What an election year
Credit: stock.adobe.com
By the time you read this, the US elections will be gearing up for Americans to go to the polls on 5 November. I sincerely hope that they are peaceful, and the process is delightfully uneventful, and that the population picks an appropriate candidate who has the best interests of the country, and the world, uppermost in their mind.
Every four years, the US state where I last lived, before I moved to the UK more than 25 years ago, gets a series of confused emails from me – questioning where my ballot is, and when the deadline is, even though it’s always in the junk folder. Both the instructions for completing it, and the deadline dates for mailing it in, are very specific. Thank you, county board of electors, for being patient with me. I have now sent in my absentee ballot, and it certainly wasn’t for my former fellow resident of New York.
In fact, it’s been a year of elections, with more than 100 countries around the world heading to the voting booths. In addition to the US, the UK had elections (good outcome), and eight out of 10 of the world’s most populous nations, including Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan and Russia, went to the polls. Around four billion voters, or about half of the world’s population are eligible to vote in elections this year, Wikipedia informs us.
Now, not every election is free and fair, but it’s a testament of how durable an idea democracy is, that even the countries who game the system (Russia for one), make a show of having them. The idea of having your say as a citizen of a country is a valuable concept, and people who live in the 45 countries where they have experienced a significant decline in the free and fair nature of their elections since 2000, can tell you that listening to misinformation, or the erosion of public trust (not to mention foreign actors interfering) is a woeful state for a nation to find themselves in.
So, vote. It is not a perfect situation for any election (few are perfect), but it’s the opportunity to at least try to have some say in how your country is run. As a US trade representative said many years ago at a conference, “Elections have consequences.” They do indeed, but let’s aim high in whatever election you find yourself in. It will make a difference to everyone.
- Suzanne Christiansen, editor, Dairy Industries International.
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