Democracy - Not for Everybody
Jul 25th, 2007 by Jim Kennedy
So, on Monday, with less than a day before polls close, I was looking at the ballot paper for the Dublin University constituency of the Seanad. I was fairly sure for which candidates I was going to vote, but my misgiving was this: should I vote at all?
I’m a firm believer in the importance of voting - at the very least it buys you the right to sit on a barstool complaining about the state of country for the next few years, particularly if you vote for the non-winning side.
I’ve always, however, had vague misgivings about my entitlement to vote at all in the Seanad elections - I have a degree from Trinity, so I get to take part in electing three senators.
Anyone without a degree or with a degree from, say, DCU, doesn’t get to vote in the Seanad election at all. Why is this? What’s the justification for this discrimination against non-Trinity degrees? Also, proportionally, my vote counts for more than that of a voter in the NUI constituency.
Graduates of Trinity get three senators all to themselves, whereas graduates of NUI Galway, NUI Maynooth, UCD, and UCC, despite being far more numerous, only get three between them.
Why, in this modern era, do people with degree-level educations from certain colleges get an extra layer of legislative representation in the houses of parliament?
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I didn’t vote, for the very reasons you list.
I have the joy of being able to vote twice - in the NUI and Trinity panels. I actually intended to vote (just in the TCD panel) but managed to misplace my ballot paper!
Why, in this modern era, do people with degree-level educations from certain colleges get an extra layer of legislative representation in the houses of parliament?
Because the people in the media and politics tend to graduate from these places and thus feel that they are more important then the rest of us and entitled to more votes?
I don’t know it is a shocking waste of tax payers money. I only voted as I knew one of the candidates who also had no chance in winning. And ran on a platform of extending the franchise. Alas we will get Ivana Bacik runnning around going on about human rights yet never questioning the fact that she ran for the senate with no promises to try and actually do something about one of the most important human rights the right to vote.
Conor,
I think if I was going that route, I would have spoiled my vote in protest rather than abstain. At least then ‘they’ would know.
Simon,
Yes, that’s the historical reason for this system. I guess I was more asking about the continued justification for this system, if there is one.
My ballot paper arrived without the ‘Declaration of Identity’ form so I had to go in to Trinity to pick one up. While I was in there, filling in the ballot paper in the corridor, Senator Ross walked in to drop off a big pile of ballots. I should have probed him for his thoughts on the subject - challenged him to justify his existence as it were - instead of exchanging pleasantries.
An utterly undemocratic institution. EVERYBODY should have a vote in the Senate elections. The fact that some people have more than one vote while the majority of people have no vote is sickening. Bet you nothing changes, though.
My vote arrived at my sister’s house, as I don’t have a permanent address. she wanted to know why I got one, and she didn’t, and I told her it’s because I’m considerably smarter than her, and her husband as well.
I’m just thinking, the Seanad and Irish blogs have an awful lot in common - at least in demographics anyway.
Think you’re absolutely right regarding the similarity of demographics, from my reading of Irish blogs anyway, although considering that the University panels still only extends to NUI and Trinity, there’s still a chance that a lot of web savvy DCU and IT students who blog are without a vote.
Even the Irish Times are banging on about the need to reform in their editorial today:
“In 1979, voters were asked to amend the Constitution to enable the Oireachtas to give all third-level graduates voting rights in a Seanad election, and not just those from Trinity College and the NUI. They did so. Nine elections later, however, the enabling legislation has still not been introduced. That shows an extraordinary contempt as much for the will of the people, as it does for the Seanad itself. The Government should now purge its contempt by doing what it should have done nearly 30 years ago, and without further delay.”
When it wasn’t in the Governments interest to do it during the previous two terms and when it has a comfortable majority in the Senate once again, what are the chances of it heeding such advise?
Nil, I’d say.
I didn’t know that the seanad had been reformed by the people in 1979, and nothing done yet by the legislature. That is actually shocking.