Musics I done

Friday, July 04, 2014

I done had a thought

I was at a training day at a university the other day, and I actually felt a thought.

I'll write about the thought in a minute, but the sensation was revelatory. It was a proper, quick-grab-a-notebook moment, totally exciting but also a bit of a grim reminder that my brain used to experience that feeling all the time. 

A day out of work, an opportunity to study and read leisurely, and I'm of having thoughts again. That makes me optimistic about when these nightmare few years are over; but there's still the matter of school, which already leaves me as a husk before I even get home to the children. I'm currently only up writing this now because I think there's a mouse behind the coffee table and I'm waiting quietly to see if i can spot it.

The thought - if you're interested - is a reform to voting procedures. I was reading Manjit Kumar's (brilliant) 'Quantum' (it's a big factual book and I tore through it) , and got to the point where the nazis get in; a little bit uncomfortable, given the recent European results. And I thought - thought - what would be wrong with knowing how people who had been in before you had voted? Not individually, but as a group. Because I'd like to vote ideologically, but I'd just like to know before i did whether or not it would to use my vote tactially.

This has similarities to a run-off voting but without the hassle of marking out your choices. I can see no harm in just knowing what other people have done before you cast your vote.

Of course, the early voters would get to set an agenda, but then it just encourages people to get out and actually vote. Or would it encourage people to wait until the last minute and them block vote? That wouldn't actually be good.

If you vote first, you get to make you ideological vote; assuming the demographic doesn't change over the course of the day, and the ward is a sensible size, then it doesn't matter high individuals vote. A picture is started to be built of the way the voting would be going under our current system; then people can start ditching their ideal choice to keep out someone they don't want, if they need to.

It just seems like that important bit of feedback would actually aid democracy.  

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