Just picked up a book, Seeing, by Jose Saramago.
Review:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,1754195,00.html
The story begins with those
ordinary citizens, who not so long ago regained their sight and
their tranquil day-to-day lives, doing something that seems quite
unconnected with vision or lack of it. It is voting day, and 83% of
them, after not going to the polls at all in the morning, go in the
late afternoon and cast a blank ballot.
We see the dismay of bureaucrats, the excitement of journalists,
the hysteria of the government, and the mild non-response of the
citizens, who, when asked how they voted, refuse to say, reminding
the questioner that the question is illegal. The satire is at first
quite funny, and I thought it was going to be a light, Voltairean
tale.
Turning in a blank ballot is a signal unfamiliar to most Britons
and Americans, who aren't yet used to living under a government
that has made voting meaningless. In a functioning democracy, one
can consider not voting a lazy protest liable to play into the
hands of the party in power (as when low Labour turn-out allowed
Margaret Thatcher's re-elections, and Democratic apathy secured
both elections of George W Bush). It comes hard to me to admit that
a vote is not in itself an act of power, and I was at first blind
to the point Saramago's non-voting voters are making. I began to
see it at last, when the minister of defence announces that what
the country is facing is terrorism
http://www.slate.com/id/2139519/
