Voting Help

[Dadmanz]

Hello Everyone,

I live in England and we have a general election coming up soon to vote for a new prime minster and government. In England ( as I know the majority of this site are American and our voting system works a little differently) we operate a voting system known as First Past the Post. This means that you vote for a candidate in your constituency and then whichever party is the first to have the majority of MP’s (members of parliament) elected is the winner, and will then form the government.

This being said, in my constituency we have a candidate for Labour (kind of like the Democrats in America) a Conservative (kind of like Republicans) a Liberal Democrat (the most left wing of the parties) and a UKIP (Kind of like Donald Trump’s version of Republicanism but for the UK).

Anyway, practically, it will either be Labour or the Conservatives who win overall because that has always been the case. However, Labour in general are particularly pro choice and ‘liberal’ about most things that a moral Catholic should hold steadfast to. The Conservatives (who are in power at the moment) have been the only party in recent memory who have shown some concern on several Christian issues.

But, in order to vote for the Conservatives I would have to vote for my local MP who has a track record of voting against, or abstaining from any pro-life bills. For example, he voted against a bill explicitly banning sex-selective abortion, against a bill allowing independent (without financial interests) advice to be given to pregnant women.

I feel this man is completely morally objectionable and is a total ‘career politician’. However, if I don’t vote a Labour government would most likely be even worse. And I’m concerned a ‘protest vote’ for one of the parties with no chance of winning would help an incredibly liberal government take office.

What should I do? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

When faced with two pro-abortion candidates, I choose the one who is the most pro-life, even if that is only a very marginal thing. We are not going to solve the human life issue anytime soon, we must move incrementally as much as we possibly can, even if that seems small. Of course, in the UK, you are really voting more for the party than for the individual.

Outside of voting, we must keep pro-life issues in the public mind. The news media here in the US is mostly pro-death, and rarely covers pro-life issues.

By the way, a couple weeks ago I posted here on CAF about the absolutely beautiful letter from the Catholic Bishop of Portsmouth. I wish that more of our bishops here in the US spoke so clearly.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=1052208
“Bishop poses ten questions for Catholic Brits ahead of general election”

portsmouthdiocese.org.uk/bishop/pastoral_letters/BoP-PL18-140517-Vocations-A4.pdf
“Pastoral Letter from the Bishop of Portsmouth”

 

[exnihilo]

I feel this man is completely morally objectionable and is a total ‘career politician’. However, if I don’t vote a Labour government would most likely be even worse. And I’m concerned a ‘protest vote’ for one of the parties with no chance of winning would help an incredibly liberal government take office.

If you are going to vote then vote for who you think is the best candidate. The whole idea of a ‘protest vote’ is interesting to me. It acknowledges the inevitability of a position losing. Those who say it is a waste of a vote acknowledge that any vote for this person or position is inconsequential to the outcome.

But really every vote, in any large vote pool, is inconsequential. A single vote in thousands is inconsequential. And in any modern election I’m familiar with even if one vote determined the outcome it likely wouldn’t upon subsequent recounts. Any time I know of recounts happening the vote tallies always change, often significantly.

You didn’t ask, but my opinion is every vote in modern mass elections is inconsequential. It makes people feel like they have a say in government and thus keeps them happy under the yoke of the state. So if you are going to register your opinion you ought to register it for the candidate that you truly think is best. Otherwise you are acknowledging the impotency of your vote. But if you acknowledge that why bother voting at all?

 

[Brassring]

I had the same issue voting here in the U.S. in the last presidential election (maybe you’ve heard, we had a rather embarrassing choice). I’m typically conservative on fiscal matters, and I abhor abortion. But, I also dislike the disdain that the modern republican party has come to demonstrate for the poor and immigrants. I could have voted for Donald Trump, as I usually do vote for republicans (I have voted for democrats in the past). My vote for Trump would have been more of a vote against Hillary Clinton.

As a catholic, I can’t do evil in order to accomplish good. I can’t vote for disdain for the poor and immigrants and unjust warfare just to attempt to keep abortion support out of the White House.

So, I abstained. Refusing to vote is voting, too.

 

[Bookcat]

There are also voters guides from Catholic Answers (more geared to USA but can be a help in fulfilling this duty).