An obsession with voting

Published: April 30, 2009 at 8:55am

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When it comes to who should or shouldn’t vote we are sick. The Opposition rages in parliament because the government cannot guarantee that every single person on the electoral roll is eligible to vote, whatever that means. The government strikes off the electoral roll citizens of other EU member states who are resident here, claiming that they were told they had to register for each and every election.

One of the deputy leaders of the Labour Party, a former police inspector, does an Inspector Clouseau and hunts down people who, he claims, have sold their vote, been threatened as to how to vote, or been otherwise bullied into voting for X or Y. The whole thing ends in farce.

Jason Micallef proposes sending a ballot box to Cyprus so that the athletes in the Small Nations Games or whatever they are (sport bores me rigid) can vote on 6 June.

Even more hilariously, the government suggests amending the electoral law to allow people to vote on the eve of an election if they are going to be away on polling day. It won’t be long before the Opposition proposes another amendment allowing those who are going to be away on the eve of polling day to vote on the eve of the eve.

And then the government can propose another one, so that those who are away on the eve of the eve can vote on the eve of the eve of the eve. And before we know it, we can vote every day and have done with it.

This national neurosis is down to the fact that elections are so tightly fought. I can see where the paranoia might be appropriate in a general election that chooses the prime minister – and boy, will every vote count to ensure that we don’t get a Super One hack of very mediocre talents running the country in four years’ time.

But surely there is no room for neurosis in a European Parliament election? We can afford to relax a little and come across as a little less sick than we are: no ballot boxes in Cyprus, no residents struck off the roll, and please, no dead and dying on stretchers. Invariably, we are going to have the usual panic about cheap Air Malta flights and who uses them to come back to vote. Are they eligible? Are they not eligible?

I would say scrap the cheapo flights. Most people just use them to bum a holiday anyway, and Air Malta can’t afford the financial burden. If people are motivated enough to vote, then they are motivated enough to pay the full fare, which isn’t exactly crippling now.

With European Parliament elections, the argument against cheap Air Malta flights is even stronger. Air Malta operates them only to and from other EU member states, which means that those who are using the near-free flights have no need to come back and vote in Malta, because they can fulfill their duty by voting where they are.

The whole point of a European Parliament is that it is European. It doesn’t matter where you vote as long as you do so. To insist on returning to Malta to vote for Maltese candidates defeats the spirit of the exercise.

Something else that defeats the spirit of the exercise is our hostility to citizens of other EU member states who are resident here. Instead of looking at them as a potential market, the government and the Opposition, through the Electoral Commission, are stupidly crossing them off the list. The only party – and I struggle not to wrap the word in inverted commas – that is championing their cause is Alternattiva, which promotes itself as The Greens and so understands that it has a very good market right there.

The idea that citizens of other EU member states, who are resident here, should have to apply for inclusion in the electoral roll every five years is beyond ridiculous.

I can see no purpose to it other than harassment and the hope that many of them will fail to do so. Inclusion in the electoral roll should be automatic, just as it is for those of us who are Maltese. We do not have to apply for inclusion every five years. We are included by default, by virtue of our identity card and being over the age of 18.

Non-Maltese who live here have identity cards, too, and there is nothing to prevent the same system being used for those of them who are EU citizens.

The fact that it is not raises questions about the real motivation for all these obstacles being put in their path. The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that the government and the Opposition do not want their votes, which means that they are afraid of their votes. This is nonsense. Citizens of other EU member states present an opportunity to the political parties, not a grievous challenge.

Now the European Commission Representation and the European Parliament Office in Malta have written to the Electoral Commission demanding the re-inclusion of citizens of other EU member states, who are resident in Malta, in the electoral roll. Almost a thousand of them have been struck off.

What is most absurd about all this is that Malta is Information Technology Island and has a mandatory identity card system even for non-Maltese who are residents.

The authorities know at any given time and at no more than the push of a couple of buttons how many non-Maltese are officially resident in Malta, where they come from, what passport they hold, when they arrived, and their address here.

There is simply no excuse for striking them off, leaving them out, or informing them – and this is pathetic – through newspaper advertisements that they must re-register for the electoral roll. Is the Electoral Commission wholly incapable of sending out a thousand letters, if indeed it must insist on this re-registration?

Within a few short weeks of my son arriving in Amsterdam as a very temporary student – he is there for only five months – he found a personalised letter pushed through his door informing him in 27 European Union languages that he is eligible to vote in the Netherlands in the EP elections, and explaining where he must go and what he must do.

He did not apply to be on the Dutch electoral roll. He is not resident in the Netherlands. He is a student, and not even one who is enrolled full-time at that particular university as he is on an international programme. Yet the Dutch authorities found him immediately and informed him of his right to vote, explaining how he should go about it.

In other words, the Dutch chase down all potential voters whether they have official resident status or not, and jump through hoops to inform them of their rights and get them to that polling-booth. We do the opposite. We bend over backwards to make it as difficult as possible.

