Compulsory voting

There is a natural tendency to think of compulsory voting as a straightforward contradiction of one of the  fundamental principles of democracy. 

But I have been reading several things which throw light on this apparent contradiction. One is Judith Brett's excellent if rather clumsily titled book on Australian democracy - From secret ballot to democracy sausage: how Australia got compulsory voting (Text Publishing, 2019)

There has also been an interesting report on American democracy by the Knight Foundation - The Untold story of American non-voters (The 100 Million Project) (Knight Foundation, 2020) downloadable from https://the100million.org/ 

At the 2016 US presidential election, 27.3% voted for Trump, 28.5% voted for Clinton, and 41.3% did not vote. Non-voters have a relatively lower confidence that elections represent the will of the people. Those lacking confidence do so on the principal grounds that the president is not elected by popular vote, that the system is rigged, or that the process is over-influenced by big money. But the low vote itself undermines democracy.

And also worth listening to is a podcast by Chris Budd (Professor of Mathematics at the University of Bath) Truly fair elections are impossible - mathematically. (Radio National, 27 February, 2020).  Download the podcast from https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/truly-fair-elections-are-impossible---mathematically/11949644 Australia's electoral system comes well out of Budd's analysis.

As Brett argues, one of the preoccupations of Australians has been the importance of broad participation in the process. In Australia, participation in the electoral process is seen as a civic duty, and there are many measures to make voting as easy as possible. And in spite of the common aphorism, "vote early and vote often" there is no evidence that there is a significant level of fraudulent voting.

Brett concludes, Australia does voting well, and this is the result of a long period of evolution, a broad sense of fair play, and an electoral administration which is perceived to be impartial and honest. It does not of course mean that Australia does government well. 

I think that these are the six elements of Australian voting which make it work well:

• the secret ballot - we are said to have invented that, and it is sometimes called the Australian ballot
• the fact that everyone votes, and must vote - we don't have categories of people excluded from the franchise (e.g. people who have committed crimes); and in fact voting is not compulsory, since you are not obliged to vote, only to take a ballot paper.
• there is an impartial and fair electoral administration, not controlled by the political process, so our electorates are close to equal size and boundaries are drawn fairly; the same systems apply in all states and nationally.
• Australians can vote by postal ballot, by absentee vote (at any polling booth in Australia), and at many locations overseas. The electoral rolls are kept up to date. Voting is easier than anywhere else in the world, and has been for over a century.
• preferential voting, together with an element of proportional representation means that the system is more representative of different political currents than the systems of the UK, US and other first past the post systems; it means that there is a much higher element of choice in voting than there is in simple majoritarian two-party systems
• there is a relative absence of animosity, as exemplified by the custom of the democracy sausage.

It may be that introduction of some or all of these features into the electoral systems of other countries would enhance their effectiveness. What it is reasonable for your country to ask of you? 

Voting seems the most reasonable and least onerous of all the things governments demand of us.

Paradise for neologisms

The current coronavirus is, to look on the cheerful side, a paradise for neologisms, just as staying at home is a paradise for the introvert, as you can see from this poster advertising the many advantages of staying at home, using the slogan "It has never been so easy to save lives."

A coronavirus is a large family of viruses of various kinds, which can cause illness in mammals and birds. The novel (new) coronavirus, causes the infectious viral illness COVID-19. This is caused by a virus called SARS-CoV-2 (named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses) which emerged in 2019, possibly as the result of transmission from bats.

Here are some of my favourite COVID-19 neologisms, but there are many. In these articles, I have preferred the Wikipedia as a source of information, since it is quite rigorously quality-controlled. The same is unfortunately not true of other sources of information, such as the websites of national health departments or the general media.

Social distancing is one of the major terms. It refers to "a set of nonpharmaceutical infection control actions intended to stop or slow down the spread of a contagious disease. The objective of social distancing is to reduce the probability of contact between persons carrying an infection, and others who are not infected, so as to minimize disease transmission, morbidity and ultimately, mortality."

Keeping away from other people (my take on social distancing) is designed to reduce the basic reproduction number - the number of other people infected by each infected person. A better term that social distancing is physical distancing - you can still stay in touch online, just stay at home.

There are many nice lists of social distancing measures, and one may add others. Social distancing impacts the usual form of greeting such as the kiss (French) or handshake (Australian male) or hug (increasing numbers of Australians). Wikipedia shows some animated illustrations of alternative greetings, such as those using eyebrows, shrugs, nods and other gestures.

