracy.
The ERS is the most influential electoral reform advocacy group in the UK and having them adopt NOTA will boost our cause substantially. At last year’s AGM the total number of votes per motion tabled was around 250 each. Our facebook group alone has the ability to get the motion carried if we act now and get our postal/proxy votes in on time.
Your postal/proxy vote needs to reach the Electoral Reform society by 10am on 11th September 2014. So there is still enough time to make a substantial impact if we act quickly!
All you need to do to vote is to join the ERS for as little as £1. Go to this link to join: https://electoral-reform.netdonor.net/ea-action/action…
The AGM booklet and proxy/postal voting form will be sent to you, it is also available for download from our facebook group via this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/notauk/10152221477846986/
Be sure to send the completed form to: Electoral Reform Services, FREEPOST ND6352, London N1 1BR, to arrive no later than 10.00 am on Thursday 11 September 2014.
Jamie Stanley and Alexander Scott will be attending the meeting on behalf of NOTA UK so you can nominate either of us to be your proxy voter on the form. Alternatively leave that part of the form blank if you trust the chair of the meeting to act on your behalf.
Nothing will change in UK politics until it is possible to withhold consent in a meaningful, registered way. This is an excellent opportunity for all those who understand this truth to have their voices heard.
Please take a few minutes of your day to help can get this motion carried and push forward our campaign to get the democratic pre-requisite of NOTA on the UK ballot paper. Many thanks in advance.
As part of our ongoing concerted efforts to install actual democracy in the UK, NOTA UK recently submitted a policy proposal to be debated by the Electoral Reform Society at its AGM on 13th September 2014. It has been accepted for debate – but, unsurprisingly, the stubborn and extremely set in its ways ERS leadership has recommended that its members reject the proposal. Below is NOTA UK founder Jamie Stanley’s email to ERS chief executive Katie Ghose dissecting their official position point by point:
“Dear Katie,
Please find below NOTA UK’s point by point dissection of the ERS response to our policy proposal:
“ERS believes in promoting positive reforms that are ‘pro-politics’ and aimed at modernising our democracy.”
Then it should be supporting NOTA UK’s campaign to get a ‘None of the Above’ option on the UK ballot paper, as that is exactly what it is.
“We believe that NOTA does not sufficiently address the bigger underlying problems and that the adoption of STV and other serious reforms are a more profound means of improving our democracy.”
The biggest underlying problem with our ‘democracy’ is that it is not remotely representative. Not least of all, because it does not include a mechanism to allow voters to withhold consent in a meaningful way. Consent is central to the concept of democracy – if you cannot withhold it, consent is immaterial. Abstaining does not constitute withholding consent, it is simply not participating and can be dismissed as ‘voter apathy’ with no further analysis. Spoiling the ballot is not withholding consent either as all spoilt votes are lumped in with those spoilt in error, the corresponding figure is therefore meaningless as a measure of voter discontent. The only way to meaningfully and formally withhold consent is via a formal NOTA option on the ballot paper. As such, it is a democratic pre-requisite. It would therefore be achievable if enough people understood this and were calling for it – because to continue to argue against NOTA in that context would be to argue against democracy itself. By contrast, all the reforms you are campaigning for are simply desirable improvements, not an essential device that is central to the concept of democracy, as NOTA is. This is why NOTA should be the logical start point for any and all electoral reformists. It is achievable in the short to mid term, with the right level of support and campaigning, and could therefore open the door to the further reforms that the ERS seeks – once in place.
“We believe that the real and wide-ranging choices for voters offered by STV should help to re-engage voters with a stronger sense that voting is worthwhile, rather than a desire to absent themselves from the process by ticking a ‘None of the Above’ box.”
Ticking a NOTA box doesn’t ‘absent’ oneself from the process. You’re thinking of not voting at all or spoiling the ballot (see above). Registering a vote for NOTA would simultaneously signal your active decision to participate in the process AND your formal rejection of all the candidates on offer. In other words, it represents official, recognised withholding of consent.
“Voters do already have the option of submitting a blank or ‘spoiled’ ballot paper which are also counted and recorded – though we recognise this is not precisely the same and perhaps does not offer the same means of expressing dissatisfaction.”
