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Vote with confidence

Published Monday 3 July 2006 at 11:05

Important voting papers were sent out in the summer Equity Journal. The closing date for this council election, for those wishing to serve Equity members over the next two years, is Friday, July 14. Now in 2004 out of a membership of 34,055, only 2,836 valid votes were received, a figure of just more than 8% of Equity members. More than 31,000 Equity members, nearly 92%, did not bother to vote.

Can I please urge all Equity members to vote this year? I am told by some that because they do not know who some of the candidates are, they will not vote. Well my suggestion is, evaluate the election addresses given by the candidates and base your voting on this. Not voting is not an option. Vote for the individual rather than the faction party they represent. Currently if you stand for, say, the Representative group, you are far more likely to be voted in, regardless of whether you are any good. Is that good for a democratic union?

In the last election, approximately 80% of elected Equity council members were part of the Representative faction. Those elected may have never stood before but just because they represent this faction they were voted in. In two years time I should like to see an election where nobody states which faction they represent, so that members can actually make up their own minds, as to which candidate they should support.

Should we credit Equity members with the ability to vote and to make choices on individual candidates and not on factional parties that serve no purpose for the vast majority of members? Surely Equity members are not sheep, to be told who to vote for? Yes, there is only one thing worse than voting for the wrong person - and that is not voting at all.

Do not waste your democratic right to vote.

Clive Hurst

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