Nigel Farage is worried about democracy. Specifically, he’s worried about his Reform party losing the Gorton and Denton byelection, feeling that they are the victim of “sectarian voting and cheating”. Sectarian voting is a peculiar little concept: if it means “everyone sharing the same belief system has voted the same way”, isn’t that all voting? Is it a problem if everyone in the same NCT group also voted the same way? Surely there’s more to it.
Drill down a little further, and the problem is “family voting”, wherein one family member dictates the votes of all the others. One volunteer polling observers group says it witnessed this in 12% of cases, but it hasn’t been clear on what it means or looks like. Does the head of the family stand at the door saying, “You know what to do” to a crocodile formation of cousins? Would they not have been more likely to do that by WhatsApp? I have personally been the victim of family voting, when in 1997 I wanted to spoil my ballot and my mum told me to vote Labour and stop being stupid. Taking the incredibly long view, it’s possible that I was not stupid, but too late now, I’ve already been party to election rigging.
