Election

[ffutures]

With less than 24 hours before the UK elections begin (and the council elections in most constituencies) I might as well add my voice to everyone else who is saying that if you don't vote, you have no good reason to be upset about the results. Parties win because people vote for them - you might think that your preferred candidate doesn't have a chance, but if you don't vote on that basis it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

One other thing worth pointing out is that you don't necessarily have to vote for the same party in the national and local elections. This seems to be a tough one for many people, but local council politics are a very different thing to running the country. Think of the Government vote as your strategic vote for the long term; The Council vote is your tactical vote, and actually more likely to have an immediate effect on your life.

later feorag points out that if none of the candidates appeal a spoilt ballot is a way of expressing a protest - but make sure it can't possibly be interpreted as a vote for any candidate!

Comments

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

they're totalled for statistical purposes, yeah, but they're not counted as protests.

Having said that, if you want to spoil a ballot paper, you have to do it very carefully - as I was remarking to a local election agent the other day, his job at the count is to convince the returning officer that ballot paper that says "f*** off" against his candidate's name is a valid vote for his candidate. And returning officers have been known to agree - they tend to want to minimise the number of papers counted as spoiled (particularly as absolutely no attempt is made to separate out deliberately spoiled votes from ones spoiled because of incompetence by voters or polling station staff).


Well, that'd give Labour a comfortable majority this time round...

though I would hope, given that no general election has ever had a turnout anything like as low as 25%, that turnout would not quadruple.

Well, double, anyway. you know what I mean

[armb.livejournal.com]

Counts are supervised by candidates, agents, or party activists, who would notice a significant number of spoiled protest votes, even if they are not officially counted or published as such.