Scottish Labour’s Michael Shanks has won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection in an overwhelming victory over the SNP that the party leadership declared “seismic”, and a clear demonstration that Scotland could lead the way in delivering a Labour government at Westminster at the coming general election.
In a result that exceeded Scottish Labour expectation, Shanks beat his closest rival, the SNP’s Katy Loudon, by 17,845 votes to 8,399 – a majority of 9,446 and a resounding swing of over 20%.
Yeah I would never count non-voters as for, or against, something. But I disagree that apathy (or ignorance) equals a vote for the status quo.
I didn’t vote at all until I was about 28. Not because I was happy with the incumbent party, but because I knew I hadn’t researched any of the options well enough to vote for them.
On making sure it is the will of the majority by requiring >50% of the population, it makes it remarkably easy to prevent change. If the media are on your side, they can simply downplay any vote. Or, like I mentioned previously, make voter registration difficult/biased.
I do get what you say about ideally being >50% of the population. But I think it’s far too easy to subvert such a rule, leaving us stuck with >50% of votes registered as the most practical (if not ideal) option. Even though I also hate to see outcomes from really low turnouts. (Local election turnouts are embarrassing.) I’d love to see a minimum turnout requirement but I do just think it would be abused.
At this point, btw, I’m not even sure how we got to discussing turnout. :) It does seem like we fundamentally disagree on what’s acceptable though.
Yeah, a fundamental disagreement on what’s acceptable seems to be the issue here. I think there’s enough people with extreme, minority views that no massive change should be decided unless it’s absolutely clear that it’s supported by a majority. For every “good” change you can theoretically get 30-40% of the population to vote in favour of, you could also very easily get bad changes that 30-40% would vote in favour of.
For example, if a referendum was offered on whether trans people should forcibly detransitioned, there are enough apathetic people and enough vocally anti-trans people that such a referendum would likely result in a “yes” result. Doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do, or that it would represent the will of the majority of the population. Referendums on issues only a vocal minority care about are a recipe for changes being imposed against the will of the majority.