Donkeys led by donkeys: a rant.

Fred Rubble? Well, I might have voted for Barney Rubble...

Britain is having a General Election today. It's an election to choose who represents each area of the country in Parliament. It also decides who forms the government.

The system depends on people making intelligent choices, and not casting donkey votes. 

Yep, that's right: donkey votes.

A donkey voter is one who, out of simple carelessness or laziness, puts his mark next to the top candidate or candidates on the voting slip. Luckily (for Britain) donkey voters are commonest in countries, like Australia, where voting is compulsory. 

I suppose it's marginally less far to push the pencil.

Now, is it really possible for anyone, anyone, to be as lazy and irresponsible as that? 

Yep. In fact in some places the order of candidates on the ballot sheet has had to be changed from Alphabetically by Party to Alphabetically by Surname of Candidate, because the Aardvarks' Party was getting a really ridiculous number of votes.

Now, I suppose the donkeys all vote for Mr Adam Aaron.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should have started a campaign to have the candidates written in a spokes-of-a-wheel shape, as in a Round Robin petition.

But surely surely people can't really be as lazy and irresponsible as all that, can they?

Can they?

God help us all.

Word To Use Today: election. This word comes from the Latin legere, to choose.