cdave | Lunch time poll: Voting Dilema

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Lunch time poll: Voting Dilema

In my local seat the two parties who most stand a chance of winning there have:

A rebellious incumbent MP who votes against his party (usually in the direction I'd want), but whose party I don't want in power.
A local councillor for the party I'd like to see in, who doesn't really impress me with his literature, and website (and hasn't replied to an email from 5 days ago asking why I should vote for him).

You say "chance of winning." I say vote for whomever you prefer, based on their own personal voting behavior, whether they have a chance of winning or not.

I just meant that I don't have to take "tactical voting" into account.

I've always voted positivly, and hope to do so, but can imagine voting for X as it'd be better then Y (who stands a chance), and Z (who I like) don't stand a hope here. But I'd have to really really not like Y to do that. I mean on a Y = BNP type level.

Sure, but my take on it is that if Z is genuinely your favorite candidate, you should vote for Z regardless of who does or doesn't stand a chance. I think the political system in this country is stagnant precisely because people take other people's behavior (non-politicians, I mean) into account when deciding on their own personal vote.

The Lib Dems are doing well in the polls because suddenly it's ok for people to say "actually, yeah, I support their policies, not that I ever would have voted for them because they wouldn't have had a chance." Well of course they wouldn't if nobody who supported them would vote for them because of perceived potential.

This is not directed toward you; I just find it all maddening. Also I find the fact that people talk about who they vote for maddening. Having said that, it seems to be moving that way in the States too. Life was better when your vote was secret but you talked about your salary, rather than the other way around.

I agree tactical voting is annoying.

I do try not to say how I've voted, and certainly consciously avoid putting pressure on anyone to say how they voted.

But it's hard not to talk about politics for more that a few minutes without getting an idea of people's political leanings, and likely voting patterns.

I think you're a man among men :)

~~Nicest thing anyone's said in a while ;)~~

Okay it's possible to discuss the running of the country with brining party politics into it, but they do do their darndest to ensure it's tricky. The "system" is set up so that a party who just makes sensible policy suggestions, without branding or slagging off opponents will likely get no air time, and no votes.

I wonder if you can guess how I was planning to vote and how I am going to vote (and whether there is a difference between the two, and if so, what changed my mind).

Not really. I'd've said Liberal, and that nothing in this campaign has changed that, but the latter part is based on extrapolation as you haven't posted anything on running the country (that I've seen) since the Election was called.

Hmm. Guess I've been projecting and rationalising. Hmm.

Well, as a civil servant I'm in purdah, so I can't really say. Your conclusions are interesting and should be discussed during a mutually-agreeable social outing. I think board games are out btw :(

I'm in this exact position too! I decided to vote for Stella, the Labour candidate and just hope the Lib Dems win overall.

I'd be inclined to vote for the rebellious incumbent MP with a track record of independent thought and doing mostly what you'd like him to, rather than the lacklustre candidate who can't reply to email and just happens to be a member of the party you like.

Thanks. Nice way of putting it.

And to be fair to the poor chap, I didn't just ask why I should vote for him. I asked if he would have attended Wash Up, and disobeyed the whip if they hadn't withdrawn it.

For added bonus fairness to whoever.

I'm deputy campaign manager for my Lib Dem candidate locally. I wouldn'[t have been if the excellent sitting MP from a different party was running for reelection, I'd have voted for her and campaigned elsewhere, probably.

My candidate is swamped with emails. Utterly utterly swamped. She's forwarding what she can't answer to me. I haven't time to answer them all.

And she's fairly switched on with technology, uses email at work, etc.

Not every politician is a natural email user, and givena large chunk of the population isn't, that can be a good thing; if elected, they can get staff.

And persuading candidates tog et impressive websites, especially if they're not naturally online a lot, is hard work; I had to bully my local party into it, and stil do most of the work for it myself, they're convinced it's irrelevent and won't help them in any way.