I think that just about sums up one major difference between the Netherlands and Malta. It’s a problem of outlook and attitude. We still think of the vote as a favour to be bestowed by the powers-that-be, as and when they wish to do so.

Now the Electoral Commission has announced – as though it is some kind of sop – that citizens of other EU member states who are resident in Malta and whose name does not appear on the electoral roll should “appeal for a revision so as to be able to vote”. The only reaction that sort of attitude will elicit is a suggestion that the Electoral Commission stuffs the vote somewhere unsavoury.

Why should people be made to work at obtaining the right to vote when they have it already, by dint of being EU citizens?

This article is published in The Malta Independent today.




10 Comments Comment

  1. Andrea says:

    Excellent article!

  2. adrian says:

    Can we have a ballot box in Melbourne, please?

  3. john says:

    With reference to earlier posts – what’s tal-Muzew and what’s Cana? Has my education been sadly lacking? Or is my ignorance of these organisations the reason why I’ve been happily married to the same person for 30 years?

    Which brings me to the point of this post: although I was deprived of tal-Muzew when I was young, I learned other things from my mother. One of her tenets was: you can judge the level of civilisation of a country from the state of its loos. As I grew older and more foolish, I developed some ideas of my own. For example: you can judge the level of civilisation of a country from the level of interest in politics. The higher the voter turnout on election day the lower the level. The less interest in politics the more the level of achievement.
    When I was in the Netherlands (where I was given the vote – unsolicited) I had absolutely no idea what politics my colleagues and friends espoused, nor they of mine. It was just not a topic of conversation – not from any inhibition to discuss – but because of lack of any great interest. No matter who was elected the country carried on fine. No earthquakes occurred, and none were promised. There was no obsession with politics or with the vote.

    This is just one of the multitude of differences between the Kingdom of The Netherlands and the Republic of Malta.

    [Daphne – You’re spot on with your observation about politics/level of civilisation and voter turn-out/level of civilisation. It is precisely because we are so new to democracy that people are so interested and so keen to use their vote. That, and the fact that very many of us have experienced life under near-totalitarianism, when democracy broke down. It’s still too close for comfort, and given the fact that the Labour Party seems pathologically unable to reform and invariably chooses gross inadequates as leaders, it remains a major panic at every general election. The mistake that we sometimes make is to confuse cause and effect. It is not lack of political interest or low voter turn-out that make for a civilised and democratic country, but a civilised and democratic country that makes for lack of political interest and low voter turn-out. You’re can’t force the issue. We have to feel safe before we can stop bothering. And your mother was right about the lavatories.]

    • MS says:

      Excuse me for digressing from the main topic but the point made about lavatories is quite fascinating. The state of the lavatories in Trafalgar Sqaure, which have a very hip design, is quite gross. So what does that say about London then?

      [Daphne – That it’s full of tourists from places like Malta.]

      • Amanda Mallia says:

        [Daphne – That it’s full of tourists from places like Malta.]

        Last Saturday I was in the lavatories at the Playmobil factory with my six-year-old daughter, and we saw a grotesque grandmother-mother-child trio behaving suspiciously next to the paper-towel dispenser near the basins. It turned out that one of the women was ‘dispensing’ a great wad of paper-towels into her large bag.

      • MS says:

        Hehehe! Well yes, exactly what I thought. Therefore the whole concept cannot be really used as a yardstick, can it?

    • John Schembri says:

      I always judge how workers are treated at their place of work from the state of cleanliness of their restrooms.

      Where there is instability and uncertainty the voter turnout is higher. One has to keep in mind also that we have two opposing political TV stations and another two opposing radio stations. Need you have anything else to have a 97% turnout?

      What amused me is the boomerang effect which Jason tal-fjuri created when he asked for the Cyprus ballot box.

  4. Tonio Farrugia says:

    If Air Malta can afford to give free flights to voters, they could do worse than emulate British Airways which is giving free flights to SMEs to help them enter new export markets. http://article.wn.com/view/WNAT38DC45BFE2348F1638B57E73A3DF7C28/

  5. H.P. Baxxter says:

    There won’t be any cheapo flights this time round. That’s what I’ve been told by my secret squirrels at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    Just a small correction. It’s not that Air Malta “gives free flights”; it’s just that the government, instead of the passenger, pay all the tax on the ticket. So a) the tickets are not free and b) Air Malta doesn’t lose any profits.

  6. j n borg says:

    What’s wrong in bumming a free holiday? Jien gej naghmel dmiri bhala cittadin Malti u Ewropej……..Malta’s obsession with politics is down the politicians and you – the media. As nothing much happens then everything focuses on politics and politicians. They acquire that celebrity, demi-god aura. No one challenges, every one feels indebted and voting is trying to convince ourselves that we have power over this.

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