Voter apathy a symptom of alienation

Everybody agreed it was a bad thing but nobody was terribly surprised. The turnout in European, general and local elections had been dropping steadily for years as politicians irresolutely wrung their hands. For some of them, Dublin South Central was just a particularly bad example of voter apathy.

But voter apathy implied the blame lay with the electorate rather than with the electoral system; avoided the negative perception of politicians by a deprived inner-city community and ignored the fact that the outcome would not fundamentally change the balance of power in the Dail. Voter apathy was a handy get-out, a transference of responsibility.

Complex reasons underlay this historically low vote, but the key one carried echoes of the last - and only - sub-30 per cent turnout on record. On that occasion, way back in 1945, the race for a seat in Dublin North Central was regarded as such a foregone conclusion that Fine Gael did not even nominate a candidate and Fianna Fail retained its seat with considerable comfort.

On this occasion, the sudden death of Pat Upton created an automatic sympathy vote for the Labour Party. When it avoided party infighting and chose his sister, Mary Upton, as the candidate, she was immediately installed as the bookies' favourite.

From there, as far as Fianna Fail and Fine Gael were concerned, it was all downhill. They selected their candidates and worked hard locally but people at national level had already written off the investment.

You could see it in the national media coverage. The campaign never took off. Contrasted with the Cork South Central by-election, where Simon Coveney succeeded in retaining his father's seat, it was one large anti-climax. The level of political investment by Bertie Ahern and John Bruton was way down and journalists were well able to read the runes.

Seamus Brennan accepted as much. The Government chief whip said that from the very beginning, there had been "an unwritten feeling that the seat was almost settled". As a result, he said, "you didn't have the kind of sharp political exchanges you would have had otherwise". The fact that the destination of the seat wasn't going to change the Government had also contributed to the low turnout, he felt.

Polling by the two major parties would have confirmed those views and figures from previous elections gave them credence. In 1997, Labour and Democratic Left took a combined vote of 21.7 per cent in what was, for them, a disastrous general election. But when the tide had flowed for Labour in 1992, that figure reached 37 per cent and their combined vote had exceeded that received by Fianna Fail and by Fine Gael. In hard-nosed political terms, there was no point in investing scarce political capital in a losing battle.

Of course, that's not the whole story. A sharp decline has taken place in voter participation. Last year, the Government was so concerned about the phenomenon it arranged for the European Parliament elections to be held in conjunction with the local elections in order to secure a respectable turnout.

Public perception of politics and politicians is, of necessity, a contributing factor. In that regard, disclosures about Charlie Haughey's finances, his shirts and his lifestyle have done great damage, as have linkages between politics and big business. A them-and-us divide, particularly between politicians and the electorate in deprived constituencies, has become more evident.

A vox pop conducted by RTE identified the gap clearly. Local people felt politics had nothing to offer in terms of changing their lives for the better. Many were alienated and felt politicians had not kept their promises.

The malaise is not confined to marginalised communities. A survey by the National Youth Council of Ireland found that we have the lowest level of young voter participation within the EU, with only 40 per cent using their franchise compared to 97 per cent in Belgium. It is also reflected in other age cohorts. People over 55 years of age are twice as likely to vote as those under 35 years. Politicians have lost the younger voter.

Immediately after the election of Mary Upton, Ruairi Quinn asked for an all-party Oireachtas committee to examine the situation. He was joined by Eamon Gilmore who called for a fundamental review of the voting register, given that only 45 per cent of young people sign on. John Gormley of the Green Party suggested Saturday voting by electronic methods, and Noel Dempsey offered to facilitate them all in future deliberations.

But the Minister for the Environment and Local Government has other fish to fry, in terms of an electoral system to replace multiseat PR. Changing the electoral system in the way he intends would actually reduce the power of the electorate.

Change is in the air. An experimental electronic voting machine was used for the first time in Dublin South Central. It displayed the voting paper on a large screen in a private booth and voters listed their choices by pressing buttons. It was used (not for formal voting) by more than 160 people and declared a success.

But what about the future of tallymen and the long, blood-stained days and nights of general election counts? All that heritage could disappear at the click of an electronic switch. It may be premature, however, to worry. Politicians have talked about introducing electronic voting to the Dail for the past 20 years. We are still waiting.