Godsends of democracy and broccoli - The Canberra Times

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Because I always think of party politics and especially parliamentary elections as theatre I cannot abide the notion of "early voting". Those urging us to vote early in this ACT election (full-page electoral authorities' 'vote early' advertisements appear in this newspaper almost every day and our chief minister very publicly voted early to set us all a role model's example of heroic earliness) are urging me in vain. Surely a better, more accurate name for early voting is premature voting? Surely for a voter to vote before parties and candidates have said all that they have to say, have promised all that they have to promise, is for a voter to go off half-cocked? To use yet another metaphor (for there are two in the previous paragraph, one of them only obliquely hinted at lest it give offence), to vote before the curtain comes down on the last day of permitted election campaigning seems as wrong as bustling early out of the theatre, one's mind made up about the opera or play just on the basis of what the company has played out on the stage so far. Voting early seems especially silly when, as is the case, every day of an election campaign bristles with new policy announcements meant to inform and to influence. Having voted disappointingly prematurely (three weeks before October 17's election day) the chief minister every day announces new plans and promises so as (and this is the traditional function and purpose of election campaigns) to give voters facts and opinions enabling them to cast an informed and opinionated vote. Cognitive dissonance there. How is an informed vote possible until the voter is fully informed? But when one has already voted every new day's new campaign announcements and enticements arrive too late and in vain. Perhaps I am too feverishly addicted to news, too influenced by the bubbling 24/7 minutiae of the news cycle. But I can imagine a zillion situation-changing, mind-changing things that might happen between when one prematurely goes off half-cocked with one's vote and when the last available election day dawns. What if, tomorrow, the party leader you have hitherto idolised or despised (prematurely voting for or against him and his party accordingly) says or does something or is revealed by a probing media to be someone/something you'd never dreamed he was? So, for example, I am not impressed, thus far, by Canberra Liberals' leader Alistair Coe. But should he suddenly late-breakingly, late-blossomingly say something charismatically noble and humane (speaking up, say, in sincere support of the persecuted Julian Assange) I might be moved to think again. What if, to give an extreme instance (but a parable that may vividly illustrate my point for simple-minded readers) the party leader you have prematurely voted for is abducted by aliens? After all one imagines aliens must be fascinated by our democratic processes and would like to probingly examine the sorts of people Earthlings choose to lead them. But once gone to a galaxy far away the leader you voted for three weeks earlier is no longer available to be the chief minister you chose him to be. What if, in the very last days of the election campaign a party promises at last to do something, create something, build something that has always been dear to your heart (this columnist has a thousand dreams for a better Canberra)? If you have already spilled your vote in the wrong place it is too late for you to endorse this vision that so floats your boat. If you've already voted it is too late to take these things into account. In some areas of life prematurity is not such a tragedy. One can try again. But since the electoral laws do not contain an "Oops!" clause that enables one to cancel one's rash premature vote and vote again, responsibly this time, your premature vote is lost for ever. And early voting is suggestive of a closed mind. If one votes Labor or Liberal or Greens adamantly early one is saying, the mind slammed shut (the rusty hinges of the mind's trapdoor creaking noisily) that there is nothing another party can possibly say or do that can change one's mind about their unfitness to govern. Then as well one would like a dollar for every time one hears a Canberran say he or she is "tired" of this election and has voted early. This is voting early to somehow make the election campaign go away, shooing it away by voting at it, as if it (the election campaign) is a swarm of blowflies. If one is "tired" of an ACT election spell/campaign what is it about it that one is finding so fatiguing? Is it that what parties and candidates are trying to say to us (their modest corflutes shyly decorating our verges, the unobtrusive candidates themselves shyly standing about at our local shops, palely loitering, hoping we will sidle up to them) is so intellectually demanding that it wearies the mind? Get over it, enfranchised petals! Wake up to yourselves elector snowflakes! Rise, rejoicing, to your democracy's opportunities and to the few and infrequent obligations it asks of you. Perhaps, just as our mothers used to urge us to eat up all our broccoli because a billion hungry children of the world would think a bowl of broccoli a godsend, we should be rejoicing over our free parliamentary elections and their accompanying campaigns. The oppressed peoples of the world would give anything to be wearied by a corflute-decorated free democratic election as clean and carefree as ours.

Because I always think of party politics and especially parliamentary elections as theatre I cannot abide the notion of "early voting".

