The Sacred Art of Voting

As explained to a 15th Century Time Traveller

Photo by Red Dot on Unsplash

Next week sees the most sacred day in our contemporary British calendar. On 4^th July 2024, there will be a General Election.

To time travellers who have recently arrived from the 15^th century, allow me to explain what that is.

This is the day on which many people show their faith in a religion which will seem very alien to you 15^thcentury folk. It is called ‘democracy’. Many people say they firmly believe in it. In fact, to say you were against it would place you on the level of an infidel or someone denying the Trinity.

This unshakeable confidence in democracy may seem especially odd given that it isn’t a religion, but a form of government. And it’s not a monarchical government, but one in which the population is ruled by ‘the people’.

You’ll know that this isn’t a good idea as you think people are the worst, so perhaps you’re thinking that people have fundamentally changed since the 15^th century. They have not. In fact, in the 20^th century, technological advances meant that humans could perpetrate acts of violence against such a number of people you would not be able to imagine. Many of these were committed in the name of ‘the people’, making the Inquisition look rather toothless and quaint.

In Britain, we technically don’t have a pure democracy. We still have a monarch and a parliament. The King is also head of the Church of England which still exists, but not as you know it. Long story. Anyway, we muddle through.

Next Thursday, candidates are presented for election and every adult, male and female casts a vote. This naturally means that a household can now neutralise itself by a husband voting for one candidate and a wife another. This might seem like the household as a fundamental unit has been superseded by the individual. That may be true, but don’t bring it up. No-one wants to hear that.

Millions of pounds are spent by the secular state promoting this religion, particularly among the young who are often indifferent to their duty to vote. They are urged to register to vote, and then remember to vote on the day.

So important is this sacrament of voting in the modern world that in some countries, like Australia and Argentina (I’ll explain another time), it is mandated by law. Failure to vote without an adequate excuse could result in a fine. In other countries, like Chile or the Philippines, faith in democracy is taken so seriously that it must be done soberly. Thus, the sale of alcohol on Election Day is prohibited.

You will be pleased to know Britain does not have such strict policies enforcing participation in democracy. Constant media coverage, however, and continual speculation about the election results is discussed in great detail by the elites. Attitudes and opinions are monitored. Policies are scrutinised, although only in financial terms. There is no sense in which policies should be derived from any kind of deity, or be inherently moral. Moreover, candidates standing for election need not embody the principles they espouse. This standard was slowly phased out in the 1990s. In fact, candidates were freed up from the burden of living to any kind of agreed moral standard, other than not use certain words that have suddenly been deemed unacceptable. These words refer to the individual characteristics of people, not God, so they are not blasphemous. They are, however, treated as such.

Without Christianity as the dominant force, you may wonder at the aim of this religion of democracy. There is no shortage of future Utopias promised and imagined. These are not logical but merely aspirational: full employment along with the abolition of work; perfect health delivered by a system that is both free at the point of use and available to anyone who enters the country. Anyone who points out contradictions in these societal aims is either shouted down or excluded.

This General Election is only held every 4-5 years, although they have been much more fashionable recently. In this crucial festival, adults over the age of 18 (who don’t even need to own property!) turn up to a building commandeered to be a ‘Polling Station’. Sometimes these buildings are churches.

You receive a piece of paper – or ballot – and go behind a curtain in order to place an ‘X’ in a box next to the name of the preferred candidate, before folding it and posting it into a ballot box.

This sacred day has been observed on a Thursday since 1931. The rules are the same for elections held locally, unless there is a clash with a religion of greater authority, in which case the democracy gives way.

This happened in 1978 when the Scottish town of Hamilton held a by-election on a Wednesday so as not to interfere with the kick-off of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina the next day.

Thursday is regarded as most sensible since it also means that it does not disrupt other sacred tasks on other allotted days, like Saturdays, reserved for mowing the lawn and taking rubbish to the tip, and Sunday, set aside for washing the car (imagine a horse with wheels that drinks concentrated alcohol).

Anyway, it’s all very jolly. Everyone brags about having exercised there democratic right, saying how important it is, but almost in the same breath saying that it won’t make any difference. And I’m not sure it does. Isn’t that extraordinary? Perhaps the 15^th century doesn’t look so bad.