The Election

[fuse]

Here's an interesting stat - Oxford's combined vote: LD: 41087 Con: 33633 Lab: 27937. One Con MP, one Lab MP.

[dataDave]

Me and paul3716 or whatever number it was that used to post here were on about forming our own party once.

We both have Asian partners so we're honestly not that racist.

Who's with us?

[abigsmurf]

If you've enough money to be able to throw away the deposit...

I doubt you'd do worse that the Pirate Party who got something like 2000 vote... between 9 candidates

[dataDave]

I quite liked the sound of the Pirate party too.

[egparadigm]

proportional rep is all well and good but it leaves you with a permanent power share situation and the manifestoes that people voted for get watered down and never implemented (not that I spose they do anyway in current system)

Well the thing is people never do vote for an individual manifesto. Margaret Thatcher won no more than 42% of the vote (or something like that) and yet achieved total power. The same goes for Blair – at the last election they won only 22% positive endorsement (that includes people who did not vote) and yet they were able to implement even their most controversial proposals.

With PR we would get a government that ruled by consensus and reached a compromise between the views of the majority, rather than the tin pot dictatorship we live in currently. It would give representation to all people and all views, and not just those who live in marginal constituencies or live near like-minded people.

Read the guide from the Electoral Reform Society and you'll soon understand that most of the drawbacks have been hugely over-blown by conservatives. Nearly all countries work this way now, Ireland moved to STV and every time the politicians have tried to switch back because of all the inconvenience, the people have denied them power.

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=3

[Dirty Sanchez]

Watching the events last night every single MP and ex-MP stated they didn't beleive the polls and they were basically rubbish.

Hmmmm.

Exit poll at 11PM :

Con: 305; Lab: 255; Lib: 61; Other: 29

State of play as at now (15:48)

Con: 307; Lab: 258; Lib: 57; Other: 28


These are the people we are supposed to trust with their judgement. Oh dear.

[Charlie]

Did anybody here vote Monster Raving Loony Party? I love those guys and wish they had a candidate where I am.

[NW2013]

Surely time for internet voting? If I can fill out my tax form and do my banking online, surely I can vote online too?

Agreed, I don't think the security concerns are really that valid. It's very unlikely there'd be any breach. I'm sure there'll be attempts at setting up phishing sites and stuff to steal votes but the government will be all over that sort of thing.

Obviously you'd keep postal voting and polling stations for the oldies. Well, maybe even scrap polling stations.

No MRLP candidate in my area unfortunately.

[egparadigm]

I think more should be done to make internet voting a reality, although it is clear that anything other than the usual polling is a fraud risk. There are already complaints in some areas about the postal ballot.

I think it's almost more important that every person eligible to vote is registered to do so on election day. When I was telling yesterday there were two people who were unable to vote. In some countries registration is more or less 100%. We can do better.

[Dirty Sanchez]

I worked with Helen 'Lady Muck' Cronin in 2001, where she stood for the Loonies.

Total nutter but great fun.

[Fei Fong Wong]

If you're so inclined...

Mend Our Voting System

Email Senior Lib Dems demanding they fight for an agreement which will deliver a fairer voting system

[JP]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/ Map view is madness. Who decided on all those tiny seats up North? It's a sea of blue and yet no win. lol, the whole thing is lame.

Charles, if you're looking for a map you're probably better off using the one that The Telegraph used.
EDIT:

...Bob Peck, a Conservative councillor in Great Yarmouth. When he and Labour rival Charlie Marsden were tied on 1,034 votes each in his Yarmouth North ward, a returning officer settled the stalemate asking each to draw cards from a pack. Mr Peck lost his seat.

[prinnysquad]

Thought HamFaced Threepio's idea about PR within FPTP yesterday was extraordinarily bad and missed the point entirely. He basically said they'd look into making every constituency the same size and have FPTP within them. But that still means there'll be millions of wasted votes, the very thing people get pissed off about!

To illustrate:
Just say every constituency has 50,000 voters.

Constituency A
LAB 20,000
Con 15,000
LD 10,000
Others 5,000

LAB win

Constituency B
LAB 5,000
Con 22,000
LD 20,000
Others 3,000

Con Win

Constituency C
LAB 19,000
Con 8,000
LD 17,000
Others 6,000

LAB Win

Party /Total Votes/ Seats
LAB / 44,000/ 2
Con / 45,000/ 1
LD /47,000/ 0
Others /14,000/ 0

Daft idea.

[egparadigm]

Took part in a demo for proportional representation yesterday. Seemed to spend most of my time photographing the media and other photographers.

We started off with a formal rally and then marched down to Whitehall where we chanted until Nick Clegg was eventually forced to come out and address us.

Here are some of my faves and the rest via the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/egparadigm/sets/72157623898769279/

Couple BBC News spots from the demo:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8670068.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8670002.stm

It was also featured on Newsnight and hit the headlines and broadsheets.

[abigsmurf]

Still no government at the time of writing. The longer this last, the more damage is being done on the markets. Handy time for Europe to be in trouble though, distracts all the investors attention from us.