Of course, there are many many iterations of social distancing rules. In Australia, the Government recently (20 March) issued another iteration, which referred to the new 4 square metre per person rule. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) felt that it was best to quote the Prime Minister's exact words, also providing a video of his exact words. The ABC also comments "You should still be trying to keep 1.5 metres away from people at all times, and avoiding any handshakes or physical contact with people outside your family."

The report also notes that there is a wide variety of situations in which these social distancing rules do not apply, including health care settings, pharmacies, food shops, schools, workplaces, and public transport. Anywhere you might be likely to have fun seems to be included, however, depending on your own predelictions of course.

Social distancing is widely defined. For example, this example from the BBC has quite a different take on what it is. Dr Norman Swan, now a byword, has a partcular angle. There are many others. However, it seems pretty clear that Bondi beach last weekend was a huge social distancing fail.

Next: asymptomatic.

Election in Paris

Well, decision day approaches. On Sunday March 15 the people of Paris will vote in the first round of an election for Mayor of Paris - along with many other local government elections across the country. 

In France, although the voter cannot allocate preferences in the Australian style, the election is held in two rounds. In the second round, the following week, most candidates are eliminated, and the two leading candidates contest the election, as explained.

As a result, Anne Hidalgo, the current mayor may be re-elected, though in the second round. Hidalgo was born in southern Spain sixty years ago and is a dual French-Spanish citizen. She has been mayor since 2014, and is supported by the socialists (PS), communists (PCF), and various centrists and independents, with 23% support in the January opinion poll. There is a nice article  about her in The Guardian.

The main competition seems is from Les Républicains (LR), the centre-right opposition. Their candidate, Rachida Dati, was a minister under Sarkozy and she is the current mayor of the 7th arrondissement. France24 suggests that she is a strong challenger.

The governing party, La France En Marche (LFEM), the party of the President, Emmanuel Macron nominated Benjamin Griveaux (16%) as its candidate. When he resigned as candidate in late January over a sex video, he was replaced by Agnès Buzyn a doctor and formerly Minister of Health in the national government.

The flamboyant Cédric Villani, a dissident member of the President's party, is a distinguished mathematician and winner of the Fields Medal in 2010, but his vote has slipped in recent polls, as the field as narrowed. However, he is also greenish in colour, and was a strong supporter of Hidalgo in 2014 when she was elected.

Europe Ecologie Les Verts (EELV) has nominated David Belliard, who wants to free Paris from the car. Like that of Villani, Bellisrad's support has recently fallen, as many of his supporters appear to have transferred their allegiance to Hidalgo, who also has a strong environmental element in her program and wants to pedestrianise the city centre, among other things.

There are three other candidates. Aimer Paris (To Love Paris) has as candidate Serge Federbusch, who is supported by the extreme right Rassemblement National (RN). Libenons Paris is the party of Marcel Campion, who owns the Paris ferris wheel, and has had a long career in Paris carnival. Décidons Paris is a list headed by Danielle Simonnet, of the left.

Recent comment following the resignation of the Macron (LFEM) candidate has suggested that the main challenger to the long hegemony of the socialists (PS) - since the mayoralty of Jacques Chirac from 1977-1995 - is Rachida Dati of the PR. Dati is a high profile former minister under Nicolas Sarkozy and is waging a strong campaign. France24 summarises the situation close to the end of the campaign.

So for whom should we vote? My decision is clear, although unfortunately I am without the right to vote. Not only was David Belliard born on the same date as I was (although 31 years later), but he supports the reduction of cars in Paris - the pedestrian candidate par excellence. Bonne chance, David.

Year of the Rat

The Year of the Rat, in the Chinese Zodiac, began on 25/26 January 2020, and runs to 11/12 February 2021. In Chinese it is 鼠年and in pinyin transliterated as shǔ​nián. 

So it is time to say something about the rat, which is to be expected in a blog about language. 

The Down Under Rat

Rats don't have much of a fan base, although there are rat fanciers in Australia. However, it is forbidden to import rats into Australia, even fancy (i.e. domesticated) rats. So there has been local breeding of fancy rats, and one outcome is the Down Under Rat (pictured), a handsome Australian breed with distinctive colouring. 

