I was wearing my school uniform the first time I voted. Eighteen and a half, no doubt sweating in a double layer of 15 denier maroon tights – visible leg skin or socks of any description were reputation enders – and in the middle of my Leaving Cert. Swanning into the Senior Infants class of the local national school with my polling card felt like the height of sophistication and maturity. I had two forms of ID, just in case I was quizzed about my age or identity. Nobody was going to disenfranchise me. I had a voice, and my vote was going to count!
Did I know what I was voting for? Not particularly. The 1999 local and European elections were not high on the glamour scale, and civics classes at school were less about proportional representation and more about the Mercy nuns putting the frighteners up us about getting pregnant.
My parents watched the news, and the kitchen was rarely without the booming Radio One ads for sheep dip and liver fluke remedies, but we weren’t a political family and held no party allegiance. Google tells me Avril Doyle was an option, and I imagine I would have definitely voted for her because a) I’d heard of her, and b) she had a haircut that screamed competence.
Fast forward 25 years and I’ve not only mastered how PR-STV voting works, but I’ve covered many elections and referendums as a journalist. “Just go to the count centre and find a tallyman” was the order given to me on my first election beat working in local radio. By the end of that day I could have run a Dáil campaign – or died trying.
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Facing into two constitutional referendums on March 8th, I’m the most at sea I’ve been about a vote since that June day in 1999. The Government has made a dog’s dinner of the whole thing, no? Maybe that’s by design. Perhaps the hope was that not too much attention would be paid to the details amid a grand gesture of progress for Irish women – fittingly scheduled for International Women’s Day?
To not vote at all, as a form of protest against amendments that don’t go far enough or let the Government off the hook, contradicts my enduring teenage commitment to exercise my franchise
Up until a week ago, I was largely ignorant of the deeper issues surrounding this vote. Do I support expanding the definition of family beyond a marriage union? Yes! Do I support the removal of the ever-controversial “women in the home” articles? Yes! And to top it all off, March 8th is to be the first time I cast a ballot in my Dublin constituency, having finally thrown off the Complete Aisling trait of keeping my vote “Down Home”, where it seemed more useful for family issues of demanding improvements for back roads and opposing landfill permits (Spoiler alert: it was useless for both).
Now though, I’m frankly enraged to be placed in this Catch-22 position of confusion and helplessness. In the Care Amendment, the proposed removal of the references to the role of the woman in the home comes with the insertion of Article 42B, which disability rights and carers advocates say allows the State to continue to abdicate their responsibility when it comes to care. The proposed “durable relationship” language in the Family Amendment is being criticised as a legal nightmare. Leo Varadkar himself has acknowledged that the issues in these two votes are more complicated than the choices being asked of the electorate in the repeal and marriage equality referendums, yet the March 8th polling day has been sold almost as a no-brainer to celebrate women.
To not vote at all, as a form of protest against amendments that don’t go far enough or let the Government off the hook, contradicts my enduring teenage commitment to exercise my franchise. Voting Yes to the Family Amendment is an easier choice to make than to vote No to the Care Amendment, which could read as a tacit agreement with No camps such as the Catholic Church and conservative groups such as the Iona Institute and Aontú, with whom I do not share many political or moral views. I predict such groups would seize on a No vote as a victory for their causes – ambivalence or protest on the part of the electorate be damned.
[ An anti-Government protest vote in the referendums would be a mistakeOpens in new window ]
Yes (to Family) / No (to Care) it is though for me, I think – for now anyway. My first Dublin vote will not be an easy one, and the weight of it will sit heavier than in 1999 when the Leaving Cert and getting a summer job trumped who I thought should become a county councillor. It’s just a shame that “competent hairstyle” isn’t a deciding factor for the March 8th vote. It would really help a lot.