Voting For Things You Don't Believe In

The announcement by the West Suffolk Conservative Association that candidate for the next general election will be decided in an "open primary" which will allow anyone eligible to vote in the next general election to vote on the conservative candidate regardless of party allegiance raises two important questions for those of us who are not supporters of the party, is it morally right or wrong to vote and what criteria should one use to decide who to vote for.

I have to look for an answer to what I tell people at the election proper when they look at the parties and tell me they will not be voting because they disagree with all the parties, After all I am in the same situation as all the candidates want David Cameron to be Prime Minister after the next genral election and I have to be honest here and say that personally I don't. At a general election I tell such people that claim this is a reason to vote that if they do not vote for the least bad candidate then they are in effect supporting the worst candidate. The maths here is simple, for every vote not cast for the least bad candidate there is one less vote the worse candidates have to get to win.

All the three main parties (and no doubt some of the others too) are made up of a combination of reasonable sensible candidates who will do a reasonable job (even if it is not totally in line with my own opinions) and the kind of morons, sociopath, extremists and nut cases that would be out right bad for the country if they got in to parliament. I have yet to discover much about the candidates who have been put forwards for this primary beyond their names and the most brief of resumes, but give the odds are that whoever wins this primary is very likely to be our next member of parliament I do believe it is my democratic duty to do my bit towards making sure it is a reasonable candidate that is put forward to the general election.

Having decided to vote it leaves me the question of criteria by which I will pass my judgement. There are no doubt supporters of other parties that would consider voting in which ever candidate they thing would be most unpalatable to the electorate. I do not my self hold to this concept. I would rather risk putting forward a good conservative candidate who will be effective at representing the real needs of this mostly rural constituency in a metro-centric parliament at the risk of increasing the vote of a party I don't much care for than risk West Suffolk returning to Parliament an absolute ineffective abomination with no care for area on the off chance it would damage the conservative vote.

So I'll be booking my place at the primary and voting for whoever seems the best candidate. After all realistically the odds are I'll be choosing Kedington's next MP.

Article by M P Upton
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