General Election June 2017

Good work. Using historical data to work out the relative prospects of Labour and Lib Dem sounds like quite a challenge (given all the 'dynamics'...).

On a related note I've just found Gina Miller's site. I wonder what will be their mechanism for guiding/coordinating voting activity?

http://www.bestforbritain.org/

Currently when I look at my constituency (Fareham) it says Labour or Lib Dems. I can kind of understand that given that they got about them same number of votes in 2015, but shouldn't it only be giving one suggestion.

Depressingly, you could add all the non Tory votes together in 2015 and they would still win (even including ukip)

edit, yeah just noticed it says TBC, sorry

Gina Miller's campaign may be funding us too.

And presently we have 99% agreement between the suggested voting recommendations. We're coming to the same conclusions.

Yeah, the TBC bit. It basically means we don't really have enough understanding of that seat to make a strong suggestion that would be meaningful.

It isn't always clear cut.

Gina Miller will be focusing on 40 or so key seats to fight for or defend, whereas we're making recommendations across the entire country. So we're taking on a lot more of the grey areas, or the really futile ones too (the massively safe Tory seats).

We may actually recommend the Tories in one seat... the Speaker's seat :) No-one else is standing there out of tradition and the independents there are a bit nuts... besides, electing him removes a vote from the Tory numbers.

I hoped that would be the case, so that's good to hear.

For the next step, it would be helpful to have the details of where polling stations are, based on a postcode search. This data won't be out yet (polling places won't have been confirmed) and I don't know how public it will be when it is, but if something along those line could be tied into this, that would be fantastic.

Getting people to the right polling station is half of the battle sometimes.

Also, could you get it to request permission to push updates (I know android can let websites do this) so you can push a reminder to vote on the day?

Also, could you get it to request permission to push updates (I know android can let websites do this) so you can push a reminder to vote on the day?

We're definitely thinking of this, and how to achieve it.

It's amusing to think of how to send potentially hundreds of thousands of emails within a short time-frame, and to NOT look like a spammer.

I was reading about the Today presenters this morning.

Jon Humphrys is the only one who wasn't privately educated. The other day the sports guy was doing the football news, and one of them started moaning about when the rugby was going to be on.

When these are the best people at holding the government to account (and the opposition doesn't seem to be, and the mainstream media can't really be), it's no wonder we've dropped to 40th in the world today for press freedom.

There's a fascinating challenge in how you reach people who (generalising) aren't "like us".

You could consider that from various dimensions, e.g.:

• Technology (i.e. those that won't be reachable online)
  
• Age (e.g. finding the best channels for young people, and perhaps some older people too)
  
• 'Social' (e.g. any classes/groups that might otherwise be hard to reach/convince)
  
  

That said, some of those dimensions may place an unavoidable cap on the effectiveness of any mobilisation campaign, and there may be little merit in seeking to go beyond that limit (as the increased effort will not justify the low conversion rate).

I'm waffling a bit but you get my drift.

Me again. This is good thinking.
http://www.youcanchangeyourfuture.com/

("Students! You can vote in your home OR term address constituency. Pick the one with the most marginal seat.")

This whole thing is assuming there's enough people that want to keep the Torys out. I say we start a crowd funder for all the advertising boards in contested seats and just print one of May's scowls with "the conservatives want to sell the NHS".

"The Conservatives WILL sell the NHS" would hit harder.

or 'your' NHS.

I'm only half kidding too. I'm also considering setting up a fake news website.

how to send potentially hundreds of thousands of emails within a short time-frame, and to NOT look like a spammer.

In short, authenticate correctly and send from an IP that already sends that volume. One of the key things that'll get your send bulked is a sudden increase in volume, even if you authenticate fully.

Yeah, but we don't have an IP that already sends that volume. I'm best placed, and i don't have that.

OK, done some digging about. https://democracyclub.org.uk/data/ has a polling station finder - be aware that its data won't be 100% correct yet. Councils are still confirming locations. It also is gathering candidate data, so will allow you to put a name to your recommendations, which does help.

If people need a reminder to vote 'on the day' and don't know where their polling station is then they should be allowed to stay under their little stone.

and not be bothered by fucking patronising emails.

Then your best bet is to blend your send with that of someone else who a) has that volume and b) has a good sending reputation.

Problem there is you seldom get to pick your bedfellow, so might end up sharing an IP with UKIP.

Yes/no. Pretty sure the hackney council polling station finder website crashed last time we had elections.

Then they will moan from under their little stone that they 'didn't vote for this lot...'

I do agree with what I think is your implication that it is their democratic right not to vote as much as it is to do so.

However, one could argue the current government have an interest in turning the electorate off politics, as those who might oust them are more likely to stay at home than their own voters.

One patronising little e-mail is easy to ignore in a sea of spam. But if it gets even a small number of people out, who might want to vote and otherwise might not, why not?

Leaflets through the door?

"forget Brexit, The Conservatives WILL sell your NHS."
"vote [x]."

Follow the Vote Leave strategy and wait till the last week just before the election.

Or maybe;
"are you proud to be British? Be proud of your NHS"
"vote [x]."

Tories are cunts, vote [x]

I think that @Velocio was suggesting that they would sign up for the emails, I certainly wouldn't condone unsolicited mail.

I was suggesting that a polling station finder on the site might be a useful addition, maybe also add a link to the page to ensure that you're registered to vote at https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

I can also see why you might not want to though, keeping things cleaner on the page.

I wonder if there's anything to be gained from trying to make electoral reform more of a thing. I know it's not a sexy topic and not a top-line priority like Brexit or the NHS, but it's something that could steal votes of potential vote-splitting smaller parties, and play with the populism and disenfranchisement which seems to be all the rage at the minute.