Spoiling the ballot is not remotely comparable to NOTA, as explained above. In no way does spoiling the ballot or not voting at all constitute formally withholding consent, something that it is essential to be able to do in any true democracy.
“To date ERS hasn’t taken a stance for or against NOTA, preferring to focus on a range of other reforms.”
That’s not true. You explicitly stated to me at an ERS fundraising dinner in 2013 that the Society considers NOTA to be a negative reform and therefore does not support it – despite the fact that, clearly, many of its members understand how and why it is inherently positive and do support it.
“NOTA appears to give a clear measure of political disillusionment but no real answer as to what to do about that disillusionment.”
Also not true. Our policy proposal includes a clear method for dealing with the logistics of a NOTA ‘win’. Specifically, a re-run general election and/or constituency specific by-elections, held no less than 6 months after the initial election and no more than 12 months after (time periods up for debate), with the 2nd placed live candidate or party taking office on a pro tem basis in the meantime. This would ensure political stability while the logistics of the re-run / by-elections are put in place and avoid the possibility of voter fatigue stemming from instant re-runs. A NOTA option with no ramifications for the result if it gets the most votes (the only token form of NOTA currently practised elsewhere in the world) is worse than having no NOTA option at all. That is why we are campaigning for real NOTA ‘with teeth’, as outlined above. Giving the electorate the option to reject all that is on offer and trigger re-run / by-elections could have a profound knock on effect for the political system as a whole. Far from leading to endless re-runs, we believe an organic cleaning up of politics would occur as candidates and parties realise that they have to work harder for more people’s votes, including would be NOTA voters, and stay true to their word if they want to avoid blanket rejection at the ballot box in the future. The result would be more participation, not less, and less disillusionment all round.
“We would rather focus on practical solutions that would profoundly change politics for the better and tackle disillusionment rather than simply highlight it.”
As explained above, NOTA, if implemented properly ‘with teeth’, is just such a practical solution. If a reform such as NOTA, that has the potential to shake up politics and political parties for the better if properly implemented, is not directly tackling the problem of voter disillusionment, then I don’t know what is!
“Council recommends REJECT, but acknowledges the important concerns and ideas raised while noting that this motion is not in keeping with current Society strategy and campaigns.”
I’m afraid the Society’s current strategy and campaigning amounts to little more than pissing in the wind and lobbying turkeys to vote for Christmas. The current system works just fine for the establishment, they have no reason whatsoever to take any notice of the ERS calls for the reforms it seeks. By contrast, as explained above, NOTA is achievable as it is a democratic pre-requisite that, once properly understood, cannot be argued against without arguing against democracy itself. With enough vocal support from the general public, it could therefore become an inevitable government concession in the short to mid term. As such, it is the logical starting point from which all other reform could follow.
“We welcome the debate on this question at the AGM and recommend that Council further consider this issue following that debate.”
Good. Because this really is the elephant in the room. In our view, ERS acceptance of the need for NOTA and commitment to achieving it as the logical starting point for any and all further reform is long overdue. We look forward to seeing you all at the AGM.
Yours sincerely,
Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
https://nota-uk.org/ “
Eileen Vagg at the Cabinet Office recently responded to our request for her to elaborate on the government’s position on NOTA. Here is my reply which contains all the points she raised in order, nothing omitted:
Dear Eileen,
Thank you for your correspondence. Allow me to go through it point by point.
1: “The Government considers that, when participating in a ballot, the position should be that the elector makes a positive choice of a representative rather than a negative one. It does not agree, therefore, that the introduction of a provision such as the one you suggest would be a positive step.”
This is not an argument, it is a logical fallacy. Specifically it is a ‘circular argument’. Essentially this: “The government believes electors should make a positive choice, therefore it doesn’t believe NOTA is a positive step.” Aside from containing a baseless, unspoken assumption that NOTA is negative, this offers zero reasoning for your repeated claim that engaging in the positive abstention of voting NOTA is a negative act. If you offer no logical reasoning to back up such a claim, it simply cannot ever stand up to scrutiny. The fact that you would attempt to dismiss such an important issue using such a clumsy logical fallacy suggests to me that perhaps you actually do realise that our assertions about NOTA representing the ability to withhold consent, which is itself central to the concept of democracy, are correct and that it therefore would be an inherently positive, democratising step to include it on the ballot paper – but that you would rather not have to deal with such a massive, game changing issue so close to an election.
