IF WE believe in the conventional wisdom marketed by some highly publicised opinion polls about voter behaviour patterns in South Africa, the pivotal moments for winning voter support in any election campaign come in the last 30 days or so before the election date.
The only problem with this claim is that, by such a late stage, nearly all of the people expected to turn out to vote have long since made up their minds about who to vote for; thus last-minute appeals tend to fall on unreceptive ears.
But how pivotal will the final weeks before the 2014 elections be following the announcement by Ronnie Kasrils and other ANC stalwarts of a campaign dubbed “Sidikiwe! Vukani! Vote No”.
Its aim, according to its leaders, is to get struggle activists and others not to vote for the ruling party – or at least to spoil their ballots.
Some people believe the campaign may have already missed the boat. Voter decisions were largely predictable, even before the launch of the election manifestos.
This is because voters tend to evaluate political parties with a confirmatory bias. Specifically, voters begin a memory search by looking for reasons to select rather than reasons not to select a specific political party.
Because of this, when considering a list of candidates, voters probably search memory primarily for reasons to vote for each contender rather than for reasons to vote against him or her, or to spoil their vote.
However, given the high number of registered voters in these elections, it is important to consider the few people out there who are still truly undecided. And if people in this group were to heed the call to spoil their votes, perhaps their actions could in some way be crucial to the outcome.
According to the Electoral Commission, just over 24.1 million South Africans have registered to vote. This is almost 77% of the estimated voting age population which, according to Statistics SA, is 31.4 million.
South Africa has a large population of young voters and this time 2.3 million young people have registered to vote for the first time. Also, two voter registration drives were held in South Africa’s 123 missions in 108 countries around the world, yielding over 3703 potential voters from about 70 missions. Also important is that a significant number of prisoners in South Africa’s 235 correctional facilities are expected to participate in these elections.
Looked at in this light, the campaign for a spoilt vote is likely to have an impact if it can convince an audience that is closely identified with the undecided voters.
The undecided actually exemplify a type of political flexibility most of us often claim to admire, but often denigrate in practice. A healthy portion of undecided voters seem to understand when they are out of step with their political party and this sometimes drives them to the opposing candidate.
We saw this trend in KwaZulu-Natal when the Inkatha Freedom Party lost the urban vote to the ANC after, among a long list of other things, the IFP opposed the extension of the child social grant to children up to 18 years based on the mistaken belief that it encouraged teenage pregnancy.
Let’s now move away from political party preferences to another canonical driver of voter participation in the South African elections: attitudes towards the importance of the right to vote.
Over the years we have been reminded as a nation that our constitution puts emphasis on the value of the right to vote and the right to free and fair elections. The reason for this is that it was only in 1994, after a long struggle, that the right to vote was extended to all South Africans. The achievement of a democracy and of the right to vote therefore remains fresh in our memories. And more particularly this year, because the generation born after 1994 will be voting for the first time.
Some of us have spent months encouraging citizens to register and to vote in these elections. Collectively we persuaded first-time voters to go to the polls by explaining that every vote counts.
Given this context, would it not be true then, that spoiling a vote will amount to a missed opportunity to step into the flowing river of democracy?
Spoiling a vote will surely damage our maturing democracy in at least two ways.
Firstly, discouraged voters may, at least theoretically, be led to believe that an ANC victory in these elections is a foregone conclusion and that being a vote spoiler fits in within a new norm of our democracy.
Secondly, in any case, any voter’s sense of public participation will suffer a bruising kick from the thought that in these elections we could end up with a distinct spoilt vote tally in addition to the newly-introduced international segment of the voter’s roll that came about as a result of legislative amendments correctly introduced to accommodate voters who will be outside of the country on election day.
Although the idea of a spoilt vote may have a strong intuitive appeal in so far as it accords with our understanding of desirable democratic practice, which tends to include the belief that voting ought not to be a forced act, it is the association between ideas about voting and the need to find constructive solutions to challenges facing our nation today that is at stake.
In that case, perhaps, a call for a referendum would be more appropriate as a method by which the entire voting population can be asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal of how to deal with the cancer of fraud and corruption that is decimating our country.
Yes, through a referendum we could still take appropriate action as a nation, but not in a manner that suggests that because one of us has a toothache we must all visit a dentist for a root canal procedure – as the campaign to spoil votes suggests.
As things stand, there is a risk that the campaign might pervasively restrict robust discussions about possible responses to the problem of dissatisfaction with the current ANC leadership by supplying over-simplified answers to difficult questions about the broader leadership challenges in our country, and by offering the use of a perceived power to spoil a vote and its ultimately superficial appeal to the sanctity of individual choice.
Maybe the number of those who heed the call to spoil their vote will be noticeable and significant – but I’m not betting on it because I am not one of them.
