Election Apathy - Bring On the No Vote

Why don't elections have a box that you can tick which says "none of the above", which can be ticked by those people who want to vote, but who don't want the selection of politicians offered up to them? I think it would be a brilliant idea; much better than having to spoil a paper to make a comment like that, which always carries the implication (another thicko who can't fill in a form properly), and places the voter in the same camp as those loonies who do tick, cross, cross, cross etc

Now if there was a "no vote" box, just think how wonderful it would be if the results were:

Mr Slime 15% electorate
Mr Dozy 5%
Mr Drunk 1%
Mrs Doyle 7%
No Vote 30%

Note: they don't add up to 100% because there is still not a full turnout.

But how wonderful, that the No Vote is a decisive rejection of what is on offer. No politician can stand up and say "it is what the people voted for" or "its democratic" because, no, we did not like what we saw, and registered the strongest possible protest against it. No more would a politician be smugly congratulating themselves that a large number of people liked him (or her, but most are men) because an even larger number clearly did not.

The next step would be to make voting compulsory, and then they'd really get a hammering! The NO vote would rise!

Or am I too cynical? Well, there are some good politicians, some incompetent politicians, and some well-meaning politicians. But the culture of neglect of the electorate once they have got it is something very prevalent, especially among those who form the ministerial government and make decisions.

I remember one Jersey politician saying "we are representatives of the electorate, not delegates". Really? Is it possible to represent someone while looking for all the world as if you couldn't give a damm about their concerns and interests? Or is that a cheap excuse by a politician who knows he is not really bothered with the electorate now that he is in power? It is true that a politician cannot do as every person who voted for him intends, because there would be a mass of contradictions there. But like a painting of a view, even impressionistic like Ian Rolls, one expects to see something of what was there, and not an entirely different picture altogether: if I am given a picture of an idyllic sunny country scene, with farm labourers resting and quaffing cider, it does not entirely "represent" a caption which reads "the misery of the workhouse in winter". Representation must bear some resemblance to the thing represented, or we may as well give up the asylum to the lunatics.