[Flipside]

Such as it is.

Hope our other UK members have done the same, get out there and vote, no-ones going to listen if you don't speak

[Locutus of Borg]

Are you bigoted against dictators?

[Flipside]

<Churchill Dog> Boooooohhh! Yes! </Churchill Dog>

I live in a country where a party can get one quarter of the votes and one half of the seats, we have to work with what we have

[headdie]

wandered up about 2 hours ago turns out i knew one of the electoral officers at the door, stuck my cross on the paper and shoved it in the box.

the problem we have is just getting ppl into the polling stations

[Flipside]

Was pretty quiet at mine too, I suspect it will pick up later in the evening once everyone is back from work. I'm hoping for a good turnout this year, but there is a lethargy that seems to be in the British people that, it doesn't really matter who you vote for, the bastards will still get in, not entirely unfounded, I'll admit.

[Wolfy]

Well, I voted about 6pm. Barely anyone in my polling Station.

Yet, according to the BBC, 100's (if not potentially 1000's) of people have been turned away at 10pm due to massive queues, thus a lot of people unable to vote. But then, whos fault is that? should they of gone earlier maybe?

[Aardwolf]

Yet, according to the BBC, 100's (if not potentially 1000's) of people have been turned away at 10pm due to massive queues, thus a lot of people unable to vote. But then, whos fault is that? should they of gone earlier maybe?

Depends. If they had all shown up as soon as they opened, would they have all been able to vote? If not, something's amiss.

[karajorma]

I live in a country where a party can get one quarter of the votes and one half of the seats

A fact I'm always glad about. I wouldn't particularly want to come back to a country that (based on current numbers) had 9 BNP and 18 UKIP MPs.

[Kosh]

Such as it is.

Hope our other UK members have done the same, get out there and vote, no-ones going to listen if you don't speak

What's it like to have a government that listens to the voters instead of wealthy campaign contributors (individuals and corporations)?

[Flipside]

I live in a country where a party can get one quarter of the votes and one half of the seats

A fact I'm always glad about. I wouldn't particularly want to come back to a country that (based on current numbers) had 9 BNP and 18 UKIP MPs.

I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for the fact that every incumbent government moves the borders of constituencies around under the excuse of balancing out population levels, when, in truth, it's all about maximising their seat-gaining potential during an election.

Such as it is.

Hope our other UK members have done the same, get out there and vote, no-ones going to listen if you don't speak

What's it like to have a government that listens to the voters instead of wealthy campaign contributors (individuals and corporations)?

Heh, well, so far, it's very, very confusing. It looks like the Conservatives are going to have the most seats, but there's a strong possibility that it won't be enough to get a majority of votes in parliament.

The thing is, a lot of politicians are complaining that a hung parliament gets nothing done, and I must admit to a little voice in me saying that maybe four years of a paralysed government shouldn't be knocked until we've tried it...

[karajorma]

I wouldn't mind so much if it weren't for the fact that every incumbent government moves the borders of constituencies around under the excuse of balancing out population levels, when, in truth, it's all about maximising their seat-gaining potential during an election.

Then the constituencies should be determined by an independent body and not the government.

I would. It's all very well to complain that a lack of PR means that we have an unfair first past the post system but if you polled the British electorate you'd probably find the vast majority don't want the BNP ****tards having any say in the running of the country. So how fair would it be to give them a say when such an enormous number would rather fire them into the sun?

[Flipside]

But it does leave people in more populous constituencies with 'less' value, politically, then those in the less populous ones. I agree that direct proportional representation wouldn't work out, after all, who'd decide who represented where, but I'd be a lot happier with, as you say, an independent body working to ensure that each constituency is defined without political preference.

Edit: See, it's situations like it's currently sitting at that annoy me, Labour have 5% more of the popular vote, but the number of seats they've got is 500% higher than the number of seats the Lib-Dems have. I know that there's no prized for second place in Politics, but still, it's infuriating that the Lib Dem coverage is spread so thin.

