Voting in the 1970s

Research into confirmation bias at Scarfolk University in 1973 showed that 87% of people will not deviate from their beliefs, no matter how much counter evidence is presented to them. However, the study found that the figure drops considerably if torture is used, with more than 50% of subjects losing all their beliefs, largely because their brains stop functioning during the study.

These findings demonstrated to the government that informing citizens and giving them a choice is futile because they've already made up their minds, often basing their decisions on irrelevant, whimsical criteria such as whether a politcian's eyes are too close together, his choice of football team, or if he took an active part in the unwarranted decimation and exploitation of a foreign nation for personal financial gain.

By the mid-1970s the government had vastly overspent on citizen persecution and "physical coercion" and no longer had the resources to enforce the election and referendum outcomes it desired. It felt that the only way forward was simply to "remove those limiting aspects of the democratic process which give citizens a say in the running of the country". Consequently, a referendum was set for early 1975 and the public was politely encouraged to ban the right to vote and give itself over to iron-handed totalitarian rule.

"Democracy Rationing" Public information poster (1970)

Chirper was an early computer network that allowed people all over Scarfolk to communicate with each other via short messages called 'Chirps' in 140 characters. It was allegedly created by a psychic and telepath called Warwick Webb who lived in a caravan to avoid detection. Chirper let people discuss social issues, vote on them almost instantaneously and deliver the results via telex to the council without needing to go through swathes of red tape.

Democracy no longer needed to be something that only occurred only once every four years on election day; users on the Chirper network could freely interact with political issues twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and they no longer needed politicians to represent them.

The council was unnerved. It had already spent millions on town planning that prioritised impersonal, widely-dispersed concrete conurbations, which discouraged people from leaving their homes and mingling on the streets where they could share potentially dangerous ideas. Chirper bypassed this plan and permitted mass democratic interaction on an unforeseen scale.

When a Chirping campaign snowballed, pressuring the council to reduce the dose of truth drugs in the water supply, the council had enough and closed down Chirper. They couldn't control it.

The council warned that democracy could collapse if average and below-average people were permitted to "exploit it willy-nilly for the benefit of themselves and others". "Democracy", a council spokesman said, "can only work if it is protected from the whims of the people. Democracy can only be preserved if it is governed by self-appointed leaders who decide when and how it should be applied. It should therefore be subject to cuts. For this reason, and for the good of society, we propose that the next general election be postponed for at least 16 years."

Below is a Democracy Rationing public information poster from 1970.