Nkosikhulule Xhawulengweni Nyembezi is a researcher, policy analyst, human rights activist and co-chairperson of Elections 2014 National Co-ordinating Forum
Resorting to over-simplified response to a complex issue
The only problem with this claim is that, by such a late stage, nearly all of the people expected to turn out to vote have long since made up their minds about who to vote for; thus last-minute appeals tend to fall on unreceptive ears.
But how pivotal will the final weeks before the 2014 elections be following the announcement by Ronnie Kasrils and other ANC stalwarts of a campaign dubbed “Sidikiwe! Vukani! Vote No”.
Its aim, according to its leaders, is to get struggle activists and others not to vote for the ruling party – or at least to spoil their ballots.
Some people believe the campaign may have already missed the boat. Voter decisions were largely predictable, even before the launch of the election manifestos.
This is because voters tend to evaluate political parties with a confirmatory bias. Specifically, voters begin a memory search by looking for reasons to select rather than reasons not to select a specific political party.
Because of this, when considering a list of candidates, voters probably search memory primarily for reasons to vote for each contender rather than for reasons to vote against him or her, or to spoil their vote.
However, given the high number of registered voters in these elections, it is important to consider the few people out there who are still truly undecided. And if people in this group were to heed the call to spoil their votes, perhaps their actions could in some way be crucial to the outcome.
According to the Electoral Commission, just over 24.1 million South Africans have registered to vote. This is almost 77% of the estimated voting age population which, according to Statistics SA, is 31.4 million.
South Africa has a large population of young voters and this time 2.3 million young people have registered to vote for the first time. Also, two voter registration drives were held in South Africa’s 123 missions in 108 countries around the world, yielding over 3703 potential voters from about 70 missions. Also important is that a significant number of prisoners in South Africa’s 235 correctional facilities are expected to participate in these elections.
Looked at in this light, the campaign for a spoilt vote is likely to have an impact if it can convince an audience that is closely identified with the undecided voters.
The undecided actually exemplify a type of political flexibility most of us often claim to admire, but often denigrate in practice. A healthy portion of undecided voters seem to understand when they are out of step with their political party and this sometimes drives them to the opposing candidate.
We saw this trend in KwaZulu-Natal when the Inkatha Freedom Party lost the urban vote to the ANC after, among a long list of other things, the IFP opposed the extension of the child social grant to children up to 18 years based on the mistaken belief that it encouraged teenage pregnancy.
Let’s now move away from political party preferences to another canonical driver of voter participation in the South African elections: attitudes towards the importance of the right to vote.
Over the years we have been reminded as a nation that our constitution puts emphasis on the value of the right to vote and the right to free and fair elections. The reason for this is that it was only in 1994, after a long struggle, that the right to vote was extended to all South Africans. The achievement of a democracy and of the right to vote therefore remains fresh in our memories. And more particularly this year, because the generation born after 1994 will be voting for the first time.
Some of us have spent months encouraging citizens to register and to vote in these elections. Collectively we persuaded first-time voters to go to the polls by explaining that every vote counts.
Given this context, would it not be true then, that spoiling a vote will amount to a missed opportunity to step into the flowing river of democracy?
Spoiling a vote will surely damage our maturing democracy in at least two ways.
Firstly, discouraged voters may, at least theoretically, be led to believe that an ANC victory in these elections is a foregone conclusion and that being a vote spoiler fits in within a new norm of our democracy.
Secondly, in any case, any voter’s sense of public participation will suffer a bruising kick from the thought that in these elections we could end up with a distinct spoilt vote tally in addition to the newly-introduced international segment of the voter’s roll that came about as a result of legislative amendments correctly introduced to accommodate voters who will be outside of the country on election day.
Although the idea of a spoilt vote may have a strong intuitive appeal in so far as it accords with our understanding of desirable democratic practice, which tends to include the belief that voting ought not to be a forced act, it is the association between ideas about voting and the need to find constructive solutions to challenges facing our nation today that is at stake.
In that case, perhaps, a call for a referendum would be more appropriate as a method by which the entire voting population can be asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal of how to deal with the cancer of fraud and corruption that is decimating our country.
Yes, through a referendum we could still take appropriate action as a nation, but not in a manner that suggests that because one of us has a toothache we must all visit a dentist for a root canal procedure – as the campaign to spoil votes suggests.
As things stand, there is a risk that the campaign might pervasively restrict robust discussions about possible responses to the problem of dissatisfaction with the current ANC leadership by supplying over-simplified answers to difficult questions about the broader leadership challenges in our country, and by offering the use of a perceived power to spoil a vote and its ultimately superficial appeal to the sanctity of individual choice.
Maybe the number of those who heed the call to spoil their vote will be noticeable and significant – but I’m not betting on it because I am not one of them.
Nkosikhulule Xhawulengweni Nyembezi is a researcher, policy analyst, human rights activist and co-chairperson of Elections 2014 National Co-ordinating Forum
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