The Clacton by-election ballot paper is nearly a metre long. Thirty-four candidates. One constituency. One piece of A2 paper that requires the structural integrity of a legal document and the reading comprehension of someone who has already given up.
This is what democracy looks like when nobody says no. Not to the candidates — to the ballots themselves. Britain’s Electoral Commission apparently decided that if you’re going to hold an election, you might as well make it a full-body workout. Voters will need to stand at the polling booth like they’re reading a menu at a gastropub, squinting at names they’ve never heard of and will never hear of again.
Why does a single constituency attract 34 people desperate to represent it? Because the rules say they can. A candidate needs a £500 deposit and ten registered supporters. Splash that across the internet, and suddenly every person with a manifesto and a grudge is on the ballot. The deposit system was designed to discourage frivolous candidacies. It was designed in 1992. Nobody updated it for the era of infinite bandwidth and infinite confidence.
The actual voting will take seventeen minutes longer than it used to. The counting will take longer still. Someone will definitely vote for the wrong person because they got tired halfway down. This is not a bug. This is the feature. This is what happens when a system designed for two or three serious candidates meets a world where literally anyone with conviction and a tenner can run.
The ballot paper is a metre long. The attention span required to understand what you’re voting for is significantly shorter.