Election fever
So tommorow those of us (un)lucky enough to live in London go to the polls to decide who shall be Mayor of London for the next 4 years.
Naturally, the whole thing is a complete cock-up.
This morning I heard of a man who, for no reason whatsoever, received a letter enclosing his postal vote form. He has always voted in person throughout his entire life. He sent this form back saying he wanted to vote in person, as he has always done. But he is not allowed to. He now has lost the right to vote, because of somebody else's incompetence.
I then heard of a 9-year old girl who has received a voting form. And that wasn't an isolated incident. Loads of under-18's have had voting forms. This is a blatant attempt at Mugabe-style ballot stuffing I'm sure.
But the real stupidity is this whole "second choice" system. For those outside London, what we have to do is choose two candidates - a first and second choice. If the first choice gets more than 50% of the first choice votes, they are the winner. If not, then all the second choice votes are counted and put towards the totals.
What is the point in this? The winner will end up being the one that most people wanted second-best. Why not just have one choice, and the one with the most votes wins. Simple. Why over-complicate it? Of course the danger is that people won't think much about their second vote and just put Ken Livingstone down, and I'm worried that on that basis he might cling onto power.
The really daft thing is that you don't actually need to put a second choice down anyway - so why bother at all? I therefore won't be making a second choice. My one and only vote will goto Boris Johnson.
Naturally, the whole thing is a complete cock-up.
This morning I heard of a man who, for no reason whatsoever, received a letter enclosing his postal vote form. He has always voted in person throughout his entire life. He sent this form back saying he wanted to vote in person, as he has always done. But he is not allowed to. He now has lost the right to vote, because of somebody else's incompetence.
I then heard of a 9-year old girl who has received a voting form. And that wasn't an isolated incident. Loads of under-18's have had voting forms. This is a blatant attempt at Mugabe-style ballot stuffing I'm sure.
But the real stupidity is this whole "second choice" system. For those outside London, what we have to do is choose two candidates - a first and second choice. If the first choice gets more than 50% of the first choice votes, they are the winner. If not, then all the second choice votes are counted and put towards the totals.
What is the point in this? The winner will end up being the one that most people wanted second-best. Why not just have one choice, and the one with the most votes wins. Simple. Why over-complicate it? Of course the danger is that people won't think much about their second vote and just put Ken Livingstone down, and I'm worried that on that basis he might cling onto power.
The really daft thing is that you don't actually need to put a second choice down anyway - so why bother at all? I therefore won't be making a second choice. My one and only vote will goto Boris Johnson.
posted by Nej at
2:47 pm
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