Voter behaviour is critical

Election credibility often comes up in discussions about poll results and whether it’s safe from rigging and other related electoral offences.  I don’t dispute this portrayal—and would even love to see any correlated issues sorted out to the satisfaction of all contestants so that we can all pleasantly move forward.

But I would appreciate if we went a notch higher and probed how voter behaviour and balloting picks compromise election integrity as well as the very essence and rationality of holding an election.

Voters—at least from the folk theory of electoral democracy—are the deciders on matters governance. How they go about it would enhance or deduct from the quality and uprightness of the election as their choices have democratic ramifications.

George Carlin famously said: “Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: Politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do these people think these politicians come from? ...Garbage in, garbage out.... So, maybe it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here...like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There’s a nice campaign slogan for somebody: ‘The Public Sucks...”

In Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Governments, Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels brilliantly discuss how the wonderful ideals of democracy are incapacitated by this dark reality of the behaviour of voters to base their voting decisions to group and partisan interests of their social identities, complete with its biases, rather than objectively pivoting on issues, ideologies or policy preferences.

Even if angels oversaw our polls, that wouldn’t take away the equally important credibility question that emanates from voter behaviour, which somehow preserves the bad leadership problem.

Mr Mohamed is a communication specialist. [email protected].