Catherine Drea: So how did you vote?

It’s hard to know these days who to believe about anything. 

Maybe this was always so, but now that online media platforms are open to everyone the sheer amount of information coming at us is vast and vague. This was certainly true in the recent election.

As I write this I am preparing to go to the local school to vote. So if you are reading this now, it’s all over bar the shouting.

How did you vote? What was it that informed who you chose as Number 1? How did you make your decision? Was it head or heart that led you?

For many of us the person who we “liked the most” or simply saw the cut of their jib and thought “she’s okay” got our vote. But that’s really not good enough is it? 

We elected many people to hugely important jobs without scrutinising them via a job interview or even a detailed CV. 

While some candidates have to jump through a lot of hoops to get on the ballot paper, others saunter on there like it’s as simple as throwing your hat in the ring for a raffle.

There was no possible way for us to get to know them all enough to put them into one of those jobs. All I could do was to get an impression of them from a media performance or an interpersonal exchange. 

Not that there was any hope of meeting them, as out here in the sticks, they rarely or never call.

Some of them appeared on TV or were interviewed on local radio. People in politics are often good at talking, arguing or even being overly nice! 

None of these traits have impressed me enough to know that they will do a good job as my elected representative.

Most of them postered their faces on our roadways and flooded our postboxes with leaflets and all of them were singing their own praises and trying their best to engage us in their views. 

While this is all very traditional, it seems outdated, expensive and very wasteful too. 

But most importantly at the end of it all, I still don’t really know them and I’m very unlikely to give a vote to someone that I have never laid eyes on except on the side of a pole.

It becomes quite tedious when media interviewers feel they have to ask “challenging” questions and put up opposing arguments, creating shouting matches, which are a turn off. 

Sometimes I just want to know why they got into politics, what was the moment that made them think that being an elected representative was the way of life that they wanted to pursue, and what they are most proud of and connected to? Could they ever just appeal to the heart rather than the head for a few minutes!

The European Parliament is especially complex. I tried my best to understand the structures, the hierarchies and the many committees. 

I examined the track records of the candidates and tried to figure out what possible influence their participation would have on our lives here. 

As I write this I have yet to vote and I am still completely boggled by the EU. In the end I will vote for the woman I trust and the one who seems to have the clearest grasp of the EU and how to work within it.

They say that you get the politicians you deserve, so it’s down to us who we decide to elect. 

Local issues were the most important for the Local Elections. But the issues that each of us care about locally differ from person to person, community to community. How to decide?

I looked back at the famous photograph of the male councillors standing outside Waterford's City Hall taking up the No position to the Repeal the 8th Amendment Campaign in 2018. It was an image that sent out a very strong message of being out of touch with the rights of women and almost 70% of voters in this constituency who voted Yes! 

I’ve crossed all of them off my list for sure. 

They simply showed the world that they were out of step and couldn’t be trusted to represent the issues of their own female constituents. Sure they will all probably be re-elected without my vote!

The low level of women’s participation in Waterford is appalling. There are some great women on the ballot paper and some of them have made consistent contributions to the work of the Council already. If we want to increase the numbers of women in politics we women who have the vote must go out and vote for women.

Who are you voting for, I asked a few women I know. They were all more likely to tell me who they wouldn’t be voting for! The very raising of the conversation evoked quite a few rants about politics and the state of the country. 

But is it too easy to rant and rave about politics, and much harder to follow and engage? The biggest impression I got during the run-up to election day was the lack of interest and the apathy so many people expressed.

Let’s hope our votes got the best people into those jobs and that they are people we can trust. Because for most of us, voting is usually a massive leap of faith.