Poll: The official I voted/election results thread

Who did you vote for?

  • Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

    Votes: 4 0.3%
  • Conservative

    Votes: 518 39.5%
  • Democratic Unionist Party

    Votes: 6 0.5%
  • Green Party

    Votes: 65 5.0%
  • Labour

    Votes: 241 18.4%
  • Liberal Democrats

    Votes: 99 7.5%
  • Didn't vote / spoiled ballot

    Votes: 136 10.4%
  • Other party

    Votes: 6 0.5%
  • Plaid Cymru

    Votes: 6 0.5%
  • Respect Party

    Votes: 1 0.1%
  • SNP

    Votes: 67 5.1%
  • Social Democratic and Labour Party

    Votes: 2 0.2%
  • Sinn Fein

    Votes: 4 0.3%
  • UKIP

    Votes: 158 12.0%

  • Total voters
    1,313
Associate
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I've seen many comments actually praising our FPTP system for keeping UKIP at bay but this really isn't the attitude to have. Regardless of the parties involved, the system needs to be fair. Whilst many despise UKIP and what they stand for, the fact remains that they received over 12% of all votes cast and their representation in parliament should reflect that.

We need change badly but I really don't see how it's ever going to happen.

I agree with this part of your post, the whole system needs reform to be fair, I'm 38 years old and find the whole system confusing, not sure how all the youth of the country voting for the first time think of it and if they understand either, but I could be in a minority or labeled as uneducated.....because looking at the numbers it just doesn't add up or resemble anything as a fair system.
 
Soldato
Joined
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I agree with this part of your post, the whole system needs reform to be fair, I'm 38 years old and find the whole system confusing, not sure how all the youth of the country voting for the first time think of it and if they understand either, but I could be in a minority or labeled as uneducated.....because looking at the numbers it just doesn't add up or resemble anything as a fair system.

Its a system designed to produce results. Im not sure we would be any happier with PR. 50 UKIP MPs.30 odd Greens and 2 hundred and some odd labour and Tory MPs each. Who is actually in charge?
If you end up with one party having more MPs than another and bargaining with smallet parties for support i dont see how it would be any different to now, just far messier.
 
Soldato
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Berkland
I don't understand why people love PR so much. FPTP is based on constituency voting. You should for the polices and the person who is going to best represent your area in parliament. The ruling party should be made up of who has the most constituencies as that means the majority party is representing the most constituencies.

Or am I being dumb and misunderstanding something?
 
Associate
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edinburgh
I don't understand why people love PR so much. FPTP is based on constituency voting. You should for the polices and the person who is going to best represent your area in parliament. The ruling party should be made up of who has the most constituencies as that means the majority party is representing the most constituencies.

Or am I being dumb and misunderstanding something?

basically the argument is if your constituencies are bigger or you maybe have more people that agree with you in other constituencies then your vote should be worth more? Is that the essence of PR?
 
Soldato
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Portsmouth (Southsea)
I don't understand why people love PR so much. FPTP is based on constituency voting. You should for the polices and the person who is going to best represent your area in parliament. The ruling party should be made up of who has the most constituencies as that means the majority party is representing the most constituencies.

Or am I being dumb and misunderstanding something?
Why would you vote only on representing your area when the polices enacted are national?.

Regionally there is little your MP can do compared to the different national changes made - therefore voting based on the manifesto of the regional MP makes more logical sense. If I had a local Conservative MP who I agreed with his local changes, but voted in line with the main party on many core issues (which I don't agree with) why would I vote for them?.

There are two factors to consider, to ignore one would be a poor choice.
 
Suspended
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I don't understand why people love PR so much. FPTP is based on constituency voting. You should for the polices and the person who is going to best represent your area in parliament. The ruling party should be made up of who has the most constituencies as that means the majority party is representing the most constituencies.

Or am I being dumb and misunderstanding something?

You need to look at it from a National, not local, perspective. A lot more will be decided at Government level that will directly affect you, than at local level. Local voting always mirrors my MP vote party wise, as I want a consistent approach.
 