Those urging us to vote early in this ACT election (full-page electoral authorities' 'vote early' advertisements appear in this newspaper almost every day and our chief minister very publicly voted early to set us all a role model's example of heroic earliness) are urging me in vain.

Surely a better, more accurate name for early voting is premature voting? Surely for a voter to vote before parties and candidates have said all that they have to say, have promised all that they have to promise, is for a voter to go off half-cocked?

To use yet another metaphor (for there are two in the previous paragraph, one of them only obliquely hinted at lest it give offence), to vote before the curtain comes down on the last day of permitted election campaigning seems as wrong as bustling early out of the theatre, one's mind made up about the opera or play just on the basis of what the company has played out on the stage so far.

Voting early seems especially silly when, as is the case, every day of an election campaign bristles with new policy announcements meant to inform and to influence. Having voted disappointingly prematurely (three weeks before October 17's election day) the chief minister every day announces new plans and promises so as (and this is the traditional function and purpose of election campaigns) to give voters facts and opinions enabling them to cast an informed and opinionated vote.

Cognitive dissonance there. How is an informed vote possible until the voter is fully informed? But when one has already voted every new day's new campaign announcements and enticements arrive too late and in vain.

Perhaps I am too feverishly addicted to news, too influenced by the bubbling 24/7 minutiae of the news cycle. But I can imagine a zillion situation-changing, mind-changing things that might happen between when one prematurely goes off half-cocked with one's vote and when the last available election day dawns.

What if, tomorrow, the party leader you have hitherto idolised or despised (prematurely voting for or against him and his party accordingly) says or does something or is revealed by a probing media to be someone/something you'd never dreamed he was?

So, for example, I am not impressed, thus far, by Canberra Liberals' leader Alistair Coe. But should he suddenly late-breakingly, late-blossomingly say something charismatically noble and humane (speaking up, say, in sincere support of the persecuted Julian Assange) I might be moved to think again.

What if, to give an extreme instance (but a parable that may vividly illustrate my point for simple-minded readers) the party leader you have prematurely voted for is abducted by aliens? After all one imagines aliens must be fascinated by our democratic processes and would like to probingly examine the sorts of people Earthlings choose to lead them. But once gone to a galaxy far away the leader you voted for three weeks earlier is no longer available to be the chief minister you chose him to be.

What if, in the very last days of the election campaign a party promises at last to do something, create something, build something that has always been dear to your heart (this columnist has a thousand dreams for a better Canberra)? If you have already spilled your vote in the wrong place it is too late for you to endorse this vision that so floats your boat.

If you've already voted it is too late to take these things into account. In some areas of life prematurity is not such a tragedy. One can try again. But since the electoral laws do not contain an "Oops!" clause that enables one to cancel one's rash premature vote and vote again, responsibly this time, your premature vote is lost for ever.

And early voting is suggestive of a closed mind. If one votes Labor or Liberal or Greens adamantly early one is saying, the mind slammed shut (the rusty hinges of the mind's trapdoor creaking noisily) that there is nothing another party can possibly say or do that can change one's mind about their unfitness to govern.

Then as well one would like a dollar for every time one hears a Canberran say he or she is "tired" of this election and has voted early. This is voting early to somehow make the election campaign go away, shooing it away by voting at it, as if it (the election campaign) is a swarm of blowflies.

If one is "tired" of an ACT election spell/campaign what is it about it that one is finding so fatiguing? Is it that what parties and candidates are trying to say to us (their modest corflutes shyly decorating our verges, the unobtrusive candidates themselves shyly standing about at our local shops, palely loitering, hoping we will sidle up to them) is so intellectually demanding that it wearies the mind?

Get over it, enfranchised petals! Wake up to yourselves elector snowflakes! Rise, rejoicing, to your democracy's opportunities and to the few and infrequent obligations it asks of you.

Perhaps, just as our mothers used to urge us to eat up all our broccoli because a billion hungry children of the world would think a bowl of broccoli a godsend, we should be rejoicing over our free parliamentary elections and their accompanying campaigns. The oppressed peoples of the world would give anything to be wearied by a corflute-decorated free democratic election as clean and carefree as ours.

• Ian Warden is a regular columnist.

October 10, 2020 at 08:00PM
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Godsends of democracy and broccoli - The Canberra Times

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