If it was the UK General Election instead, I guess I probably would be more likely to vote, but everything I have mentioned about voting in the above comments still applies.

Im wondering if, like me, your apathy is perhaps to do with the fact its the Euro elections. The EU just seems so distant and the parliament is close to useless/pointless. What difference does a vote have for the future direction of the EU, id say none. The govts of the day (and the EU commission) dictate the direction of the EU and i cant see what difference it would make if the UK sent all Cons or all Labour, it doesnt matter who we send, but it matters who are govt is and what they want from the EU. The parties dont really even fight in the EU parliament for policy or anything, there certainly isnt any great political/ideological battles fought at EU level (or as far as i can tell, and if i cant then im doubtful the avg voter will). Issues concerning the EU is always framed within the countries domestic politics and if this remains the case its hard to see what the EU elections are really for. To me, its almost as if the EU parliament is tagged on to make it appear democratic.

So the question, if the UK election was June 4, would you be more likely to vote?

if the election is close enough that you do cast the pivotal vote, the election is in fact likely to be decided by an unaccountable judge

Where’d you get that from?

I can only think of one election in one constituency where a judge had to get involved in the last 12 years, that was Winchester IIRC. There’ve been a couple of drawn straws for local elections, but no election to Westminster has been that close for ages.

I’m in the process of trying to overcome my apathy. The expenses mess is I think the first chance we’ve had for genuine reform for ages, people know the system sucks now. That the Lib Dems have only sortof managed to make the running, and have managed to get themselves tainted in the “all the same” meme despite being overwhelmingly clean is really annoying.

The big problem as you know is the safe seats—direct correlation to apathy and direct correlation to corruption.

Political Dissuasion, Thanks for bringing the Frank Skinner article and your blog post to my attention. Both interesting reads.

One of the things that changed my view on voting was the research I did for my dissertation. I discovered that you are more likely to be killed on the way to the polling booth than to cast the pivotal vote. Worse still, if the election is close enough that you do cast the pivotal vote, the election is in fact likely to be decided by an unaccountable judge rather than the voters (as we saw with the Bush / Gore contest).

Sara, Hopefully I can distinguish myself from the non-voters who don’t care. Because the value of my vote is so infinitesimal, I can actually carry out my civic duty much more effectively by doing something else, such as perhaps blogging about issues rather than merely voting about them! A “none of the above” option wouldn’t do the trick because I would still be more likely to get killed on the way to ticking the box than for it to have any meaning.

I will go into this stuff in further detail in the upcoming posts.

I’m not suggesting you’re not in the know, but certainly have a lok at Frank Skinner’s piece in the Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/frank_skinner/article6382505.ece

I have already decided I won’t be voting, for various reasons as detailed in my post, but as for ‘getting cynical’ about it all? I figure it’s just facing the reality of how sh*t it all is when it could be so good, thus feeling fed up with it.

I’ll keep an eye on what you say over the next few days/weeks and best of luck trying to find any light at the end of the murky tunnel.

PD

I look forward to reading what you have to say in the coming days.