I don't vote.
Really, what's it going to change. Every year I pay hard cash to the administration, and to this date I haven't seen any of it benefiting me. The only part of the cake whose purpose I know are the expenses of this "medical insurance". For the rest, I don't know where it goes, and the administration seems the be purposely vague about it. For my benefit? Haven't seen any of that. I think the administration has too big ideas about itself. They aren't doing much, at least not for the voter's benefit. Who are they tricking? The time of politics being a big deal is over. Its peak was somewhere in the seventies, but today's world is more privacy-, and technology-oriented. Today, no one cares about these pet "great leaders" playing their game of politics in the sandbox anymore.
They're keeping the election ritual in use just to maintain a facade of democracy, or that the people would be in control. In reality, the same people control the administration from year to year, and a single person voting won't change that. The "democratically elected" part of the administration is just a clique of "old farts", who never accomplish their goal. Also, in the elections for representatives, the "democratically elected" element is divided into committees and boards, which then decide the issues is worst possible committee manner.
And new "better" voting systems? Who cares? I think it'll prove to be more trouble than it's worth. It's just impossible for a single voter's view to be voiced with any new voting system, if the committees decide it all. You're more likely to trip over and break your neck than exact an influence when going to vote.
The number of people who actually vote is very low. Without exceptions, they are involved in some platform. The ideal of democratic governance is that every citizen's view is somehow expressed. Thanks to intentionally vague reporting about the administration's work, no one knows what they're up to, and no one has a meaningful view. Of course, these cliquish parties and platforms say that everyone is invited, but in the end, unless you "know the right people", you'll face a "You're Not Invited" sign. Politics is done behind closed doors and you have no say in it. And what's more, the choices are few, because for power, winners take it all.
Take the current elections, for example. Is the medical insurance system changing in any way, just because we elect some ignorant folks who know jack about keeping the balances in line? It's going to be a waste of money on the incumbent side, and more of a waste of money applying the challengers' weird communistic view. With every election, we get to hear that the incumbent platforms have "won". What kind of a "win" is it when the majority doesn't vote?
Let's see the choices. The administration in power is losing the popular support out of ignorance. People want to be left to their own devices - no one cares about the community. The pet theory of the clique is that it's the people's own fault, and they're doing everything right. It's easy to blame "you all" when you're doing it all wrong yourself. Now, to "help the community", there are all sorts of ideas in the challenging side, but they are all too communistic to me. Why vote, when the options are the stagnation, "keep it just as bad as it is", and sandbox revolution, "screw the budget and invade the now privately managed affairs with administration control"?
Another thing about politics is the "political license". It's the same as the "poetic license" or "artistic license": the right to make no sense. The candidate can tout all sorts of communistic ideas about the administration doing this and doing that, just to appear powerful. In reality, none of it can be afforded. Implementation of some of these ideas would cause only harm to the community, making even more people flee.
So, that's why I'm not voting in the elections for the board of Student Association of Helsinki University of Technology.
Update: now we're complete with a vote counting problem. Since single transferrable vote is computation-intensive, someone has to sneak in the inevitable bug in the code...
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