In any enlightened democracy there must, of course, be room for postal votes for sick or disabled people.

But mass postal voting is designed for the idle and it destroys the face-to-face link between electors and elected.

All citizens should be proud of their duty to vote and willing to turn up in person.

The letters columns of The Argus are full of complaints from readers who say they are disillusioned with local politics and refuse to vote.

That's fine - but let's have a ballot paper where they can write in that they will not vote for any candidate.

They may well turn out to be the majority party, although I suspect 99.9 per cent would register a preference for a candidate.

What voters are really saying by their absence is that the pub and television are more important than democracy. If so, it's a sad day for our political system.

One can only hope they never have to learn the hard way that a short walk to the polling station stops the short walk to dictatorship.

-John Hodgson, Peacehaven