[Flipside]

BBC Headline:

'Britain Wakes up to Hung Parliament'


Oh, if only that weren't merely a turn of phrase...

_{Just kidding, please no, not the men with black suits and odd-shaped tasers again!}

[Shade]

Heh heh. It would be quite the sight to see a long line of gallows outside Westminster Palace. Somehow I think a lot of people would approve, too, at least if the opinion of politicians in the UK is anything like it is here

Of course, as an alternative you could just wait a bit to lull them into a false sense of security and then go for the fireworks solution once the fifth of November rolls by...

On a serious note, though, I seem to be reading about a lot of cases where people were turned away from polling stations as they didn't have the manpower to finish up in time for the 10pm deadline. What kind of third world country is the UK turning into if people in line to vote are just ushered away by police? That's the sort of thing us Europeans are supposed to be making fun of everyone else for...

Also, wouldn't that leave the results open to legal challenge? I'd certainly be pissed off enough to get hold of a lawyer if I weren't allowed to vote despite being eligible for it. It just seems to me that it's a massive mess to get into when something as simple as keeping the polling stations open for another hour or two could have avoided the whole thing.

[Flipside]

The problem here lay in the administration side of things, the word of law states that NO votes may be registered after 10pm, without exception, but not nearly enough administrative staff had been put in place to deal with the level of turnout we had, which sat at around 70% for most areas, so people weren't actually arriving to vote after 10pm, it was just the whole process was taking so long they were waiting for hours.

As for your second question, yes, it can, and probably will lead to challenges in the affected seats, some people are reporting as many as 1000 voters turned away from one station, which is enough to win or lose you a seat, I'm almost certain those will be contested if the difference between the votes comparable to the number of locked out voters. I'll wait with interest to see what the courts make of it

[headdie]

the ppl getting turned away was because the turn out was 77+% with hasne been seen since about 91 and we just wernt ready for it.

the morning news reports a con majority but small enough that they are thankfully going to have problems

Such as it is.

Hope our other UK members have done the same, get out there and vote, no-ones going to listen if you don't speak

What's it like to have a government that listens to the voters instead of wealthy campaign contributors (individuals and corporations)?

parlament might listen to the public but they listen to donations more, every year there is a new cash for influence scandle its just the flavor of influence that changes, sometimes is seats on the house of lords, other times it direct voting

[karajorma]

Edit: See, it's situations like it's currently sitting at that annoy me, Labour have 5% more of the popular vote, but the number of seats they've got is 500% higher than the number of seats the Lib-Dems have. I know that there's no prized for second place in Politics, but still, it's infuriating that the Lib Dem coverage is spread so thin.

I don't disagree but PR isn't necessarily a better system.

The solution is to change the voters minds not the system. Because systems like PR are just as badly broken.

[Dilmah G]

Yeah, to get all those minor parties into parliament creates a host of even larger problems, almost as bad, if not just as bad as a hung parliament. *cough* Italy! *cough*

Preferential voting ftw.

[Spicious]

Preferential voting ftw.

Except when it makes things worse.

[Shade]

The actual electoral system is really not the important part, as long as it does the job of letting the people choose. It's how the people charged with running the system go about their business. PR works for us here*, and indeed works very well, while in a place like Italy politics are just a great big mess. While of course there are many differences even within similar systems, the truely important difference is in the mindset, not the system itself.

That said, the UK clearly does need to make some changes. Not towards PR (unless they want to), but they do need to make sure everyone who wants to vote can vote. So the first act of the new government, once formed, should be to repeal that silly law Flipside mentioned that bars people from casting their vote after 10pm. Because turning away voters is just plain embarassing for a country like the UK. Hmm... maybe we should send a corps of observers next time to make sure there are no irregularities

* Our current government is a coalition of two parties, with a third supporting them outside the coalition as they'd not otherwise have the majority in parliament, and yet I challenge anyone here to say that the Danish system of politics and government is riddled with a host of large problems. I don't actually agree much with the current government myself, but that doesn't say anything about the system.