General Election 2010

I am voting for the political party whose policies most closely represents my views.

Its not that difficult.

I am voting for the political party whose policies most closely represents my views.

Its not that difficult.

Apathetic activism.

I dont know what that means.

I am voting for the political party whose policies most closely represents my views.

Its not that difficult.

Austrians are allowed to vote?????????

Is this what we fought two world wars for?

Nope, but Polskis are...

I dont know what that means.

I just made it up.

As I see it, you're active enough to vote, but apathetic as to how that vote is treated in the grander scheme, and the larger issue of electoral reform and fairness.

Wait - are you talking about Australia or here?

That's a good enough way to think about it in Australia where you have preferential voting.

Austrians are allowed to vote?????????

Is this what we fought two world wars for?

To be fair they did a lot of fighting too. In the second at least

@H, I was referring to voting here. But what you said sounds nice, so Im happy to go with that.

http://www.votematch.org.uk/ scary stuff.

doesn't really get at it though. but useful.

If you believe you have a civic responsibility to vote, and you're planning to not vote as a protest, than spoil your ballot. I think I've only ever voted properly in two elections (Canada also has a Single member plurality/First-past-the-post federal system) - the first time I voted, and in the recent EU election (as it's PR).

People will often say spoiling your ballot doesn't matter/achieves nothing, but as they are counted, a statistically large percentage of spoilt ballots would most certainly result in debate, if nothing else (a debate about voter dissatisfaction is better than a debate about voter apathy, which none-voting will look like. One gives us discussion about electoral reform, the other gives us ads on TV with rock starts telling us to "rock the vote"!).

Might go the spoiler route then. I've voted for extreme minority parties the last couple of times, those whose policies/sensibilities I felt most aligned with. Net result = massive fuck all.

Might go the spoiler route then. I've voted for extreme minority parties the last couple of times, those whose policies/sensibilities I felt most aligned with. Net result = massive fuck all.

what you mean your vote for a small party didn't swing it for them to win?

With all due respect "FOOL!", sorry about that, nothing personal but people who wave the disenfranchised card are in for a nasty shock when they discover how bad things can and will get if the tories get back in.

The only good Tory is a dead Tory.

I'm all too familiar with life under the Tories, thanks. Like I said, the irresponsible actions of those who exploit this country to the detriment of most of its inhabitants continues to occur irrespective of the current party political veneer.

what you mean your vote for a small party didn't swing it for them to win?

No, it was like totally weird and shit. I heard all these people talking about their more inclusive values and almost like *Socialist *and whatever beliefs, and like really believed that everyone would like vote like what the believe in or something. But when I woke up, I like wasn't on any pie chart and shit or whatever. I like couldn't understand it or whatever.

Did the BBC not have a tacky holoigraphic representation of you and your ballot paper? you've been had!

There was no hoipolloigraphic representation, no :(

No. I am Paramounted's dad (and I still don't know if I have a son or a daughter) and Velo-Libra's father-in-law-to be. It's a fucking nightmare.

You have a son. A son who loves you. A son who has as much trouble growing hair as (I'm wildly guessing) you do. A son who likes bikes, photography and even the name Will. A son.

This is a good site:
http://www.voterpower.org.uk

that's great, Velocio!

                  In the 2005 election, more than half of all voters **voted  against their winning MP**.
      Their votes were simply **thrown away**.
      In the UK, the only voters with any real power to choose the  government are those who live in **marginal constituencies**.
          **Less than 20%** of constituencies can be considered  marginal.
      The rest of us have little or **no power to influence the  outcome of the election**.
      In fact, statistical analysis by the nef (the new economics  foundation) shows that one person in the UK does not have one vote...
      ...it's more like **0.25** votes.
      In some ultra safe constituencies the value of your vote falls to **practically  zero**.

.

^it says my consituency's very marginal and my vote power is nearly 4x the UK average blah blah blah.

The close race is between New Labour and The Lib Dems. The Lib Dems rule the council (although now have a minority due to Lib Dem councillors dying and stuff) anyway. And both parties fail to show any salient differences in their policies.

So I would say the value of my vote remains at practically zero, if not considerably less.

Velocio, spreading disenfranchisement since 2007.

Yeah, thanks for nothing(ness).

Voter power in Hackney South & Shoreditch

0.039

GREAT....

And both parties fail to show any salient differences in their policies.

Not true, or do you mean specifically within your constituency? In which case I doubt it.

BMMF, we live in the same constituency. If we voted we might cancel out each other's votes and so we could agree not to vote. It would all depend on who we might vote for in the first place and the assumption that we would not vote for the same person or indeed the assumption that one or both of us would vote anyway. I couldn't be bothered to work out this connumdrum or at all.