Every Vote Counts

    by | Articles, Commentary, Ireland, Politics and Society

    (The Nationalist, 18 October 2002)

     

    We are to go back to the ballot box to vote again on the Nice Treaty on Saturday, 19 October 2002. Once more, with feeling, as the music teacher used to say.

    Just think of these election results:

    • In 1989, Dermot Ahern beat Jimmy Mulroy in Louth by 6 votes.
    • In 1992, Ben Briscoe beat Eric Byrne in Dublin South by 5 votes.
    • In 1987, Dick Spring beat Tom McEllistrim in Kerry North by 4 votes.
    • In 2010, Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Féin retained her seat in Fermanagh by 4 votes.
    • In 2002, Katherine Sinnott beat John Dennehy by 3 votes. On a re-count, he beat her by 2 votes. On yet another recount, he beat her by 6 votes.
    • Also in 2002, Dan Neville beat Michael Finucane in Limerick West by 1 vote.

    Every vote counts.

    In the second divorce referendum in 1995 the margin between the two sides was 9,116 votes, in percentage terms 50.28% against 49.72%. A swing of two votes per polling station the other way would have given a different result.

    The proportion of the total electorate that voted in general elections in the Republic in recent years was:

    1981: 76.22%
    1982: Feb.: 73.81%
    1982: Nov.: 72.86%
    1987: 73.33%
    1992: 68.49%
    1997: 65.92%
    2002: 62.73%

    The pattern is one of a steady decline in public participation in the electoral process. The saying is true, where civil rights are concerned, ‘Use them or lose them’.

    And in the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement, held on 22 May 1998, the turnout was only 56%. After 30 years of violence and 3,500 deaths, a full 44% of the electorate did not exercise their vote on a proposal to bring the bloodshed to an end.

    In a referendum in Quebec in October 1992, on the issue of secession from Canada, the margin was 0.6%. That was slim indeed on an issue of the greatest importance for the future of Canada.

    Each vote has equal weight. Whether you are a government minister, a professor of politics, or just plain Joe Soap, your vote pack the same punch. Anyone who doesn’t vote in an election, allows others to decide the issue for them. Every vote counts.