Caporegime
Joined
5 Apr 2009
Posts
25,117
I agree with this part of your post, the whole system needs reform to be fair, I'm 38 years old and find the whole system confusing, not sure how all the youth of the country voting for the first time think of it and if they understand either, but I could be in a minority or labeled as uneducated.....because looking at the numbers it just doesn't add up or resemble anything as a fair system.

It's not fair by any means but nor is it especially complicated to understand. The country is divided into 650 small areas. You vote for a representative for your area. Your representative wins a seat in parliament and whichever party has over 50% of the seats forms a government. If no one has 50% then different parties will group together to make 50%.

The unfairness comes in when parties like UKIP are only popular enough to finish second everywhere but first nowhere.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
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There's one problem with this view, labour only gained 12 seats from the lib dems, the Tories gained 40, most with an increased vote share (so not just a case of the liberal vote collapsing).

Down here in the south west, outside the cities, labour don't get a look in, what happened down here was that when it mattered, people didn't trust the lib dems to continue with the government that has worked for 5 years, because they created that uncertainty by not standing behind their achievements in government. The voting public then made the choice that was better for stability, and voted blue. That isn't the lib dems being punished for being in government, it is them being punished for not making the most of it.

While I agree with what you said as such - there was also a fair amount of voting to punish them for the perception that they betrayed their supporters in the coalition :S (I live in the heart of (former) Lib Dem country). Kind of silly that many voted Conservative to punish the LDs or voted UKIP even (surprisingly) which effectively handed things to the Conservatives.

EDIT: I really feel sorry for David Laws, he had overwhelming support in the last 2 elections and for good reason and was mostly outed due to prevailing attitudes and definitely not replaced by the better candidate even though I have nothing against Marcus Fysh.
 
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Soldato
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13,597
The system produces stability. You can judge the party in Govt on what it does against what it said it will do. The UK is dependant more and more on the financial markets and they dislike instability and may go to another country where it is more stable.

How do you judge a coalition of three or more parties. Look at Italy more Govts than post WW11 years. Israel had a vote in January but did not form a Govt until March. Coalitions are also prone to being brought down when one party in a coalition take the hump for some reason.
 
Caporegime
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On the road....
So how long before another independence vote?

A good while yet, to be fair to the SNP,they know full well they have no mandate for another vote so soon after the last one.

I think they are well aware that the Scottish electorate have voted for SNP representation in Westminster,not for another crack at independence.
 
Caporegime
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No need to be so surprised, I never pay that much attention to the system/politics, far more interesting and rewarding things to occupy my mind with, i just find it confusing, I'm not alone, wouldn't it be a funny world if we were all the same :)

You just said the whole system needs reforming whilst at the same time claiming you don't even understand the current system and that you don't pay much attention to the system/politics. :confused:
 
Associate
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You just said the whole system needs reforming whilst at the same time claiming you don't even understand the current system and that you don't pay much attention to the system/politics. :confused:

My original post was about the number of votes and percentage of seats, in relation to someone else saying it doesn't seem right, that's what I was agreeing to with my limited understanding of the system, hence saying from my view it needs reform, I'm not alone in thinking this hence I replied to someone else saying the same thing, you want to question everyone's political understanding to have an oppinion on a tech forum??
 
Man of Honour
Joined
11 Mar 2004
Posts
76,634
Trouble is there's lots if silly opinions. It is all democracy. Those saying fptp isn't democracy are insane.

There's just lots of ways of doing things and they have pros and cons.

Fptp
Has pro of generally forming string and stable governments.
But leave people feeling unheard, even though they have been.

PR
Pro is people feel they've been heard
But general lead to a mess of a government. this differs from country to country depending on public views. And I think after Thursday we've shown that this probably isn't the best reform for us with what happened to LD. Also you generally remove the local connection.

And the same for all the other methods of doing it. It's Funny how people generaly don't think about the pros and cons of each system. And just go PR is god like. It most certainly has it's own issues.
 
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