Voting : What's the point?!

In a matter of a few days, we have seen the different manifestation of democracy both on the global as well as on the local front.

The recent developments in Egypt had most of the talking heads, well, talking, while locally, the ruling government retained their seat in the Tenang by-election. There is also rife speculation that general elections will be called before the year ends, and one of the questions that I get asked with increasing frequency is, "Will you be voting?".

Voting is Cost > Benefit

In an article by the authors of the best selling Freakanomics, Steven B. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, published in the New York Times in November 2006 entitled "Why Vote?", they argue that:

1. Voting exacts a cost - in time, effort, lost productivity - with no discernible payoff except perhaps some vague sense of having done your "civic duty.


2. Statistically, the odds of your vote affecting the outcome of an election is very, very, very slim.
   

They also wrote about the results of an experiment in Switzerland where voter turnout is among the highest in the world. However, when postal voting was introduced as an alternative to making one's way to an actual voting booth, voters turnout decreased drastically. The researcher who did the experiment, Patricia Funk, concluded that the incentive of actually being seen voting by other people, an incentive which was absent in postal voting, was possibly one of the main reason why people were encouraged to vote.

What this translates to, is:

PEOPLE VOTE BECAUSE THEY WOULD FEEL ASHAMED IF OTHERS KNOW THEY DIDN'T, AND THEY VOTE BECAUSE THEY CAN THEN JUDGE OTHERS WHO DIDN'T VOTE!

The Star Newspaper recently interviewed the Malaysian Election Commissioner Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof and he said that an EC survey "surprisingly" found that the highest number of unregistered eligible voters resides in the most cosmopolitan of cities, like Kuala Lumpur and Putra Jaya.

I hardly find this "surprising", considering the findings in Switzerland. In a city like Kuala Lumpur, where one hardly knows his own neighbour, the veil of social invisibility makes it easier to avoid having your political apathy known to others.

But even in a city like ours, we may occassionally find ourselves cornered by a friend or relative, and we may be forced to either go into a long debate about why it doesn't make sense to vote, or (the easier option) just lie about having already registered/voted.

A few tricks that I learned from watching a very entertaining news parody "The Onion" to give the impression that you are well-informed and political savvy:

1. When you guests over at your house, leave the news channel on, and when they are just about to sit, turn off the TV and say, "I'm sorry about that. I promise, we will not talk about anything relating to politics tonight. I bet we can all use a break from politics at least for a night".
2. Draw a stick figure on an art bloc, and color it as if it had been done by a primary school student. Then bring it around after election day and say "Well, I just couldn't resist tearing this off the school wall where the election center was, it is just so darn cute!"
3. Blame others of being politically uniformed (great way of appearing informed yourself).

(For a full clip of The Onion and more tips, please click on the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXY_8cJlGMc)

On a localised level, I laugh at the people of Perak who voted in one government, and yet ended up with another. There is even a book written on the state's constitutional crisis called "Perak: A State Of Crisis". One of the more remarkable rumour (and I emphasise, this is just a rumour), was how one of the elected representative who decided that she wasn't too old to play leap frog, was seen driving around town in a new Mercedes Benz soon after her defection.

Then there is the constant tug-of-war between the federal and the state government of states not within BN's control? The Kelantan oil royalty, the Selangor water stand-off, and now, Penang's claims of a lack of support from the federal government in the economic development of the state. The futility of the entire voting process, from the consequences of voting which isn't always in sync with the voter's intention, to the lack of a viable party with untainted leaders, seems pretty apparent.

So, to quote the authors of Freakanomics (and also Super-Freakanomics), why vote?