Today is a rite of passage for me—not because it’ll be my first vote in Scottish election, but because it’ll see my first spoiled ballot. I’ve organised a postal vote for the occasion, so as to register maximum discontent. There’s something pleasingly absurd about going to the trouble of having ballot papers sent to me for spoiling, but I’ve now at last reached the point where I just don’t feel able to vote any more.
Until now, at each election I’ve been a voter in—from Parliamentary to Student Union—I’ve caved in to the feeling that my vote will have an effect in the world. I’ve even stood in a couple. Many anarchist colleagues report similar feelings, giving each other accusing looks all the way down to the polling station. We may not believe in “representative” democracy, but by Godwin we want to make sure the wrong person doesn’t get in.
This year, for me, that pressure’s particularly heavy. My constituency, Orkney, was until this year represented by Jim Wallace, former deputy first minister and a seemingly unassailable candidate. But with his departure from active politics there’s seen to be a political vacuum in the islands that the parties are rushing to fill. Our new Tory candidate particularly has run a stellar campaign, pushing hard on local hot button issues. Frightened of her potential victory, and without a Green or Socialist candidate this year, I know much of the Orkney left is looking askance at the box next to the new Liberal Democrat candidate in a flurry of tactical voting.
But not I. This year I give up. Not from apathy or laziness, but because I just don’t believe in it any more. I’ve been joking about the things I could do with my ballot papers—practicing my origami, making confetti for student theatre, supplementing my flat’s supply of Tesco Value toilet-paper—and my friends laugh, and then give me a very odd look. Not wanting to vote is quite like being a vehement atheist: everyone resents you for adopting the extreme position that they desperately hope isn’t true. And you’re just a little frightening.
Anyway, I’m going to fill in the ballot paper boxes with little anarchy symbols and smiley faces now, covering the remaining space with quotations from Proudhon. Beyond bringing a smile to the face of the counters, I don’t quite know what I hope to achieve with this. I don’t know what happens to the deliberately spoiled ballots, except being announced in a folorn little number alongside all the mistakes people make at the polling stations. Part of me hopes that someone somewhere reads the messages people write, and that they’re all compiled into a dossier in a dusty room somewhere—but I think that’s the same part of me that believed that voting was meaningful.
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