2: “The Government believes it should be for candidates and the political parties to actively engage the electorate so they can make a positive choice of representation.”
So do we. Why do you think having NOTA would prevent this? On the contrary, if the electorate had the option to reject all candidates and parties on offer, then clearly there would be even more incentive for them to try to engage the electorate. One more positive reason why we should have NOTA.
3: “Neither the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) nor the United Nations’ ‘Universal Declaration on Human Rights’ (UDHR) requires states to adopt a particular electoral system.”
We never said it did. What we said is that these internationally recognised documents basically state that in a true democracy, elections must allow for the consent of the electorate to be sought and won before a government can be formed. As stated previously, consent is immaterial if it is not possible to withhold consent. Abstaining is not the same as formally withholding consent, it is simply not participating and can be dismissed as voter apathy with no further analysis. Spoiling the ballot is not the same either as all spoilt ballots are lumped in with those spoilt in error. Any spoilt vote count is therefore meaningless and does not provide an accurate measure of voter discontent. The only way to formally withhold consent at an election is by having an official NOTA option on the ballot paper with formalised consequences for the result if the majority choose it. In other words, without NOTA, the truly representative democracy that both the ICCPR and the UDHR call for is not possible. Ergo, these documents could be shown to indicate that NOTA is, arguably, a legal requirement in any truly representative democracy.
3: “The secrecy of the ballot allows the free expression of the elector.”
Indeed, but this is not irrelevant. The issue is not one of secrecy, it is one of consent and the ability to meaningfully withhold it, currently denied us.
4: “Your suggestion that an election is re-run where more than 50% of electors choose a NOTA option would lead to difficulties, not least of which is a lack of representation for constituents.”
What difficulties? The only difficulty it would lead to is that it would make it much harder for the current political elite to dominate the UK political system ad infinitum. For the already completely unrepresented majority in the UK, that is not a difficulty, it is progress. The one difficulty you have cited already exists, clearly. If anything, having NOTA would ultimately lead to better representation of constituents due to the knock on effect of having it (alluded to in point 2 above).
5: “The suggestion that there could be a temporary representation followed by a further election would not be straightforward and would raise a number of issues.”
But presumably issues not significant enough to actually warrant listing them. The only issue I see it raising is that it would level the playing field and cause the current political elite to have less dominance, a good thing for true democracy. Without a proposal to deal with the logistics, a NOTA win would indeed ‘not be straightforward’. That is precisely why we have put forward just such a proposal to make it as straight forward as possible. I note that you have not acknowledged this proposal at all in your response.
6: “The Government has no plans to bring forward legislation to introduce such an option on the ballot paper, but will keep under review the ways in which the democratic process may be enhanced.”
Well, we’ve just outlined a way in which the democratic process in the UK may be significantly enhanced and you have rejected it totally on entirely spurious grounds. So presumably, ‘reviewing’ is as far as the government is prepared to go on this issue. Also known as ‘paying lip service’.
Thank you anyway for your reply. We at least now know the extent of your commitment to improving our democracy. We will continue to make the solid, indisputable case for NOTA out in the real world with a view to eventually making it an election issue that can no longer be dismissed and swept under the carpet as you have tried to do with your response.
Yours sincerely,
Jamie Stanley
NOTA UK
http://www.nota-uk.org
Feel free to send further POLITE responses to Eileen Vagg at elections@cabinet-office.gsi.gov.uk
The People’s Front of Judea
I read an excellent article on Alternet the other day about one of the perils of getting involved with any kind of activism:
Should We Fight the System or Be the Change?
By Mark Engler and Paul Engler
It’s long, but if you have the time I highly recommend reading it in full. For me, it demystified one aspect of the well documented inability of social reformers throughout the ages to get their respective acts together, a problem so brilliantly lampooned in Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ all those years ago.
