Voter education made easy

Everyone who turns 18 should automatically be allowed to vote, without having to register, to make voting easier as part of an overhaul of the electoral system.

The way voting is conducted in South Africa needs to be urgently reformed to make voting easier. Voter education also needs to be dramatically expanded. All voter education must include democratic civic education, an understanding of key aspects of democracy, including the Constitution, human rights, democratic moral values, diversity, gender equality and the responsibilities of democratic citizenship.

Importantly, voter education must include getting voters to understand the importance of the vote, not just as a physical act to make their cross, but the different ways one’s vote can be used to ensure change. Sadly, many ordinary black South Africans appear to believe their vote is only to vote for the party and leaders they are traditionally loyal to. If they are unhappy with the party and leader they support, they stop voting.

Many citizens withdrew from voting after leaders and parties they voted for did not deliver on their promises and were corrupt, incompetent and uncaring.

Some voters appear to believe that, as a single voter, their vote does not count. Many others wrongly believe that taking to the streets in protests will deliver more effective results than voting. Among this group, some wrongly believe that destroying public infrastructure during protests, as happened on many occasions during the 1980s in the struggle against apartheid, will, more than voting for another party, force the ANC government to listen to their demands.

Yet, the power of the vote also lies in the fact that one’s vote can be used tactically to vote against individuals and parties one may support but who are not delivering, to hold these individuals and parties accountable. Not voting is giving away one’s most powerful democratic tool.

Sadly, currently many voters are unable to make the connection between the people and parties they vote for and the lack of public service delivery, state failure and increasing poverty. Voter education must also inculcate the ability for voters to link the type of parties and leaders they vote for directly to whether they will be able to get or retain a job, whether public services will work and whether the community they live in will be safe.

Voter education will also have to be dramatically ramped up. It will have to take the form of an all-of-society approach, whereby all sectors of society must be involved in, and have a responsibility to carry out, voter education in their spheres.

Voter education, combined with democratic civic education, must be compulsory at all levels of education, from nursery school to higher education. It must also be compulsory at orientation at higher education institutions and as part of induction programmes at workplaces.

Civil society and community-based organisations, traditional and religious groups must also be involved in mass voter education. Unemployed young people can also be trained to be grassroots voter educators and democratic civic educators.

It must be compulsory for youth, when they get their first identity documents, to receive voter education and democratic civic education. This must be seen as a rite of passage for youth to become adult democratic citizens. Foreigners who become naturalised South Africans must also undergo compulsory voter education and democratic civic education.

Such education must include understanding the basics of the Constitution, human rights, democratic moral values as reflected in the Constitution, the importance of diversity, gender equality and the responsibilities of democratic citizens.

Voter education and democratic civic education must challenge some of the false myths surrounding voting.

Voters often do not vote for other parties, believing they have to support their own parties and leaders as if they are supporting football clubs, such as Kaizer Chiefs, Orlando Pirates or AmaZulu, rather than voting for the opposition.

Voter education must also emphasise that voting for political parties and leaders is not like supporting soccer clubs, which must be supported loyally even if leaders are corrupt, incompetent and violent and their policies are nonsensical, ideologically outdated and harmful.

Millions of voters, angry with the failures, corruption and incompetence of the parties and leaders they voted for, stay home rather than vote because they do not want to ‘betray’ their parties, their families or their race by voting for others.

Voter education must also make clear that if voters choose parties and leaders based on historical loyalty, they will perpetuate unemployment, poverty and lawlessness.

Voting based on ethnic, racial or regional identity is to vote for continued failure by parties and leaders.

Many black voters wrongly say they would never vote for a “white” party or leader. Some believe they must vote for “black” parties or leaders. This kind of voting will perpetuate poverty, state failure and lawlessness.

Why would leaders perform in government if they know voters will always support them because of identity or ideology, even when they are corrupt, incompetent and uncaring?

Voters must also understand that supporting parties that campaign on hate, threaten violence or call for ‘revolution’ in a democracy will only bring chaos, under which no job creation, poverty reduction or peace is possible.

Voting for leaders who offer slogans, simplistic solutions or failed ideologies from other countries is unlikely to bring a better life.

Some voters also support parties focused on a single issue, which will not solve South Africa’s complex problems. Leaders and parties that base campaigns on one supposed solution will lead to disappointment.

Voter education must emphasise the importance of voting for leaders based on competence, performance and experience outside politics. Voters must understand that leaders must offer practical solutions, honesty and an understanding of the real economy, which is often only possible if they have worked outside politics before entering public office.

Unless citizens change their understanding of voting — from a narrow act of loyalty to a broader, more tactical tool based on competence and accountability — South Africa will remain stuck in a destructive cycle of electing corrupt and ineffective leaders.

Such a cycle leads to further voter disillusionment, with more citizens staying away from voting and losing confidence in democracy as a system to deliver services, economic prosperity and the rule of law.

William Gumede is the founder of the Democracy Works Foundation and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg).