UK Elections 2015

[TTG4]

New yougov polling suggests 75% of voters don't actually know what the Greens policies are. https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/01/23/little-awareness-green-policy/

[Jubal]

I'm entirely unsurprised.

[TTG4]

I admit I expected low understanding, but the actual scale of it surprised me. Especially 48% not knowing their policies on the environment, or even saying they had a general idea of what they'd say about the environment. It does make me wonder just what people base their voting choice on.

[Jubal]

New Scots polls are out this week that suggest 25 point swings to the SNP in Glasgow - enough to knock down some of the very safest Labour seats in the UK. It looks like Scotland is undergoing an utterly massive political shift.

[Marcus]

E-voting, pros and cons, discuss. The main ones I see are susceptibility to hacking and not being able to guarantee a secret vote if it's being cast in someone's bedroom.

[Jubal]

I think the hacking thing is important and worrying. And the fact that it'd mean some voting stuff had to go via the private sector, etc.

[Glaurung]

I am deeply suspicious of electronic voting, because of the near impossibility of ensuring that it's not hacked in any way - and that's just with machines set up in polling stations, let alone any system of voting over the 'Net. Paper votes may be labour-intensive and (slightly) error-prone, but they're much safer from any form of malicious manipulation.

The problem with electronic votes being subject to interference by someone looking over the voter's shoulder, as it were, already exists with postal votes, as witness various trials for electoral fraud over the last few years.

[Jubal]

Don't think I mentioned this on here yet but found it hilarious:

I got a Tory leaflet recently - well, for starters it wasn't a leaflet. It was, I kid you not, a foldup desk calendar. How is that a piece of campaign literature? Who on earth thinks people will use a mini Tory desk calendar? But that wasn't all: it had on it a famous quote, namely “If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”

I am 20. They put this through my door, in the most student-heavy ward in Cambridge. They put these through all the other doors too. Their main challenger for votes? Yep, the Liberal incumbent. Most stupid piece of political marketing ever.

(Also they misattributed it to Churchill, who probably didn't actually say it.)

[TTG4]

I had another piece of labour election material through, trying to look like a newspaper as they sometimes do. Essentially said they were the only non-tory party that could win in my seat and then wheeled out their favourite election soundbytes (NHS, cost of living etc.)

It ended up in recycling and I only found it because I was throwing something out, I'm not sure why they continue doing this, does it work for anyone?

[Jubal]

I think some material works better than others - Labour's never seems to be terribly well targeted IMO, the Green and LD stuff has been much more locally focussed.

[TTG4]

Just discovered that my new flat will be in Norwich South, much more interesting, currently a LD incumbent with a 300 vote majority over lab, with the tories 3000 votes behind and the greens 6000 votes behind. Maybe I'll get more gems of campaign material there than here!

[Jubal]

Are you moving in time to register for the GE?

And yes, Norwich S is more interesting, though it seems fairly clear now that Labour are on course to win it with a pretty hefty majority. The Lib Dem vote will likely collapse horribly and could leave them in fifth.

[TTG4]

Yeah it means I'm actually having to think about how to vote! I believe so, I have potential move in dates of 20th/23rd of March. When I registered here in Jan it only took about a week, though I can't find a deadline anywhere. It can get lumped in with all the bureaucracy.

In any case though, the rhetoric is ramping up in general.

[Jubal]

Got doorknocked by Labour.

I really want to know how candidates get this preternatural ability to knock at my door precisely when I'm in my pyjamas at midday or otherwise in an inadequate state to open it. It's really annoying.

[TTG4]

I really want to know how candidates get this preternatural ability to knock at my door precisely when I'm in my pyjamas at midday or otherwise in an inadequate state to open it. It's really annoying.

Please tell me you answered, I've always been tempted to creep out any door knockers, but I've never had one show up