A Word on the Local Election Results So Far

[miss_s_b]

Yes, the coalition parties got a drubbing. Yes, Labour won back lots of seats. But that's not the big story, and Labour would do well to resist the urge to rub Lib Dem faces in it (not that they are resisting, of course...). The big story of what happened yesterday was turnout. In most places it was less than 30%. LESS THAN 30%!

This is not a ringing endorsement of the Labour party, this is a big two fingers up to ALL politicians. It explains the Green wipeout in Cambridge when they had net gains overall, and came close to taking (for example) Birkenhead with over 40% of those who turned out voting for them. It explains the gains for Respect in Bradford - and we're already seeing hopes for all sorts, including saving the Odeon, attached to Respect, which I shall be very sad but very unsurprised to see dashed.

Triumphalist Labourites tweeting that (for example) in one ward in Hull they got 80-odd percent of the vote and intentionally not mentioning the turnout (18.7%) are 1, missing the point and 2, setting themselves up for a big fall. When you factor in turnout, that Hull ward was won by 15.7% of the vote. That's not something to crow about, not for politicians of ANY stripe.

The public hates us ALL. Yes, at the moment they detest the coalition parties more than Labour, but that won't last if Labour get in. Politicians of all parties need to be very worried indeed about the message that extremely low turnouts are sending us, because at some point there's going to be a really big upset if we don't. Possibly even if we do.

Comments

[drunkwriter]

Given that the Lib Dem share of the vote has been estimated as unchanged, I would have thought that the face-rubbing should be directed more squarely at the fascists in blue.

I rocked up to our polling station at about 19:00, after a ten minute wander through residential streets, and there were maybe two people voting. While I can't think of a single election where I've had to queue as such, I usually vote scarily early in the morning and am not surprised to be more or less alone.

I overheard one of the officials remarking that it had 'gone quiet again' as I was leaving, but I suspect it was never exactly jumping.

Suitably secure electronic voting has to be at least a medium term goal for any political party serious about increasing and perpetuating engagement with the democratic process.

[miss_s_b]

Ah, but Labour hate us more than the Tories because we "betrayed"" them by proving to be an actual independent political party and not their weaker clones... We never WERE their weaker clones, but they assumed we were for some reason... Saw lots of tweets last night along the lines of "taking seats from Tories is business, but from Lib Dems is pleasure"

[drunkwriter]

Sounds like further vindication of my blanket avoidance of political Twitter accounts (with the single, obvious, brilliant exception of @Osbornedrunk).

[andrewhickey.info]

The problem is that there can be no such thing as 'suitably secure electronic voting'. It's bad enough that we have postal votes, with the concommitant huge risk of fraud and coercion, but electronic voting would not only allow that to increase (abusive spouse or parent looking over someone's shoulder while they vote, or voting 'for' them) but given that over 90% of people use fundamentally insecure, buggy, virus-ridden operating systems to go on the internet, you'd basically be allowing any quarter-competent script kiddie, Russian mobster or unfriendly government to decide the election.

And even more importantly, democracy not only needs to be fair but needs to be *seen* to be fair. Even if the government decided to use only Free Software to run the voting on -- on every level of the machines from the bare metal up -- which would be the only way that an audit would be even theoretically possible (and what are the chances of that? I'd guess at slightly less than none), you still have the problem that there is no paper trail, and nobody can see the physical ballots. If a candidate thinks from the doorstep reaction that she's won, but then the other candidate gets a 10,000-vote majority, what steps can she take to reassure herself? None -- she just has to trust a black box.

The Electoral Reform Society -- who would have every reason to support it, since they make money from their Electoral Reform Services company, which sells voting machines for those organisations that actually want them -- are against electronic voting for all these reasons.

What will get people to vote is believing that their vote makes a difference. That can only be achieved if the major parties stop trying to occupy the same millimetre-square area of 'centre ground' and actually give people a reason to prefer one over another (and yes, I think the Lib Dems are by far the best in that regard, but we've been heading in the wrong direction at least since Ming's leadership, if not before, and need to turn round and start making our differences more obvious), or if there's an electoral system that will allow smaller parties to actually get some representation.

