Interesting. It seems every map on the internet has the community hall they were using as the polling station marked as being in someone's house half a mile from the actual community hall. I wonder how that will affect the turnout here.
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The Official UK Election Thread! 6th May it is!
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Undesired Walrus
Penultimate Amazing
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10pm, 4 hours from now. You tuning in on C-Span?
Undesired Walrus
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It would be interesting if the Tories were short of 1 seat to form a majority. Then all eyes would turn to Thirsk and Malton which votes on the 27th.
wollery
Protected by Samurai Hedgehogs!
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First returns are usually 10pm, but you have to wait until about 1 or 2 am before there are enough returns in to call it, and this election being so close, it could be a lot later than that.
ETA, may also need a lot of recounts.
ETA, may also need a lot of recounts.
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geni
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Sunderland South will declare sometime before 11 O'clock. Other results will start to drift in sometime before midnight.
I don't think I can ignore the 'at all' bit. I'm now struggling to justify the very idea of voting. Does anyone have a good reason for bothering to turn out?
geni
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Polticians consider turnout when deciding who they can afford to upset. There is also a small but non zero chance that your seat may be the first one ever decided by one vote in modern times (some of the old pocket boroughs may have been decided by that kind of margin).
Undesired Walrus
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To make the Burmese Junta and the Iranian Theocracy fear the strength and superiority of democracy, and to not let Mandela's 26 years in jail be in vain.
Rolfe
Adult human female
I've just returned from a tour of local polling stations. (How come our village, the largest in the area, has the smallest village hall?) Turnout has been fairly brisk. Nearly all the polling stations contained only some bored polling clerks and occasionally the odd voter. The polling clerk for my own station is my neighbour, who gave me a good run-down of comparative turnout (and offered to look out for my mother if I'm out all night at the count).
Biggar was crawling with blue-rosetted Tories, so we gave each other cool but polite nods. In the village hall at Dolphinton, which is tiny, there was a polling agent sitting in a dark corner reading a book. Since we're not allowed to wear rosettes or badges if we're staying in the hall (as opposed to just calling in) I don't know which party he was from. I can't imagine what he thought he was achieving. The chances of anyone choosing that tiny hamlet to rig the vote seem negligible, and he was hardly flying the flag for anyone, sitting in a dark corner without any discernible colours. (You can tell which party I'm from even when I take off my rosette, simply by what I'm wearing.)
This is the only Tory-held constituency in Scotland, and they're quite nervous about losing it. I think I could resign myself to Catriona Steel as our MP if it got rid of the Tory, I have to say. At least she can string several coherent sentences together that don't sound as if they're scripted.
Rolfe.
Biggar was crawling with blue-rosetted Tories, so we gave each other cool but polite nods. In the village hall at Dolphinton, which is tiny, there was a polling agent sitting in a dark corner reading a book. Since we're not allowed to wear rosettes or badges if we're staying in the hall (as opposed to just calling in) I don't know which party he was from. I can't imagine what he thought he was achieving. The chances of anyone choosing that tiny hamlet to rig the vote seem negligible, and he was hardly flying the flag for anyone, sitting in a dark corner without any discernible colours. (You can tell which party I'm from even when I take off my rosette, simply by what I'm wearing.)
This is the only Tory-held constituency in Scotland, and they're quite nervous about losing it. I think I could resign myself to Catriona Steel as our MP if it got rid of the Tory, I have to say. At least she can string several coherent sentences together that don't sound as if they're scripted.
Rolfe.
Rolfe
Adult human female
If you were female, I'd yell at you that women died to get you the vote. Get out there and don't let them have died in vain.
As you're not - well, possibly someone sacrificed something for universal male suffrage?
Rolfe.
I take your point, but I'm not sure people having died for something means that I should embrace it regardless of the actual effect it will have. It's special pleading, really. Like the 'if you don't vote, you can't complain' chestnut. Presumably all based on the idea, as I put it, that if no-one voted, we'd be in trouble. That, as Geni pointed out, is irrelevant to my individual decision, unless and until the turnout falls far enough that my vote becomes worthwhile. This is aside from the inherent problems of our own particular system that make it even less worthwhile an exercise.
Don't worry, I'm off now to vote, I just don't feel particularly enthused. I always knew it made very little difference, I just didn't appreciate how little until this time around.
Don't worry, I'm off now to vote, I just don't feel particularly enthused. I always knew it made very little difference, I just didn't appreciate how little until this time around.
The more people who vote, and don't vote BNP, the smaller their share of the vote is and the less influence they have... In a constituency where the BNP is standing, aiming to get them to lose their deposit, or better yet, to be pushed into 7th place behind the Greens, UKIP, and Monster Raving loony party would be a reason.
Is that a partial answer Les?
I would say that there are two aspects to voting.
Firstly: the obvious one about electing an MP, and hoping that your favoured candidate either wins or at least keeps their deposit.
Secondly: the less tangible one, where the election is also the largest opinion poll in the country, so you can still try to send a message, and also think about what you want for the next election.
That is why I voted Lib-dem in a Labour-Tory marginal. From the civil-liberties standpoint I think that even the Tories are better than Labour, and that really sticks in my throat, having been a politically aware teenager in the 1980's and remembering some of the legislation from then.
Is that a partial answer Les?
I would say that there are two aspects to voting.
Firstly: the obvious one about electing an MP, and hoping that your favoured candidate either wins or at least keeps their deposit.
Secondly: the less tangible one, where the election is also the largest opinion poll in the country, so you can still try to send a message, and also think about what you want for the next election.
That is why I voted Lib-dem in a Labour-Tory marginal. From the civil-liberties standpoint I think that even the Tories are better than Labour, and that really sticks in my throat, having been a politically aware teenager in the 1980's and remembering some of the legislation from then.
That is what I had always assumed, and I hope that is true. That's certainly my partner's main rationale for turning out and voting for anyone other than those cretins. This area is a big potential area for the BNP, and they got about 1000 votes last time round (before I moved here).
Quite agree on that last score. Though in light of one vote having virtually no effect and certainly no effect on the outcome kind of nixes both of those points. It seems that voting really is more of a secular ritual than anything else.
Rolfe
Adult human female
It's like singing in a choir, as I said before. No one individual voice is important, the choir could manage just fine without you. But nobody else's voice is more important than yours, and without any of these voices, there would be no music.
Rolfe.
Rolfe.
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A friend of mine voted today - his ballot paper had options for both the BNP and the National Front.
The National Front! They're still going apparently!
Knuckle dragging morons who view the BNP as woolly liberals.
Anyway, has Sunderland declared yet? I know the polls haven't officially closed but lets be honest SUnderland always declare so early we know they're just making it up.
By that rationale no-one should ever bother giving up smoking. After all one cigarette won't do any measurable damage...
commandlinegamer
Philosopher
And so the TV wankfest of punditry and padding begins...