Why vote?

[matgb]

Assertion: Turnout is affected by the likelihood your vote will make a difference and the amount of campaigning the parties are doing in the area.

In areas that are considered to be "safe", a) voters are less likely to be interested and b) parties are less likely to run competetive campaigns, targetting resources and activists on marginal seats they may gain or lose.
Electoral Reform Society: Election already over in nearly 400 seats:

The Society has listed 382 seats which are ‘Super Safe’ in that they will not change hands even with a landslide on any conceivable scale. The Society points out, however, that there are many more seats where the outcome is a very safe bet, even if an upset is not beyond probability.

It is my belief that turnout is likely to go up, overall, in this election as it's the first election since 1992 where the overall result is not a foregone conclusion.

But for residents of 382 seats out of 650, the local result is already a foregone conclusion. There's a spreadsheet on the site to download; if you live in one of the seats listed, and you're not sure you want to vote, make sure you're registered to vote. Go to the polling station.

Don't put an X in the box.

Write "No Safe Seats; make my vote count" on the ballot paper.

Why should you do this? Because at an election, the returning officer must get the agreement of a representative of each candidate before a ballot can be rejected. Your already selected future MP will get to know how frustrated you are.

Prediction: after the election, if it's as close as it is now, a large number of Conservatives will complain that they were robbed and that Labour got more seats than they deserved, or words to that effect; you already see this with the "we won the votes in England" meme. What they don't take into account is that the 'safe' Labour seats are very very safe. Turnout is incredibly low in many of them; that doesn't necessarily indicate disaffection, it just indicates that there's no point in going to the polling station when you know the MPs won already. Labour seats see a much stronger falloff in turnout than Conservative seats, Lib Dem seats are in the middle.

The Conservative party says they like the voting system as is, rotten boroughs, safe seats, differential turnout and all.

It's a damn shame that they've never bothered to try and understand it.

Comments

Or...

[(Anonymous)]

Wouldn't a better way to defeat the Tory "we won the votes in England" meme be to encourage Labour and Lib Dem supporters living in safe seats (of whatever hue) to actually go out and vote?

John B

Re: Or...

[matgb]

In safe seats, getting a partisan vote out is difficult, and the parties aren't going to put resources in.

I'm working the three-way marginal I live in.

But if someone isn't going to vote anyway (and there are lots of people thinking that way), then getting them to do something positive makes some difference, increases overall turnout, and if enough people do it in even the safest of seats, those elected may actually notice.

I care not one jot what some Tory blog commenter thinks, if (s)he's repeating that meme (s)he doesn'[t understand the system well enough.

I care about influencing those elected; this is a way of getting through to even the safest of the Tory squirearchy in the rottenest of boroughs.

And it appeals to my barely partisan anarchist tendencies.

[innerbrat]

May I quote you wholesale?

(My seat is one of the marginals; I feel a little proud of that.)

[matgb]

On this, absolutely. I need to clarify a little point in it though, not clear.

[el_staplador]

Not sure I'm brave enough to do that! And anyway, I honestly would go out there and vote Lib Dem, even if I were the only person in the town to do so.

[matgb]

That's fine; I missed a clause, this is aimed at those unlikely to vote more'n anything else.

If you know who you're voting for regardles, that's cool. It's probably a good time to join ;-)

[andrewducker]

I'd be interested to see your response to comment #8 over on your LC post..

[matgb]

Getting there, SB gets the computer in the mornings until her laptop is fixed.

[pmoodie]

Looks like mine (Edinburgh East) is not on the list, so that's good to know.

[matgb]

Ah, you're in a fairly safe but could go any way Scottish seat. Lib Dems 2nd, which is promising, don't know the candidate though.

Scottish seats are weird to analyse; because you have 4 effective parties (England has 2 and a half), sometimes seats can go in a completely different way than expected.

The one Tory MP north of the border got in because LAbour voters (1st place) defected to the SNP (3rd place) so the Tory (2nd place) got in despite going down in votes. Stupid system.

[pmoodie]

Our Lib Dem candidate appears to be a fellow called Charles Cavaye.

Here via <user name=innerbrat site=livejournal.com>'s post.

[gramarye1971]

I'm quite interested to see that Buckingham, technically the safest seat of all (as John Bercow's 'Speaker Seeking Re-election' seat), is listed as a potential marginal on the spreadsheet. Do you have any thoughts about the traditionally protected status of the Speaker's seat?

Re: Here via Debi's post.

[matgb]

Bercow's up against Farage, who's a very able performer and campaigner, and a former Tory MEP running on a pro-EU ticket.

Because he's not got party backing, he might be in trouble.

In the past, MPs used to share the constituency with a number of others, single member seats only becamse the norm after 1947, so each party used to put up one less candidate and the Speaker was assumed to get in (I think, it's been awhile).

Personally, I think the Speaker should resign their current seat and be appointed Member for the Palace of Westminster, and be reelected at the moment of dissolution each time around, the current system is a bit daft and reduces representation of constituenct while increasing workolad of neighbouring MPs.

Bercow will probably get back in, but it's an interesting precedent.

Re: Here via Debi's post.

[gramarye1971]

I tend to go back and forth on the question of the Speaker-as-constituency-MP, mostly because it's an area on which I'd like to do a little more reading before I come down firmly on one side or the other. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find much in the way of good journalism or academic research on the Speaker's electoral status -- much of what I've come across is at least 30 years old. But it's still a seat to watch.

Two Words...

[(Anonymous)]

You are a complete bell end.

Re: Two Words...

[matgb]

That's 6 words, and none of them constructive.