Given I'm getting search traffic for ""Mat bowles" candidate" on my DW, I think they're wrong, but it's a generation shift.

Now; posit. Your local rebellious type, I'm guessing, is Labour, as that's who tend to need to rebel. Do you think said type can buck national vote collapse and stay in? If so, vote for him.

If not, there's a risk collapsed vote could go elsewhere. So vote for your preferred party.

I therefore don't vote in your poll, as it depends entirely on local chances.

(and I came here via discussion at Andrew's, in case you didn't guess)

He does actually have a nicely put together site. I just don't get the impression from it that he wants to be an MP to change the world.

But that's part of the problem. If there wasn't a page there saying drop me a line, with an email address on it, I wouldn't have bothered tracking one down, and wouldn't be disappointed now.

I test my local votes against my national priorities. Nationally, even another Labour government is preferable to a Tory one, so I will vote Labour rather than let a Tory in. Choice is easy as I live in a Labour safe seat (9,000 majority over Conservatives last time), and there isn't a LibDem candidate. A different candidate might tempt me to vote Green, but the candidate is personally flaky. (My only other option is UKIP, and Paul Wiffen is bad news even by UKIP standards).

(Besides, I like my local Labour MP, despite disagreeing with him on a number of political issues.)

Locally, my past and prospective Labour local councillors have ranged from ok to impressive, and neither LibDems nor Tories impress at all. And I have no minority party candidates.

Why do I get the impression that people are not politically active in this constituency and ward?

People are, I suspect, not terribly politically active all over. I'd not like to guess what percentage of voters wouldn't recognize any candidate's name, including the incumbent.

Personally, I'm idealistic enough to vote for a way that would let most parties I didn't like in, but I recognize the pragmatism.

My own existing MP, who represents my party-of-choice in a very safe seat, is standing down. None of the candidates this time round, including the new candidate for my party-of-choice, have made any particular effort to persuade me of anything at all, and none of them are people I've met or have heard of.

So while I've ticked "Candidate", above, I'll probably end up voting for the party.

I doubt I know the name of anyone beside myself and my flat mate who live in my constituency. The perils of living in a small London constituency and socialising largely outside of it.

You certainly know the names of some more people who live in your constituency, although you may not know that they do live in your constituency. There are enough celebrities living in London that every constituency must have several.

Well I do live in one of the smallest constituency's in the country "characterised by Council accommodation, and Students", and the celebs tend to live a few tens of meters north in the trendier Crouch End, but a good point.

I meant I don't really have any sense of local community, so I'm not actually voting on a "local" MP. I'm voting on local candidate for the national seat.

It's worth mentioning that the incumbent and I, as well as being in the same party, also know each other and have done for a while and get along just fine. The new guy hasn't previously been active in this constituency but has been elsewhere.

I looked up the voting record of my local MP. As I agree with her voting record, I will support her. It is fortunate that she is also a member of the party of my choice.

I don't have a violent objection to tactical voting, given the fist past the post system it can be the only way the electorate can try to achieve a desired goal, and there's nothing wrong with voting for your party of preference, but I think if you have a sitting MP, of whatever party, who has demonstrated independence of spirit and some ability to think for themselves, and who tends to vote in a manner you approve of, that trumps everything: that's the sort of MP I think we actually need.

Of course, if this was New Zealand, you could vote for both of them. The proportional representation system gives you two votes:

1. For the candidate you want in your local seat
2. For the party you want to win overall

There are "list" seats in Parliament that are not filled from constituencies but from party lists published before the election. The proportion of party votes each party gets determines the total number of seats they will get in Parliament. So the constituency seats are filled first, then the gaps are filled with list MPs to make up the totals. Get it?

It's a great system, and since they brought it in just over a decade ago it has worked very well. I'll be voting for the party most likely to push for electoral reform, regardless of what I think of the local candidates... then maybe in the next election I can vote the way I really want to!

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Lunch time poll: Voting Dilema

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