Is the right to vote a guarantee of democracy?


In the forthcoming UK elections, UK Citizens living abroad for more than 15 years can now register to vote. Will this make any difference to my feeling of whether or not I have a franchise in democracy?

The right to vote is only effective in producing democracy if three conditions are true:


1. The votes are reliably and accurately collected, counted and reported

2. The voters have a choice about the policies that will be followed by a candidate and can find candidates to vote for that reflect their stances on various policies (if they cannot, then they should be allowed to vote on policy and not on personae).

3. The people elected are then able and willing to carry out the policies on which they were elected. Not prevented from doing so by other, unelected powers, often not publicly accountable or even publicly known. Given that there are serious questions marks over each of these three conditions in our current world, I have to deny that the right to vote is any kind of guarantee of democracy.  In fact I don’t think we are really experiencing democracy as we could and should be experiencing it.

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2 thoughts on “Is the right to vote a guarantee of democracy?”

  1. Democracy is a moveable, relative entity which, in its best form, is fast disappearing across the globe including the U.K. At best in the U.K. you have the choice to vote for a party, all of which are controlled by global capitalism and banks so if you vote in the hope of seeing a change in direction in the governance of the country you will be sadly disappointed. The public opinion of politicians as a breed has sunk to an all-time low in the U.K. we see In both words and action (or lack of it) the disdainful view politicians have of the public they are supposedly serving . As the late Jackie Mason (stand up comedian) might have said “Show me a politician ; I’ll show you a born liar”. An example of the official line taken in the U.K. Is the BBC coverage and the parliamentary pronouncements on the conflict in Gaza. The propaganda is highly prejudicial and antisemitic only just staying short of blaming Israel for the barbarous attack on them. So if the powers in the U.K. Are prejudiced against Israel for fear of upsetting their Arab (oil-supplying) allies we can see the sort of “democracy” we can expect from any of the parties. No the right to vote most certainly is not a guarantee of democracy. It probably never has been.

    Alan B.

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