Fewer than 4 million voters will decide this election and I’m not one of them

In contrast to all the journos moaning about how sick they are of the election, I’m feeling left out, like it’s not even begun. And it never will — not for me. I live in a “safe” electorate.

What does that mean? Essentially that my vote doesn’t matter. Indeed, in my inner-city suburb, the only sign that we are in caretaker mode and that the nation will have a new government — or the return of the old — in less than three weeks are a few desultory signs on fences or balconies with the name and face of the one candidate I know (the incumbent) or the plethora of those I don’t (the rest of the field).

This is exasperating and infuriating, especially when I see how voters who matter are treated, which I do every Saturday morning as I walk in and out of the market two suburbs north that is “in play”.

There I’m given more reusable shopping bags than you can shake a stick at, as well as how-to-vote cards and shiny pamphlets. And bright-toothed smiles from clean-shaven young men who fervently hope that I’ll have a nice day. None of which would be coming my way if they knew the truth: that I don’t even live in that electorate and so my vote doesn’t matter.

At least I’m not alone. ABC election analyst Antony Green says a generous estimate puts just 34 seats up for grabs in this election. Assuming an average enrolment of 114,000 people in each seat, the votes of about 13,300,000 Australians don’t matter. Or to put this figure in reverse, the votes of only 3.9 million Australians do.

This is not how democracy should work. Especially when the cost to my neighbourhood of being ignored over successive election cycles shows up in the shoddy shape of the local schools and playgrounds, and being one of the last places in Australia where you can witness the effect of level crossings on pedestrian safety and convenience in real time.

It’s like being the kid who isn’t asked what they want for Christmas and gets a rock.

But the problems caused by marginal seat campaigning runs deeper than this. It disconnects me and another 13.3 million Australians whose votes are taken for granted not just from the campaign, but politics altogether.

This is because whatever party forms government will rightly spend the next three years delivering on the commitments it made to voters in marginal electorates and developing policies to serve voters in the electorates expected to be marginal next time.

This isn’t how you serve the public interest. It’s how you fracture it into a million pieces. And given the central role a unified public serves in democratic theories of governance, to question the project of Australian democracy itself.

As the former commander in grief, the great destroyer of democracy himself, might put it: sad!