Note that in Scotland, even though turnout was a 'record low', it was still above 40% whereas in general it was less than 30%. I can't help but believe that that's because in Scotland there is both a better voting system (STV) for councils and a viable non-big-three party to vote for.

In Manchester, on the other hand, where even when we've been doing well they've still always weighed the Labour votes in most wards, turnout was under 20% in many wards.

Electronic voting is one of those things that sounds like a solution to the problem, but really, really isn't...

[staceyuk]

I agree with this.

[purplecthulhu]

As do I.

[blazingskies]

Some smarmy git from Labour came to my door at 7pm yesterday to ask if I'd voted. I gave him a death glare and said 'Yes, but not for you.' and shut the door.

a *lot* of my friends were saying they didn't know who to vote for. A few of them said they deliberately spoiled their ballot papers. I voted Greens since there were no PPUK candidates handy.

Dave McIntee said his 'choice' was Tory, Labour, Lib Dem or UKIP. Not much of a choice, really.

[miss_s_b]

More choice than here; we didn't even get a UKIP. Just Tory, Labour, or me.

ETA: I am fully behind spoilt ballots. They can't be spun as apathy, and they're entertaining for tired politicians at the end of a count - they all have to be checked.

[po8crg]

Didn't see any good spoils in Manchester, this time. Just the usual people writing in the names of parties that weren't standing.

Best ever was the simultaneous equations (voter wrote x,y,z by the candidates and a set of simultaneous equations at the back; solving them got a 1 by one candidate and zeroes for all the others)

PS: 79 votes and fifth; not surprising in an ultra-safe Labour ward I don't live in and only visited to get the ten nominations.

[andrewhickey.info]

The simultaneous equations were good, but I couldn't help but laugh at the one in one ward (won't mention the name because it wouldn't be fair) that just said "not him again!" next to our candidate.

[norfolkian]

21% in my ward. And Labour won but the options in my ward are Labour, Conservative or Socialist Alternative. :/

[daweaver]

The big story of what happened yesterday was turnout. In most places it was less than 30%. LESS THAN 30%!

For comparison, turnout at the 2008 elections - the last standalone council elections - in England was about 35%, in Wales about 44%. Comparisons in Scotland are meaningless, as the last council elections coincided with elections to the Scottish Parliament.

The public hates us ALL. Yes, at the moment they detest the coalition parties more than Labour, but that won't last if Labour get in.

Or, the half of voters who do vote in local elections are primarily motivated to wreak revenge on the Westminster government. This was true under Labour, it was true under Major. They are encouraged by the leading parties, who campaign on national matters. Love them or loathe them, Nick Clegg and David Cameron are not going to be your local councillors. Robert Winston can say what he likes, however remote from the truth, but councils have very little to do with healthcare.

I enjoyed the Green's broadcast, because it concentrated on the party's values, both the specific policies and a huge amount of hope. As much as I dreaded the UKIP broadcast, it successfully projected that party's core value: that everything's going to hell in a handcart. From the big three, nothing to move me.

The problem, I fear, is that politicians are so frightened of a day's bad headlines that they don't do anything slightly controversial, and come across as weak and weaselly. As much as contributors dislike the policies of Boris and/or Ken, these blokes have no fear, they are able to brush off the mud churned up and get on with what they do. They're characters, they're almost cartoon figures, but behind the character is a serious politician.

I agree that people need to believe their vote counts. Yesterday, I had the option to vote for the party I'm a member of, in the (vain) hope that the candidate would finish above someone, anyone. Or I could support the council's ruling coalition, which means voting for a Tory who believes mobile phones cause cancer. Or I could have voted for the successful Labour candidate, who (like her fellow councillors) appears to represent the other end of the ward. Under STV, my ward would probably end up electing two Labour members and a Tory, but I'd probably know that I helped elect at least one of these people.