Mayoral voting figures are a travesty to democracy - YEP letters

What a travesty to democracy are the voting figures from the mayoral election.

They go to show the apathy of the electorate in regard to the position of Mayor

There can be no recriminations from the electorate about the result when out of an electorate of 1.643 million only 606,000 actually voted.

Indeed only 261,000 had Ms Brabin as first choice, maybe she would have won if the majority had bothered to vote but we will never know.

Ms Brabin is going to have to rely on advice from others, maybe local government employees, who have the required knowledge.

The problem with that is will it be what is needed for West Yorkshire or the town or city that employee works for?

How many so-called experts will Ms Brabin need and will they really be “experts” or just the usual suspects? It was much the same in the local elections where only

two constituencies managed more than a 50 per cent turn out.

Do people actually care about their city and how it is run or do they just want the opportunity to complain about things all the time?

In a lot of areas it seems party colour matters rather than the actual work a councillor undertakes, that may be the case of the Mayor.

Would a more honest result occur if voting was mandatory? That question I fear will remain unanswered because no politician has the nerve to propose it.

In the meantime democracy remains a joke with percentages like the ones we have seen last week.