You are almost definitely more important than me

That's not just my fragile self-esteem talking.*

Politics, a bit like my pension fund and other people's babies, is one of those things that I am a bit less interested in than I should be.  Like most people, I expect, I've been a little more interested than normal lately: the election has definitely been on my radar and I even managed to watch two out of three of the debates, but if I'm honest, by the end of it all I realised I had been more concerned with the colour of David Cameron's face (slightly orange, which clashed horribly with the pink background) than several of the topics up for discussion.  Several days later, the biggest debate-related question weighing on my mind was how I completely failed to notice this:

(I know that photo has been doing the rounds for a while now so apologies if you've already seen it). 

I think you can safely assume from this that I am no Jeremy Paxman.  You are quite right.  Even so, for the first time ever I am genuinely quite excited about voting.  Not sure why. Maybe it's just an age thing.  Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that, given that I spent the first half of my adult life in Australia, where voting is compulsory, this is the first time I'll be doing it by choice.  It's certainly not because of what's on the menu, that much I do know. I desperately want to vote.  I don't particularly want to vote for anyone.

Which is probably just as well, given I've just been looking at the voterpower index (http://www.voterpower.org.uk/).   It's a clever, if not slightly demoralising, idea: use the size of a constituency and the probability of the seat changing hands to calculate your voting power, compared to the relative power of voters in different parts of the country.

I live and will be voting in  Erith & Thamesmead, where according to the site's calculations "one person does not really have one vote, they have the equivalent of 0.058 votes".  That's one depressingly small number.  Interestingly, it's not quite as bad as it sounds, given that this is only 4.35 times less than the average voter.

That's right, according to the website, the average, full-bodied-or-otherwise voter only has the power of 0.253 votes.**  This seems absurdly low to me. (I'm assuming it's something which the proposed electoral reforms, which I haven't been paying much attention to and am starting to wish I had, would change? I hope so.)

Still, 0.058 doesn't seem much. If I was the result of a psychology experiment, I'd only barely make the cut-off to be considered anything other than a coincidence. So what deems me so insignificant? The size of my patch for one thing. I'm one of 70,427 voters, a number that makes us slightly larger than the average bear (and by bear I mean constituency) which weighs in at 68 433 voters. The more voters, the less each one counts.  I get this.  If you throw a salmon into a big enough pond (yes, we're fish now, not bears)  it looks like a minnow. 

Nick Marks, who came up with the index, says the other deciding factor is the probability of the seat changing hands, and has used data from "as many elections as possible" to determine this.   Since I'm in an ultra-safe seat which hasn't changed in 20 years, my vote is less likely to have an impact. By these rules, the most powerful constituency in the country is Arfon.  That's in North Wales, in case you (like me) were wondering. If Mr Marks has his maths right, it would take twenty-two and a half of me for my (our?) vote(s?) to carry the same weight as that of a single voter from Bangor or Caernarfon.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand, it bothers me.  On the other hand, I feel an odd sense of relief that my vote, which is basically just a vote for the best of a bad bunch, and as such will never be a decision I am entirely happy with, will have minimal impact.

I'll still be voting tomorrow, because I'm glad that I can, and because I want to use that privilege no matter how insignificant my decision will turn out to be.  To me, the piece of paper itself is worth a lot more than the names written on it.

I've written more on this than I meant to.  Maybe I'm more of a political animal (bear, fish, minnow, whatever) than I thought I was.  Anyway, there's a good chance that your vote will be worth a lot more than mine tomorrow.  I don't mind who you decide to vote for.  But please use it wisely.


* Also, it's not really all that fragile.

**Interestingly, or not, the man on the Clapham autobus, assuming he lives in Clapham, has even less than that at 0.143 votes. Still more clout than me though.