Poll: General election voting round 5 (final one)

[semi-pro waster]

This is the fifth and final chance to indicate your voting intentions and see if there have been any changes over time. The poll will close shortly before midnight on the 7th when the actual polling will start from but this thread will be left often for any discussions after polling day.

It covers all parties who currently have at least one seat in the House of Commons but if you're going to vote for another party that isn't listed then you can indicate that with the "other" option and explain (or not). It's anonymous so unless you want to say who you're voting for there's no need to post it.

The options in alphabetical order are:
Alliance Party of Northern Ireland
Conservative
Democratic Unionist Party
Green Party
Labour
Liberal Democrat
Not voting/will spoil ballot
Other party (not named)
Plaid Cymru
Respect Party
Scottish National Party
Social Democratic and Labour Party
Sinn Fein
UKIP

The poll runs for 7 days from today and after that point there'll be an election so we'll see how the real thing pans out.

Round 1 of the polling.
Round 2 of the polling.
Round 3 of the polling.
Round 4 of the polling.

 

[semi-pro waster]

For what it's worth I've just done a simple line graph for the past four polls (including the fifth makes the scale look a bit odd) for the numbers and past five polls for the percentages to see what difference time and election campaigning has made. You're remarkably consistent OcUK, you may be many other things as well but at least you're consistent.

And yes the colours are wrong but they're the default Excel colours and I can't be bothered to mess about with them. n.b. there was no "Not voting/will spoil ballot" option in the first poll.

 

[semi-pro waster]

I'll be completely honest I neither have the time or the desire to research economic theory.

Fact is whether labour over spent or not, has no effect on who I'll vote for.

I'm a bit curious about the general point - why pick up on a perceived failing (of any party) which has no bearing on your thinking? Who you would vote for and why is entirely your choice, I'm just wondering why you (or others) would make an issue out of something you don't really care about.

seeing as sinn fein don't take their seats up they should be blocked from the poll imo

Bit late to change the polling options now, we've had four polls with the same options and the fifth was almost exactly the same. They've got the same opportunity to influence legislative matters as any other elected MP but they just choose not to exercise it - some other MPs have such poor voting records that effectively they're in a similar position in terms of influence, I don't think we'd want to try and factor them out.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...acking-candidate-running-against-nigel-farage

East London Mosque campaigning for Farage's opponent in South Thanet. Slight lol that the Mosque is home to a "charity" called UK Islamic Trust, and I don't think charities are supposed to campaign for candidates.

The guidance from the Charity Commission does say that there should be no campaigning for or against political parties (or candidates) although it does also say that charities can undertake political activity which supports the charities aims. It will be interesting to see if it is judged that boundaries have been crossed and if so what the repercussions might be.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Most constituencies count the spoilt ballots, and they certainly aren't discarded in case their is a recount.

They do count the spoilt ballots but as far as I'm aware there's no official distinction drawn between people who are deliberately spoiling the ballot and those who just haven't managed to complete a valid ballot. Individual counts may choose to record those who do a "none of the above" option but that's not officially recognised - you essentially end up with two piles 1) votes for candidates and 2) non-valid votes. Electoral Commission info.

If hardly anyone spils then sure, it is just noise. If 50% of the voter spoiled then it sends an extremely strong signal that the electorate is not at all happy and there needs to be significant changes to the political system. that likely won't ch age how thr next government is electected but it will certainly have a drastic effect on what the government does next.

So no, spoiled ballot,is not wasted. What they should do is have a "none of the above" option though. It is no more wasted than a vote for UKIP or the a greens, e.g. A state,met that you are happy with the main parties, not soe thing that has an impact on the government.

It's a nice idea that if enough people spoil their ballots that they will be counted as protest votes but as it currently stands the system isn't set up to record it in that way.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Or there's people that haven't bothered to vote for the 5th time, i almost didn't bother as i'm fed up with the constant rubbish about UKIP from the likes of DP and wanted to stay quite.

There's currently 653 votes with time left to run. The first poll had 684, the second 611, the third 707, the fourth 698. You could be right and there are people choosing not to vote for the fifth time but even if we accept that the second poll is anomalously low then the number of votes cast so far for the fifth looks to be in the right sort of ballpark despite having time left to you.

The vote however is anonymous so unless you want to make an issue of who you're voting for then it would be highly unlikely for anyone else to know.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Yeah I get that, I just don't get why a winning government doesn't take over the whole country with it's politicians. It baffles me what control another parties politician has in your area if he can be outvoted by the dominant party politicians votes on anything. He might as well just do nothing, or the same as the running governments politician (who lost) was going to do anyway.

It might not be easy to separate the two issues but your MP represents you both at a local and a national level. Locally might be simply listening to your issues at a constituency surgery or writing letters on your behalf about issues that affect you for another MP/government department to respond to, alternatively they might be leading a campaign to keep a school open, generate more funding for a local priority or whatever. Nationally it's about doing the things that they think will make for a better country (this may or may not coincide with what you believe) and also presenting their constituency interests in the best possible light.

You can have an MP who is great for your constituency locally but terrible nationally, terrible locally but great nationally or anywhere in between. Part of the problem though from a certain point of view is that you are voting for a person to cover both dimensions and you're not voting for a party or indeed a PM directly - you're voting for a person who has (usually) affiliated themselves with a party and that party is who decides who will be the PM. Admittedly I'm rather simplifying things and there are subtleties involved but maybe that will help slightly.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Tell that to foster grant who went down the route of UKIP members looking odd,

He said they seem odd - I wouldn't presume to speak for Mr grant but my first reading of that wouldn't be a comment on appearance.

I have a list of 291 more since the 1st of Jan, so anti-kippers what does that lot say about your beloved parties now?

Can we agree that all parties have members and representatives who do and say things that are abhorrent? It looks a bit like a game of one-upmanship to keep seeing "but that party has XX member who is bad as well..." - ok, all parties are not exempt from having members who behave in undesirable ways (to put it politely).