I’m not going to vote today. If I did, I’d feel better. I’d feel like I was part of some kind of democratic nation, like I was voicing my opinion. But the candidates have never been worse, and though I’d still vote for the social democratic party here as the least evil, a lot of other people who will want to vote this way won’t for fear of the Conservatives getting in. They’ll vote strategically for the Liberals, even when they really wanted to vote NDP (the social democratic party). Without proportional representation we are disenfranchised.
I don’t want to feel better. I’m really upset by the state of this so-called democracy, and I think I should keep feeling that way. If I go to vote, I can step back from this pathos and think that I’ve done my duty (no need to worry for the next 4 years). We all agree we hate this system as it now stands, and then we go to vote. I think people that vote are really quite dumb. If you hate the whole system, why reproduce it as such?
Go spoil your ballot, then, you might say. A very good suggestion, but the problem is that the media still include that in their reports of how many people came out to vote, so that they are included in the percentage of the electorate who came out to vote. And so, they add to the number of people who take part in the system, when the point would be to see less than half of eligible voters actually vote (or, of course, for everyone to spoil their ballots – it’s easy to see how even if half of the electorate spoiled their ballots, the consequences of this would be under-reported, and/or blamed on some technical difficulty with the voting procedure itself).
One’s duty is not absolved by stroking a pencil once every 4 years. I’m getting very aggressive with people who say or infer they’re disappointed with me for not voting. “You can’t complain if you don’t vote”. Oh I see, you’re only voting to maintain your Beautiful Soul position.
If you step back from voting, then you suddenly want to actually do something for the transformation of the system – and you acknowledge your own place within it. This is the precise opposite of “voter apathy”; it is precisely because I feel so much pathos that I won’t just make myself feel a bit better by voting. I’m willing to suffer this hell for the sake of something Other.
There is some skepticism regarding the withdrawal of the CPE, with decisions to continue occupations of some universities and schools, as well as blockades of two ports by CGT unionists in the early hours and a couple of train blockades. Although (perhaps not unsurprisingly) the CFDT seems to have declared "the objective acheived" (via 
Hell on Earth (NPR)
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