According to the Wikipedia, “fancy rats care for themselves and are affordable, even compared to other small pets; ...additionally, they are quite independent. loyal and easily trained. They are considered more intelligent that other domesticated rodents. Healthy fancy rats typically live 2 to 3 years." 

I have two small collections of rat material. One is my collection of rat images. Both are from Paris. One was issued by the Mairie (local council) of the 15^th arrondissement of Paris (a pleasant residential area located in the south-west of Paris between the Tour Montparnasse and the Seine River) as part of its campaign against rats. 

The other was issued as part of a campaign against the “massacre” of rats by the 15^th arrondissement. Zoopolis.fr (Paris Animaux Zoopolis) called for an end to the poisoning of rats. Their campaign in the forthcoming mayoral elections includes a manifesto. Four candidates including the current mayor, Anne Hidalgo, have indicated agreement with all of the manifesto. 

I have also a small collection of three books about rats. Brian Plummer’s Tales of a rat-hunting man (1978) is the story of a man who has been involved with rats since he was 8 anyway. Plummer (1936-2003) was a Welsh dog breeder and ferret enthusiast, among other things, and wrote over 35 books about terriers and ferrets. His interest in rats was in killing them, using a three-species team (Brian, terriers and ferrets) 

The second book, The Rat: a world menace (1929) by Alfred Moore Hogarth, (1876-?) is a serious treatise on the rat. Moore Hogarth was an expert on pests, and a member of the College of Pestology. He was instrumental in putting forward a Bill for Rat Destruction to Parliament in 1908, and was involved in the first Conference Internationale du Rat (1928). He was an implacable campaigner against rats, and his interest in them was eradication. 

Most recently, I’ve read The Enchantment of the long-haired rat: a rodent history of Australia, by Tim Bonyhady (2019). This is the engaging story of a single species – not the common foreign mammal species rattus rattus or rattus norvegicus, with which we are familiar, but Australia’s own rattus villosissimus. This is a distinct species of rat, native to Australia. Bonyhady’s fascinating book, published by Text, is a tribute to the long-haired rat, or Mayaroo in the language of the Diyari people of Lake Eyre, for whom it is a totem. Along with the Polynesian rat, rattus exulans, the mayaroo is an example of the migration of this family of rodents to remote parts of the world, preceding or accompanying homo sapiens. 

Naaman Zhou in the Guardian and Nancy Cushing in Inside Story make out a nice case for its charm and indigeneity. The illustration below is from John Gould’s Mammals of Australia. 

There is a helpful article published by the Australian Museum entitled Is It a Rat? It aims to help us to distinguish between common rat-like animals of Australia - the black rat, the brown rat, ring-tailed possums, and bush rats. Unfortunately, apart from confusion with possums (small ones) Australians do not easily distinguish between indigenous and foreign rats, or for that matter, between rodents and marsupial “rats”. 

As Zhou suggests very eloquently of Bonyhady’s book “In many ways, this book is about that language and literature itself. Like it or not, there is a certain way we talk about rats. There is a rat canon. There are rich stylistic rules. That is part of the fun. Much of the book is quotation, line after line of fantastically vibrant rat reportage from the 19th century.” 

There was a recent debate on Twitter, sparked by @GreenJ (Jonathan Green) about depredations by pests in suburban food gardens. It soon became a debate about whether the possum could be called a “pest”, as rats can be. “No, it can’t be a pest” some said, “the possum is a native animal.” Alas, many Australian native animals are called rats. I remember my father once referring to particular animals as “rat-like things”. These were antechinuses, a charming and protected Australian marsupial. 

There are seven or eight native Australian species of rattus, according to Peter Banks, writing in The Conversation in 2016. They arrived in Australia at least a million years ago. The bush rat, rattus fuscipes is one of these, and there are many other rodents too, as well as rat-like marsupials carelessly lumped in with true rats; here is one of many articles about the difference. As Bonyhady suggests, the now-iconic bilby was fortunate not to be called a rat. 

Banks also dispels what he calls the urban myth that you are never more than two metres or six feet away from a rat. The article cited suggests that the figure is more likely to be fifty metres, which still seems close; the same article suggests that there may be 10.5 million rats in the UK. 

So ambivalence and confusion mark our attitudes to rats. Let us hope that the “fantastically vibrant rat reportage” of the 19^th century continues today, as we enter the Year of the Rat.