For brevity, in a nutshell, the Engler’s are saying that there are two vastly different approaches to activism:
1: ‘Fight the system’ – strategically attempting to reform and evolve existing structures for the benefit of all and the betterment of society in general through various means (this need not be done violently as the word ‘fight’ implies, it simply means engaging directly with the problem)
2: ‘Be the change’ – living differently, outside of the existing systems, in the hope that this will foster organic change on a larger scale over time.
The thrust of the article is that in order for real change to come about, both these approaches are useful and need therefore, ideally, to come together in some way – but that this is more often than not impossible due to the apparently conflicting nature of the two approaches and the people adopting them.
Although I’d never really thought about it that much until reading this article, I realise now that I instinctively try to ensure that my personal activism incorporates both these approaches to one degree or another, depending on the issue.
The latter approach is important because, as my friend, author and activist Cornelius Crowley recently commented elsewhere, by living a certain way we can “create social change underneath their feet, at the grass roots, in our schools, churches, synagogues, libraries, county halls and pubs, etc…” For this reason, I choose to live my life in a way that ensures I have as little as possible to do with systems and structures that I see as contributing to the continuation of the various endemic social problems that we as a species face.
The problem is, if that is all that we as activists are doing, it’s not enough. Because established power will still be able to use force to shut down and undermine these grass roots movements and it undoubtedly will whenever it can get away with it. Without actually addressing the structural and systemic problems that make that possible, at the same time as establishing grass roots changes by living our lives differently, tyranny remains the likely end result.
It follows then, that in order to be successful, activists and social reformers need to adopt both approaches in tandem. This is the reason why I devote so much time to making the case for NOTA, not to the converted, but strategically, to those who have the power to bring the issue to a head i.e. the mainstream media, the PR obsessed mainstream political parties, sympathetic members of the establishment and the like.
The Popular People’s Front (“Splitter!”)
An almost text book example of the extremely damaging gulf between the two approaches outlined above is the perceived split in the NOTA campaign between those campaigning for an actual ‘None of the Above’ option ‘with teeth’ on the UK ballot paper (NOTA UK, est. 2010) and those that believe mimicking it by playing the game of standing candidates on a supposedly NOTA platform is the same thing (Notavote / The NOTA party, est. 2012/3 – not 2007 as some of their members claim!).
For many in this latter group, NOTA appears to primarily represent a lifestyle choice, an opting out of society as a whole, a rejection of any and all governance. As such, they are ‘being the change’, to a degree, and are akin to the ‘prefigurative‘ groups referred to in the article – groups that were initially useful in terms of facilitating a shift in consciousness but, ultimately, an albatross around the neck of those strategically campaigning for the systemic and structural changes that all parties claimed to seek.
No doubt, many a potentially world changing movement has been scuppered by the short-sightedness and inability to see the bigger picture of the well meaning ‘prefigs’.
To confuse things further, in the case of NOTA, this perception of a divide is actually a false one, as the seemingly ‘prefig’ element doesn’t actually embody the changes us strategists seek at all. They are in fact conflating being able to withhold consent meaningfully in elections with some kind of uprising or revolution, rendering it an entirely separate enterprise in practice (which they then claim IS the real NOTA campaign – frustrating isn’t the word…). Although they would no doubt claim that what they are doing falls under the banner of strategically ‘fighting the system’, their misconstruing of what NOTA is and their promotion of it as a symbol of being ‘outside’, places them firmly under the ‘be the change’ banner, albeit in a somewhat ironic and inverted manner. Their election winning, establishment rocking fantasy appears to be merely an extension of that ethos.
Add to that the fact that some of their members routinely lie and use smear tactics against us in order to present themselves as the true face of NOTA (‘We were founded in 2007!’ / ‘We’ve already got NOTA on the ballot!’ / ‘NOTA UK? Talk about sour grapes!’), and the ‘prefig’ comparison starts to seem rather generous. These tactics hardly embody the principles that a campaign group seeking political reform ought to have, indeed they scream ‘more of the same’, I would suggest. A better definition for their approach to politics then, would perhaps be ‘non-figurative’. As in ‘abstract’.
Either way, these two groups are clearly not divided factions of the same movement, as they are often perceived to be. They are two totally separate crusades. One is campaigning for a structural, systemic change to the electoral system, the other is holding up that same concept as symbolic of its desire to live outside the constraints of established society. And there’d be absolutely nothing wrong with that – if it weren’t for the fact that the overlap caused by the latter is in danger of making it considerably harder for the former to do its job properly!
Tempting as it is, for the reasons outlined above, the all too easy ‘PFJ vs JPF vs PPF’ analogy in relation to those campaigning for NOTA at this time simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. So the next time you hear someone utter it, feel free to send them to this article.
Conclusion
Without a strategy that involves forming alliances with established power brokers to tackle and reform the systemic and structural reality of the injustice you are seeking to remedy (in this case NOTA UK’s approach to electoral reform), no amount of opting out of engaging with the injustice as it stands (Notavote’s ultimate destination, given how far removed their approach to NOTA is from the actual problem) is ever going to make a difference.
The injustice will trundle on regardless.
By Jamie Stanley
Founder, NOTA UK
UPDATE: On 28th October 2014, I became aware that Notavote, who were once infiltrated by known far right types Eva Silver and Junior Powell (see here: http://exeteredlnews.wordpress.com/2014/01/22/eva-silver-facebook-spam-lawful-rebellion-and-the-english-volunteer-force/), are now employing Britain First style tactics to promote themselves. Memes detailing Iain Duncan Smiths’s treachery and the like, things that people instantly want to share. Except that the text reveals that these are in fact adverts for a political party claiming to represent a bonafide None of the Above option simply by registering themselves as another one of the above. If you support our campaign for real NOTA, please spread the word about this, I cannot emphasise enough how potentially damaging to our prospects of achieving our goal this misguided group could be if they are allowed to hijack our campaign and undo all the good work we have done.
According to RT, The Committee for Constitutional Legislation of the Russian lower house has recommended MP’s support a bill calling for the reinstating of an official ‘none of the above option’ on ballots for municipal and regional elections.
This NOTA option was first introduced at elections in Russia in 1991. It was then scrapped in 2006 for ‘financial reasons’. Now, they are considering re-instating it.
This is a very interesting development. Clearly, Russia under Vladimir Putin is not known for its championing of human rights and democracy. And it could of course be argued that, in what is essentially a dictatorship, allowing such a pro-democracy option to exist amounts to nothing more than a PR gesture, as there are certainly more ways than one to discourage dissent and influence voters at election time in such a country.
That said, what is striking about this move is that the form of NOTA in question, whilst falling short of applying across the board nationally as we are campaigning for in the UK, is very much closer to the kind of NOTA with teeth that we are calling for than the faux-NOTA that exists elsewhere (more on the difference here).
This is, to our knowledge, the first and only time that a country has implemented, ditched and then proposed to reinstate an official NOTA option with real ramifications for the election result if it gets the most votes. A step in the right direction and definitely one to watch in our view!
More info on the NOTA with teeth that we are calling for in the UK can be found here.
Due to perceived schisms, the campaign to get an official None Of The Above option on the UK ballot paper is often mocked for its apparent similarity to the ‘People’s Front of Judea’ from Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’…
Fortunately, amusing as it is to think of it that way, this is far from accurate.
That joke was aimed at the political ‘left’ in general who are notorious for fighting amongst themselves whilst supposedly fighting for the same things.
But that’s really not what is happening with the NOTA movement.
What we have is this:
1: A grass roots campaign group focused on making the solid case for NOTA with a view to mobilising massive public support for it and eventually getting it on the ballot paper as an inevitable government concession (that’s us, NOTA UK est. 2010)
2: An ambitious political party attempting to get itself elected on a NOTA platform (Notavote – a potentially distracting contradiction in terms, in our view) and a second allegedly far right group trying to hijack the NOTA campaign as a way of furthering its insipid aims via this facebook group: “NONE OF THE ABOVE CAMPAIGN (VOTING)”
That’s not like-minded people fighting amongst themselves. That’s a group of people who understand and are actively campaigning for an achievable goal and two groups claiming an association with that goal to further their own agendas, some well meaning, others not so much.
There is a difference.
There is only one bonafide NOTA campaign – and it is this one. Tell your friends!
“SPLITTERS!!!” *
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* – humorous aside
None of the Above UK 